actions or results?

occurred to me this morning that conservatives like to see their leaders take action in line with their stated values, regardless of the consequences of those actions. liberals, on the other hand, seem to be more concerned with the actual outcomes (which makes way more sense to me).

hence, Bush's swagger and action informed "by his gut" is, in the eyes of a conservative, the epitome of a great leader; while those same behaviors are seen as reckless and imperial by liberals due their consequences.

behaviorological liberation

to continue...place all responses (operant and respondent) on extinction to reduce the strength of all discriminative stimuli and S-delta's. Attending is the only behavior that should remain. attending to what is the question, though. at present, it appears to be attending to all possible stimuli without responding; so attending to "nothing and everything." presumably after a time, attending becomes self-reinforcing.

the behaviorological path to liberation

place all responses (respondent and operant) on extinction; retain only awareness.

the man behind the curtain

(sent this to Common Dreams; we'll see if it gets published)

There have been and continue to be many critiques of the mainstream media and rightly so. Most of the critiques have focused on the MSM simply repeating the current administration’s talking points, their lack of challenge to the run-up to the Iraqi war, their lack of journalistic integrity, etc. The following is a critique of a different kind (although related to all of the above). It hopefully will demonstrate how much more complicit and insidious the MSM (and others who employ the same strategies) is in maintaining the status quo as opposed to challenging it.

As we all know, the cost of oil has reached obscene proportions. It seems to reflect the surreality of life over the last 8 years; just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it skyrockets to new heights. Those of us who observe human behavior as a profession are oftentimes amazed at how the general public fails to seem outraged at what is happening. Indeed, they may be privately fuming, but publicly, collectively, they are invisible.

I began thinking about this the other day when reading that oil was now $130 a barrel. The next day, on an internet news site I frequent daily, there was an entire story devoted to saving gas. The day after that, there was an article on different ways that we waste gas while driving. The following day, there was an article on how tires contribute to gas guzzling. All of these stories at first glance seem to be helpful; but herein lays the insidiousness. Indeed, the MSM are attempting to help us save gas, but what they should be doing is asking very hard questions to government and industry leaders about why we need to save gas, why the cost of oil is so perverse, and why no one seems to be doing anything about it. But, they aren’t. Instead, they are being paternalistic and complicit by simply telling us how to save gas.

The MSM always seems ready to give us advice on how to respond to changing social conditions, but rarely, if ever, give advice to those who manipulate the social conditions. They claim objectivity about reporting, but apparently feel no compulsion to be objective in dispensing advice; the selective dispensing of advice, that is. They only give advice to those who they know can do nothing in response; they never give advice to those who can and should do something.

So, why aren’t people in the streets? Why aren’t truckers blocking highways as in Europe? Why aren’t people refusing to go to work at oil companies until the cost of gas comes down to manageable levels? Because we have been, and continue to be duped by the MSM and others into thinking that we are the problem. If only we would slow down on the highway, if only we would fill up our tires more, if only we would shut our vehicles off when waiting for someone, then the bite at the pump wouldn’t be so bad.

By making the problem about us, the real source of the problem is obfuscated; the status quo is maintained, oil prices continue to rise, profits continue to be made…and all is well. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

ya know why fiction is called fiction?

because the good guys always win.

CNN spins and doesn't even know it

checked the CNN website this morning to see how the McClellan book fallout was going. the caption for the article was...

Bush-bashing

if CNN had any stones and/or any real commitment to journalistic integrity, they would have titled the article in accordance with what they were actually reporting on. it is obvious to anyone who pays any attention, that it was not Bush-bashing, it was...

McClellan-bashing.

"he who controls the environment, controls the population" - you read it hear first.

who makes the goddamn rules, anyhow???

much of behavior analysis is concerned with the impact of environmental events on the behavior of individual organisms. for humans in highly industrialized countries, most of the contact we have with the environment is with the social environment. as such, we are under the control of social stimuli.

no argument with any of this.

the question, however is where do the social-environmental stimuli come from? in many cases, these stimuli are intentionally promulgated and diffused within the social environment because of their effect on groups of humans; for both, they serve as SD's and reinforcers. for the group disseminating the stimuli, they are reinforcers for continued dissemination of stimuli as they provide reinforcement in the form of money. for the group making contact with the stimuli, they serves as renforcers because they, themselves are reinforcing -- they are "goods" as Skinner says. these two interlocking contingencies maintain the behavioral repertoires that comprise the system. the outcome of the system is what is problematic (global warming, loss of resources, inequality, etc.).

