Assignment 14: Final Blog

I had a really hard time picking just one topic to write about for my last blog. Every single chapter of Newman's book has truly opened my eyes a little more to the world we live in and given me new perspectives to use in my daily life. I found the sociological perspectives to be intriguing, insightful, and helpful in understanding how our world really operates, why we do the things we do, and how we create our realities through human interaction. After some browsing, I came to the conclusion that the topic that resonated with me the most in this book was the concept of the social construction of our "reality".




Social Construction of Reality: "The process through which members of the society discover, make known, reaffirm, and alter a collective version of facts, knowledge, and truth" (Newman 97).

Social construction was, for the most part, a new concept for me. I thought it was fascinating to think about how humans have created all of these rules, categories, barriers, and ideas and limitations that shape the realities we live in today. It took me a little while to wrap my head around the fact that the world we live in, has been constructed over time, and a lot of what we think is natural, permanent, and inherent are really just by-products of human interaction and choice. Our existence on this earth takes up such a small sliver of time, that it is incredibly difficult to fathom how much things change over time. It happens so slowly that significant societal change is often not even on our radar. It is kind of like how you don't notice kids growing when you see them everyday, but if you are away for a while, you come back and they are all of a sudden taller (if that makes any sense).

There is not much that exists in our reality that is not a result of social construction. Some examples in our current reality include, laws, race, gender, marriage, religion, capitalism, government, countries, and language. These seem like inherent characteristics of this earth and human beings, but they are not. These realities are not only built into and reinforced in nearly ever social institution, group, and organization in our culture, but are the reason these institutions exist in the first place. These rules, ideas, and categories we have created are the base lines for inequality, discrimination, and violence on this planet. Our planet's history is littered with violent wars triggered by hatred, jealousy, and anger over these issues. This is because these socially constructed ideas allow us to stereotype and categorize people as inferior and superior,  giving people the justification-the excuse- to treat them as lesser individuals.

I am going to use the example of money as a social construction to explain how this concept has changed my understanding of the world. Money is our reality. We depend on it to survive. We go to school in order to get a job, so you can make money to survive. Our lives revolve around money. It determines whether you can eat, have a house, buy clothes, have safe drinking water, electricity, and so on. The more money, the more freedom and power an individual has. But, before taking this class and learning about social constructs, I had never thought of money as something that has been created and given symbolic meaning by us! I had never thought of the fact that the little rectangular pieces of paper, in themselves, have no inherent value, but instead their value is given to them by whoever is in charge. This may all seem obvious, but when it is such a prominent part of your culture it is hard to imagine money as something that has not always been there.

This also goes for the other examples I mentioned earlier. There are no real lines dividing countries, states, and cities (hence my first picture). I mean, I obviously knew there are not real lines, but to us border lines are real. These made up dividing lines are built into our minds, onto our maps, and into our laws, and have great symbolic meaning to us. When you cross over a border, you enter into a land of new laws and cultures. For example, if riding a train though the United States, once you enter into Wisconsin...it is illegal to kiss on a train. You could break a law simply by crossing over an imaginary line. Also, if you visit Europe, when you cross over the created line which has been designated as a country’s border, the language, currency, and culture completely changes. Quite amazing that we have entirely created these realities…

This concept has made me curious about what sorts of realities we will create in the future. Will everything as we know it become just a creation of the past as we create new “realities” for ourselves? Will it be legal to walk around naked? Will the concept of marriage exist? Will the earth ever see a time where money is not a factor or where we are able to live peacefully as one without these limitations we create for ourselves and others? Although change is slow, it is inevitable and constant. The reality of our world is constantly shifting, even if we do not feel or see it happening. I have learned that nothing is permanent no matter how much it seems otherwise. Although it takes time and patience, people have the power to change how this world operates. A world without these boundaries,  rules, categories, and ideas is almost impossible to imagine; but I think the sky is the limit on what we can accomplish as a collective whole.  I thought an appropriate way to end this blog would be to include John Lennon's Imagine. He paints a wonderful picture of a world living in peace without borders, religion and all the problems we create with social construction. Wouldn't it be amazing to live in a place where we have socially constructed a world of acceptance, tolerance, peace and sharing? If we have the power to create problems for our world with our choices, we also have the power to create solutions. 

Imagine- John Lennon

Works Cited:

Newman, David (2012). Sociology: Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life: 9th Edition. SAGE Publications.