The Sociology of It All

In my first go around in school, I majored in (and fell in love with) Sociology. I once described it to someone as the scientific use of opinion. (To which he quickly began to argue with, but I still stand by my description). The cool thing about Sociology, compared with other sciences, is not that it's ALL opinion, but rather that you can formulate your own theory about how and why our society works the way it does using scientific reasoning and hard data.

For instance, in college, I was quite obsessed with gender issues, especially in the corporate workplace. To make a long story short, I pulled together various studies, spanning many decades, coupled with my own data taken from an unnamed corporation, and found that, yes, corporations USED to be about the lack of emotion, but now emotion is necessary. Not only that, there was some evidence suggesting that women are better at the use of emotion, which could (with further research) imply that women are going to take over the world (okay, I took that last conclusion too far, but wouldn't it be nice?)

Having said all of this, it makes me wonder what our values are when it comes to the environment. While watching 11th Hour (great movie, check it out), the point came up that we are a society of consumption. This struck a chord with me because of my previous interest in corporations - I focused more on the logical, unemotional obsession of the corporate world, this movie brought up the "buy buy buy!" obsession of the corporate world.

What's the overlap? Where do these two ideas come together? We aren't separate from the "corporate world" - we ARE the corporate world. We live our lives seeing emotion as irrational, and useless, valuing, rather, money, profits, and growth.

With my blinders on, the only casualty I took note of was the female population - although my research suggested more of an acceptance of women in the workplace as compared to, say, 20-30 years ago, women were still outsiders because of their emotions. But I failed to see that our environment was also taking a hit.

Look, I'm no dummy; I've said it before: There has to be some kind of economic sustainability in any healthy nation. But not at the cost of the world around it. I'm not trying to say that we should halt our lives and revert back to the days of the Native Americans (although the world would be much happier with us if we did), because that's impossible.

I'm just saying that we need to begin to shift our values. Richard Dawkins came up with this notion that just like biology, we pass on cultural traits that gradually change over time because of our slight differences when interpreting the world around us. There seems to be a element of choice here. Just like I like my men tall and athletic - so that I can produce a team of basketball players when I have children (seriously), I am choosing to value the environment so that hopefully people around me will see the example I set and pass it along.

YOU interpret your world, but you are also affected by those around you; BUT you also affect those around you. Take the power you have, and lead by example. One small change can quickly impact the world around you.