the issue that is frequently overlooked is the notion of stocking the social environment with stimuli. advertisers and marketers do considerable work to determine which reinforcers are most preferred by the buying public. why? to keep the public buying so that they can continue to profit from the behavior. who stocks the environment with reinforcers? how do they do that?

on another level, when it comes to rule-governed behavior, the question is not only how people follow rules, but who makes the rules? in smaller groups, the rules might be self-generating and stem from contact with both physical and social environments. in highly industrialized societies, the rules stem from these same dynamics, but much of the time are less concerned with species-specific behavioral outcomes like survival, and much more concerned with systemic behavioral outcomes, like continued purchasing of products and services.

putting some things together...

we respond to environmental stimuli based on learning history, principles of classical and operant conditioning. these are principles which apply to all organisms that have a nervous system (although this may turn out to not be necessary). allegedly, humans have the most articulated brain on the planet and much of our brain is a replication of other animals with our cerebral cortex being the most recent development. presumably it was with the development of the cerebral cortex (and other physiological features) that permitted speech to occur. of course, speech is nothing more than sound, so this is where the conditioning principles come in to determine what different sounds "mean" -- in relation to consequences paired with different stimuli or consequences that occur after presentation of certain stimuli.

as it is generally agreed that sensations prefigured (and occur developmentally prior to) speech, one wonders if when encountering certain stimuli, the first reaction/response is due to the principles of learning on a sensational level. this seems to account for how there is some evidence that the brain responds before there is any "conscious" effort to do so. this also seems to account for humans not being aware of "why they feel a certain way" and then finding a "reason" for their feelings. the reason found would be influenced by prior learning history, and principles of classical and operant conditioning; in other words, the reason why one feels a certain way is related to the response-generating stimuli if it has been tacted; if not, it is perhaps intraverbal behavior and nothing more.

collective obedience

the easiest way to get masses of people to do something different is to identify the institutions that already control them and then revise the content of the institutions. like what Bush Co. has done the last eight years. they knew that Americans were obedient to the government, so all they had to do was to provide the populace with the words most associated with America and the American government (freedom, liberty, God, evil, good, sacrifice, etc.) and then do whatever they wanted under those auspices.

brilliant, really. evil, despicable, criminal, and certainly not planned (or maybe so), but brilliant nevertheless.

this is the fundamental problem that people don't recognize. we see ourselves as humans that have special qualities (like reason, cognition, etc.) and as such, are not susceptible to the same conditioning dynamics that other animals are; but we are wrong. we are first and foremost biological organisms and consequently, are subject to all of the dynamics and properties associated with biological organisms, hence our ability to be molded, manipulated, shaped, etc.

to the extent that we don't recognize how easily we are conditioned, those who benefit from our conditioning remain happy and content. feeding us words like freedom, liberty, choices, etc., keeps us from seeing the unfortunate reality of our condition.

pre

walking into work this morning, i saw a law text in someone's car and immediately started thinking, pre-law, then went to pre-med, then went to...

pre-dead.

that makes sense; another way of saying still alive, yes? sort of Buddhist, perhaps.

idol thoughts

biology allegedly is the study of life; but it's not. it is really the study of things that fit the definition of living. the study of the structure and function of these things. notice how this is not the study of life, but the study of material objects. not a bad thing, but not the same as life. it is easy to see how a complex, multi-cellular organism like humans are alive. what is more of a mystery are those tiny little red spiders that are the size of one of these letters that scurry about.

life, how it is possible that such things, on a such small scale (and even smaller scale), can have structure and function, move about, etc. still remains a mystery in my mind.

redistribution of wealth redux

in the last few years, Bill Gates has turned from software mogul to humanitarian. not a bad thing. sadly ironic, though. he earns billions of dollars, and now he wants to use it to benefit the world. wouldn't a better system be one in which instead of one man earning billions of dollars, his wealth is capped at say, $100 million and the billions that he could have earned are actually used earlier and more comprehensively to help those people he is now interested in helping? is there a difference in quality of living between possession of $30 billion and $100 million? i can't imagine that there is.

one wonders what the world would be like if wealth had a cap of some kind. i am sure at some point wealth becomes self-sustaining. maybe someone should do an analysis of that and then let all of the up and coming billionaires know.

it doesn't all come down to money; it all comes to down to worth and people are not worth as much as money is.

OpenLearn

very nice site for FREE distance education.

slow-cooking the frog

i frequently tell my students that they need to pay attention to the way things are organized instead of just their response(s) to the way things are organized. for instance, most of us have to work longer, take on more than one job, reduce vacations, etc., just to make a decent living. students today understand this, so they are looking for a career in which they can, "make a lot of money." understood. the problem is that they will be sucked into the long days, longer weeks, less time with family and friends, etc., in their pursuit of this career.

my point to them is that doing all of the above is simply a reaction to the way things are organized. another response would be to question the way things are organized and ask, "wait a minute, why do i have to do all of this just so i can have a decent wage?" in other words, instead of adapting to the environmental conditions, why not change the environmental conditions? yes, i know, it is hard, impossible, etc. these are just ways of reducing the anxiety of the awareness that our lives are really not our own; somebody is going to establish the environmental conditions, how about if we have a say in that?

Rove was right

Rove was right when he said that they are not part of the "reality-based" community anymore, that they shape and create history (i don't know of anymore definitive Orwellian statement than that). the problem is that WE have to live in the world that THEY shape, so we ARE in the reality-based community, but it is not one of OUR making.

on the efficacy of propaganda.

well, okay, i actually had more to say

another colleague suggested that torture depended on motives (paraphrasing); my response:

no; this is the current Bush argument -- "all that we do is justified due to national security" -- no different than the arguments used by the powerful for centuries to excuse mass murder, torture, etc (on other and on THEIR OWN populations). Bush, et al are too cowardly to state what they are actually doing -- torturing people; instead, they obfuscate by using the euphemisms (harsh interrogations, rough interrogations, etc.) to maintain the appearance of morality. "The US does NOT torture people" -- we just waterboard them, electrocute them, hang them by their wrists for hours at a time, subject them to extreme temperatures, etc. Since these techniques are not torture (by THEIR definition), we can continue to strut and beat our national chest about how "moral" we are.

bullshit.

the very least that they could do is be honest about the fact that they intentionally harm people because they can and because they like to. as noted previously, torture doesn't work and they know this. why do they continue to do it then? because they are sadists, because they are vengeful, because no one has the power nor the will to stop them. it is the naked abuse of power, pure and simple.

how can we condemn torture in all instances? easy, it serves no purpose other than the ones i just listed, so why do it?

again, i am clear on my humanistic orientation and am committed to same. situational/relativistic morality is scary and dangerous, as evidenced by all that is happening today.

IMO, if there is anything frightening about this thread, it is that the use of torture is even being debated.

i conclude...

actually, what i have been trying to argue (apparently unsuccessfully) is that there are certain behaviors that result in pain regardless of whether there is an audience, regardless of how the behavior is defined. the things that the U.S. has been doing result in pain; the people who have been doing them KNOW this, that is why they are doing them. it doesn't matter what they are called, they will always result in pain.

worrying about what to call the behavior obfuscates the impact to the victim; this is what is astonishing to me, that people are actually concerned about what to call hanging someone from their arms for hours at a time. what the !#$%??? does it matter what we call it? isn't it outrageous and abhorrent in and of itself, regardless of how it is defined?

while in graduate school, i took a family violence course. the prof told us about a survey she had conducted several years before about sexual assault. one of the questions was, "have you ever been raped?" there was little response. the question was changed to "have you ever had sex against your will?" the response was greater. the wording issue doesn't change the fact that the behavior occurred. it does demonstrate how definitions can be used by the powerful to control and harm the less powerful...

exasperating!!!

my challenge stands...those who are in favor of torture should undergo it; if it only exists by definition, then what's the problem? no one is afraid of a little pain, are they?

in other words, it if is not defined as torture, it's not torture, right? that's the argument, yes? that hypothesis should be easy to test...get those who advocate for its contextual properties as the ONLY ontological reality to stand in the middle of ten people outside in freezing temperatures and then allow the onlookers to slap them, strip them naked, insult their religion, poor water over their heads, force them into stress positions, for at least an hour. at the end of the hour, the onlookers declare that what just occurred wasn't torture, it was just good fun.

voila! no torture occurred.

RE: the Spartans...of course it wasn't considered brutal or immoral by the Spartans -- it was THOSE WHO LIVED THAT DEFINED IT AS ANYTHING BUT THAT!!! Those who possibly could have called it immoral or brutal were dead! The "collateral damage" casualties can't challenge the definition of collateral damage as the cause of their death because they are dead! Forced sterilization was not considered immoral, slavery was not considered immoral, honor killings are not considered immoral, gassing Jews was not considered immoral -- do i need to go on?

wow, this has been a most revealing exchange. i honestly never thought i would hear an argument for might makes right on a sociology list.

mutter, mutter...

if you want more evidence of the complicity of our "trusted servants" in DC in the authorization of torture, watch this segment from ABC News.

the absolute stupidity of these yahoos even debating the use of torture is characteristic of the administration's entire approach -- defiant ignorance. from what i have read, it is quite well established that torture doesn't work. the Nuremberg interrogators didn't use it. they simply sat down with the accused, gave them cigarettes, talked with them and managed, through the use of non-"enhanced interrogation" techniques, to get these guys to disclose all kinds of atrocities.

my speculation as to why the "principals" authorized the use of torture has more to do with revenge, sadism, and power than any serious attempts to get information. the waterboarding incident (discussed in the above video) involving Zabaydah (sp) is inaccurate; he had already disclosed the information to the FBI, PRIOR to being waterboarded. the CIA learned little, if anything of value by waterboarding (which, BTW, we condemned when used by the Japanese) yet they claimed that he only disclosed this info AFTER he had been waterboarded; not true.

but hey, why let the facts get in the way of behavior influenced by a sadistic ideology?

IMO, they should all be charged with crimes against humanity; i guess we will know if there really is a God, when/if anyone out of this administration gets indicted for the same.

and the debate continued...

you're kidding, right? this needs a definition? it is not patently obvious? like pornography, do we not know it when we see it? the downside to context is it presumes that at some point in time/location some behavior is going to be acceptable by a group of observers. when it comes to:

hitting, "simulated" drowning, electrocution, slapping, sonic assault, microsecond burning by microwave transmission, exposure to extreme heat and cold, etc., no definition is going to change the impact of these behaviors, regardless of what any observer says, thinks or defines what is happening. i think it is pretty clear that virtually all biological organisms with a nervous system would experience any/all of the above as painful.

if you (or others) would like empirical evidence of the impact of these behaviors on human beings, read this.

calling the death of people due to the impact of a bomb "collateral damage" does nothing to alter the absolute outcome of the bomb on the people -- they remain dead.

and the debate started

a colleague suggested that torture depends on the audience...i, of course disagreed.

no, it does not. intentional infliction of pain on another human being is beyond definition, it is NOT in the eye of the beholder. it is the debate about the definition of what constitutes torture that muddies the water, blurs the lines, etc. this is why the debate is morally bankrupt.

not unlike the Wizard of Oz..."pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" -- stuffing a man's head in a bucket of water and striking him in the stomach so he will involuntarily inhale is not torture, it is just:

rough interrogation
harsh interrogation
aggressive interrogation
coercive interrogation

bullshit, it is freaking torture and all of the media yahoos (and anyone else who equivocates on the issue) that fail to call it such are complicit in its practice.

history will indeed by the judge and i pray that it judges us harshly. we deserve it since we have allowed this to happen; ignorance is no defense at all in this case because we are absolutely clear on what is and has been happening. hopefully history will un-equivocally condemn what has happened in the last seven years.

then it started getting weird...

i DON'T say this in my class, but it seems to me that the simplest way to resolve this issue of whether or not any method constitutes tortures is to have those unsure of its effects undergo it. if all that the U.S. is doing is NOT torture, why has (to my knowledge) only one non-military person actually undergone water-boarding? one yahoo said that you swallow more water when swimming; of course HE did not volunteer to be waterboarded. just like Rummy thought that standing as an interrogation practice should not be limited to just 4 hours a day because he stands 8 - 9 hours a day. fine, Rummy, you spend a few months at Gitmo, in the role of enemy combatant and see why standing for ONLY 4 hours in those conditions is just a bit discomforting.

as you know you and i fundamentally disagree on these issues -- it has always been clear to me what hunger, suffering, pain, thirst, torture are -- i don't really care what anyone else thinks they are, not do i really need to discuss how each is defined. i am clear about my humanist orientation. i do not suffer from the morally bankrupt, privileged, academic position of worrying about definitions or social constructions. this latter point is the main reason why i left the AACS -- 20 years after the establishment of the CSA and members are STILL trying to define WHAT clinical, applied sociology/sociological practice is.

the luxury of the privileged...fiddling with definitions while world burns...

i posted some other, relevant info

i heard Doug Feith on NPR this morning, attempting to wiggle his way out of any responsibility for Iraq. Really embarrassing that this man had ANY position of authority in our government; but again, not surprising. no one seems willing to hold any of these people accountable which is just maddening, IMO. Bush keeps talking about his legacy as if it is going to be positive. first, it would be nice to have a Prez that is more concerned about the devastation he has wrought and trying to rectify it than basking in the glow of his "legacy fantasy" and second, it would be nice to have a Congress that is not bowed by DC pressure to not impeach. but, alas, we do live in America after all, where despite all of the propaganda, dreams really don't come true.

(rant over)

The UCS is documenting all of the "interference" in science by this administration; it is a sad list of events:

The A to Z Guide to Political Interference in Science

It all seemed so simple...

it all started when i submitted a link to a video clip on the issue of torture to a sociology list as an example of how power plays a role in defining deviant behavior; it went somewhere i never would have imagined. the initial post:

as you might suspect, whenever i introduce the concept of deviance in my classes, i talk about not only how deviance is defined, but WHO gets to do the defining.

this week's topic in my Intro class is deviance, and i happened upon this link to a preview of a 60 Minutes story to be aired this coming Sunday. i thought it was a perfect for a discussion of deviance, defining, deviance and labeling.

"Docke says the police report was sent to the Americans. And Kurnaz claims his interrogations at Kandahar turned to torture. He told 60 Minutes that American troops held his head underwater. They used to beat me when my head is underwater. They beat me into my stomach and everything," he says. "

Some retorts to the "Why do you hate America?" question...reprise

for the quasi-intellectually sarcastic: "I'll answer your question after you answer mine...have you stopped beating your wife?"

hmmm, i wonder if it will fly?

i just recommended Naomi Wolf's new text as a potential Book-In-Common for the Spring semester. of course, i agree with the premise (bought it, perused it, but haven't read it yet; i have actually misplaced it and might have to buy it again -- this aging crap really sucks), but i would do a critical analysis of it for the B-I-C program.

i would love to know how much students are aware of this kind of thinking and the extent to which they can even entertain the notion of the US being a fascist country (empire, actually).

we need to talk MORE about the entrenchment of social problems

my post to a sociology list...

prior to teaching FT, i worked in the human services field for a total of about 15 years. i worked as a grant-writer, substance abuse counselor, facility director, family educator, trainer, administrator, and director of program evaluation in the fields of urban youth service delivery, substance abuse and family violence. i learned much.

one of the things i learned that is relevant to me as a sociologist is that social problems and social solutions to these problems are insitutionalized; i.e., the services that are offered to allegedly ameliorate the social problem(s) are simply insitutionalized responses and never truly end the social problem. if they were meant to do this, then every human service agencies' mission statement would be the same..." to end (social problem)." of course, most human service agencies do not have this as a mission statement and/or if they do, they don't really work towards ending the problem, because the problem is something that is far greater than any one agency can address. why? because any social problem results from the way the entire society is organized; fundamental sociology, yes?

i see this insight as being the main lesson for students to learn; they are not going to get this anywhere else.

from here, i think it is important for them to begin to understand how certain ideologies support the structures that maintain the problem(s). in other words, what do we say individually and collectively that allow us as a society to NOT change the way that we are organized? inasmuch as social organization creates and maintains the problems (and the responses), then it is the fundamental organization that must change. of course many students care about others, but they are going to be sucked into the maw of "adult" responsibilities like everyone else and are, in all likelihood, not going to make a career of human service work (and if they do, they are still NOT addressing the actual issue). can they increase their awareness of how they, like everyone else, maintain social problems simply by participating in the organization? i think so.

i think that young adults are able and willing to see their part and understand that it is not merely their part that contributes to the problem (so they don't need to feel guilty), but it is all of our parts that do (to the extent that we, collectively continue to reproduce the structures everyday); subsequently, it is fundamental organizational change which needs to occur. i also think that young adults are acutely aware of the hypocrisy, duplicity and ignorance that characterizes much of "adult" life and these insights should be validated by us (Bush says that Mike McConnell comes to him in August to tell him he has news about Iran's nuclear program and Bush doesn't ask him what it is???? And we are supposed to believe that and let that lie there??? My students know bullshit when they hear it and I am grateful that they do).

i also think that is important for them to understand that we are all under social control and this contributes to what maintains the structures from day to day. does anyone else think it odd that the only time we talk about social control is in reference to deviance as if it was never in effect any other time? students, like most people believe that they are autonomous agents that seemingly exist independently of other people and are not influenced by anyone else (like the GAP add..."be an original" -- with the 30 million other kids that wear GAP clothing).

to me the hope lies in the awareness that we can build a different society; that culture does change. the notion that social problems are somehow going to disappear by hard work, without any consideration of the fundamental social organization that perpetuates them, is inadequate and incomplete. i don't want to offer my students false hope; i want to offer them compelling information on what is happening.

rant suspended for now...

Some retorts to the "Why do you hate America?" question...

for gutter mouths: "Go fuck yourself; have you forgotten that this IS America and I can hate anyone or anything i want???!! Read the fucking constitution, dumb-ass."

more for gutter mouths: "You stupid, shit-for-brains, i don't hate America, i hate stupid pricks like you who have to politicize everything and in the process destroy everything that this country was allegedly built on...stupid fascist."

for the intellectually minded: "How can i possibly hate something that has absolutely no material existence? Cretin."

Resumption

a colleague of mine told me to keep my blog current. i was inspired by his remarks, hence i will resume observations, commentary, rant(s); they have been building for some time, so i do suppose the time is right.

textual vomiting to ensue shortly...

the world doesn't need sociologists, the world needs to change.

the media, corporations, and elected officials have been in control of our collective mind for many years. no conspiracy theory here, just reality. if you doubt me, read Propaganda by Edward Bernays, the "father" of public relations -- he boasts about controlling the masses. funny thing is that sociologists, some of the alleged "intellectual elite" have collectively failed to recognize this. i suspect that some will guffaw when they read the above -- more evidence of precisely what i am talking about; the best kind of social control is unsuspecting, ingrained, automatic, knee-jerk. happens to sociologists, just like anyone else.

we know that there have been thousands of young people who recently have died for "America" and we also know that America has no material existence (no, i am not willing to argue this point; if you feel compelled to challenge it, please regard this as more evidence of social control). does anyone really think that the politicians who put them "in harm's way" (such a noble phrase; reminds me of "collateral damage") give one goddamn about them? other than making sure that they master the requisite "sorrowful" persona they parade around in public when the topic comes up. they don't lose any sleep over their loss. we all know that GWB is in bed, asleep, by 10 pm every night...hmmm, one would think that he might be losing SOME sleep over the situation he has gotten us into, but apparently not (sociopaths are like that, so no surprise).

here is a Nobel prize idea for ensuring that wars are brief(er)...make every official who voted for the war, view a picture of every soldier killed that day, everyday, every soldier, everyday, every soldier. they are always so concerned about the financial cost of war, how about getting close up with the real cost of the war?

the world doesn't need sociologists, the world needs to change.

here is a potentially powerful change initiative...one wonders how many sociologists are guiding this (rhetorical question, please, no one tell me how many). one wonders who cares? people without food don't give a goddamn who gives them their food; kids who are dying of malaria don't give a goddamn who gives them their medication nor mosquito nets; African AIDS orphans don't give a goddamn if a sociologist or someone with no education whatsoever comforts them -- why are sociologists so concerned about being recognized for what they do...which is, what exactly? and why are sociologists not MORE concerned with actually acting to change things, screw who notices?

this has confounded me for years (going on 20); hence my decision to throw my lot in with the behaviorists. they actually have applications, based on years of empirical research and use them. they don't spend years agonizing over precisely what IS behaviorism or behavior analysis (and THEY have a bad rap).

i really think it is time that sociology grew up; privileged primadonnas who wring their hands in existential angst over the "meaning" of some ridiculous idea...while over 1 billion people live in urban slums. hey, no need to lose sleep over them, right? i mean the President doesn't, why should I?????

i am reading Chomsky's Media Control and he is articulating many of the observations that i have had about the public's lack of action in light of the insanity that we are engaged in -- throw a rock (Iraq, unchecked federal power, over-consumption, depletion of resources, etc). i used to listen to Chomsky, but wasn't too compelled by his arguments; despite his use of facts, time-lines, and specific events, i thought they lacked a firm empirical foundation (in other words, i thought he was being a knee-jerk radical). i now realize that i was wrong in this assessment; the Media Control text provides some of the sources that he draws on that can be independently verified. One of those, Edward Bernays' Propaganda is available here. I just downloaded it this morning, so i haven't read it yet, but i will. if Chomsky is correct in his reading of Bernays and the influence that he and this work had in the United States, then the public really is being intentionally manipulated, seduced, and reinforced for and through distraction. a very sad state, but good to know.

i am also re-reading Domhoff's Who Rules America (5th edition); i read the 4th edition last summer and want to re-read it in light of all that i have learned since. if you haven't read it, i would highly recommend it. if you are unfamiliar with Domhoff, i believe that he was a student of Mills' (if not, then heavily influenced by him) and he has been studying power and power structures in the US for the last 35 years. i think he knows what he is talking about; his work is empirically based, rational, and very, very compelling. this past weekend, my daughter and i spent the weekend at the Heifer Ranch in Arkansas where we took part in something called the Global Challenge. it is a simulation of how much of the "rest of the world" lives...no stable source of clean water, no water at all, no stable source of food, etc. my daughter spent the night in a simulated urban slum, complete with dirt floors, tin roof, discarded cardboard for walls, lots of heat, bugs, and one cup of rice for dinner to feed seven people. i slept in a simulated Thai house (quite an improvement from the urban slum) with way more food for the four people we had there, so we shared our food (and other resources, like a fire we had to start) with the urban slum folks and some of the others in the global village (varying housing arrangements and resource allocations).

bottom line...the majority of Americans have absolutely no clue how privileged we are, the impact that the amount of disposable items that we don't need but consume voraciously anyway has on the "those folks somewhere in Asia," how we take for granted many, many things that other people have to fight for. here we go back to Chomsky again -- why do we do this? because of the ubiquity of propaganda that infuses our social world.

lastly, i have adopted a behavior analytic (formerly known as behaviorism) perspective to understanding and accounting for human social behavior (as well as for developing interventions). it is a very powerful, historically empirical, and inherently sociological approach. Skinner, in fact, provided a superb analysis of social control and formal agents of social control in his Science of Human Behavior -- waaaaay better than any i have read in sociology, with possibly the exception of the Frankfurt school. the difference between Skinner and the Frankfurt school is that his work is based on science rather than philosophy -- a plus for me.

Just believe...

i was listening to the Prez last month during his Rose Garden press conference and i noticed that he seemed to be saying the word, "believe" quite a bit. being a proud member of the reality-based community, this made me wonder a couple of things...how often did he use that word and what does that tell us about his approach to things?

well, we all know that he likes to use his "gut" to make decisions (actually, an interesting notion in lieu of an argument for bacterial intelligence; but really, to blame those little bugs for his decisions, does seem a bit unfair), doesn't really care much for facts, etc. so, being an empiricist, i decided to see what the data said about his use of a word that seems to support things like gut decision-making, faith, belief, etc. just stating the frequency of that one word (believe), however, can be misleading, so i also counted the number of times he used words that someone who is part of the reality-based community might use; here is what the data say:

WORD FREQUENCY
believe 23
fact(s) 3
information 12

to be absolutely fair, i did remove from these totals any use of these word(s) out of the context i was looking for (talking about what other people "believe," the use of the word "fact" in the phrase, "matter of fact," etc.).

well, it happened again, the other day, i was listening to another press conference and noticed that he continued to use that word over and over again, so i did the same analysis; here are the data from that press conference (using the same exclusion method as described above):

WORD FREQUENCY
believe 20
fact(s) 6
information 0

the reason that the use of the word information is less here is because the press conference held on 9-15-06 was specifically about the passage of the "toture bill" and how using those "aggressive methods" of interrogation would result in more and better information from the tortured folks, er, i mean the enemy combatants.

unequivocal proof of the "belief approach" over the "reality approach?" dunno, guess you can draw your own conclusions. certainly makes me wonder...and frightened.

TEDtalks

I came across an interesting site today called, "TEDtalks"

"The TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference is an annual event where leading thinkers and doers gather for inspiration. (More at TED.com) The TEDBlog covers the same ground, on a rather more frequent basis."

There is a neat lecture by Dawkins here.

SEA Commercial

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It is finished...

With the signing of the "Torture Bill" into law, we will now officially have a dictatorship in the U.S. The President has demonstrated that he can effectively ignore, work around, whatever you want to call it, the Judicial Branch of the government; his party's complete control over the Congress assures him control of the Legislative Branch, and HE is in complete control of the Executive, so what's left to challenge, check and assure accountability? Nothing.

Once the bill is signed, he will be able to detain whomever, whenever, for however long, without letting anyone know. In other words, he will have the powet to "disappear" people as well as subject them to various forms of torture. All of this, of course will be legal.

In the past I have posted about not knowing what is like to live in a fascist country; I now need to amend that and say that I have always wondered what it is like to live under a fascist dictatorship...guess I will find out.

Given that daily life has continued virtually uninterrupted due to the masses remaining ignorant of this most recent development, I am sure I will not be able to tell much of a difference between post-dictatorship and pre-dictatorship.

last bit of hell for awhile...

if the fundamental structure(s) of society do not change, then all we are simply doing is assisting previously un-privileged people become privileged. this is the current model of social change -- helping the "disadvantaged" (however that manifests) become "advantaged," i.e., privileged. we are not, however eliminating privilege. we will never do this until the structures that dole out privilege change. under the current model when we are successful in our efforts all we have
succeeded in doing is increasing the number of privileged people.

not a bad thing, as we know (and as all the data indicate) privilege has
it's advantages, that's why so many people want it.

even more hell!

i'm not referring to those who watch TV all the time, just those who do...consistently. in my estimation, for things to change, the very foundation of social organization must change. it cannot change, however, as there are those who are convinced that this organization is the best, the most civilized, etc. how does this view continue despite massive evidence to the contrary? one way is by the constant consumption of news, information, images, etc., that reinforces how great the organization is.

letting go of privileges is like letting go of one's own identity; not easily forsaken. i think we would have a chance at change if people could, for a period of time, get relief from the constant bombardment of notions about how great things are. one way to do that is to turn off their TV sets for, what, a year? can you imagine that? no one would do it, even if it meant that there was a really good chance of improving their situation. "take away my TV? that's, that's, jihadist!!!"

In the US, we are a hair's breadth away from legalizing torture. anyone upset? not really. those powerful people who want to see something different, are they able to do anything about it? apparently not as it is going to pass. we have, for all intents and purposes a dictatorship in the US, and life goes on gleefully, just so long as I can shop, shop, shop; no worries, mate.

let them eat cake has been replaced with a teflon Marie Antoninette who now espouses, "give them their X-boxes, their cell phones, their 165 channel cable TV, their GAP clothes, and let them continue to think that they are free in the land of liberty" while i usurp their power, trash
their constitution, and elude accountability -- all in full view of the entire goddamn world.

this is the model of morality presented by "the moral leader of the free world" and we think that the masses are going to what, rise up and demand something different? hell, no, college football is on and i am too damn tired from working all day.

here in the good old US of A, no one gives a goddamn about social change, about improving living conditions for others; at least not at the level that will make any REAL difference. sure, we'll donate money, do some volunteer work, write letters to the editor, talk about how there is no social justice in the world, but we will never actually create anything resembling an equal and just society because so many people are convinced that it ALREADY EXISTS here.

hell, we don't need nobody to brainwash us, we do it to ourselves, gleefully. Marx wouldn't have a chance in the world today, especially now that "we know that Marxism doesn't work, just look at what happened to the Soviet Union."

more hell

for anything to change barriers to inequality need to
be more than confronted, they need to be removed. not going to happen. i
truly cannot forsee that. in fact, i am unaware of any culture in which
there is no division, no categorization, no inequality. would love to
hear/read about one that is in existence today.

study revealed today that there are more TV's in American homes than
there are people in those same homes. it is estimated that the average
person watches about 3000 ads/day on a typical day. think about
it...that many TV's, bombarding people with propaganda about "the way
things are" day in, day out for years at a time. note my previous quote
about "...voluntarily accept this position as his or her own" -- the
mcmasses (ourselves included) consume these ideas, and accept them as
our own, despite the fact that they are simply one version of things.

consider the amount of $$ that is spent annually on advertising,
marketing, etc. check out The Merchants of Cool to get a sense of the
insidiousness of mass marketing.

in other words, there are people who are suffering due to structural
inequality (in its myriad manifestations) and will defend the very
structures that create and maintain that inequality to the death, THEIR
death, because they have accepted the "...position as [their] own."

Goebbels had nothing on Viacom, AOL Time Warner, Vivendi, and Disney.

welcome to hell

i think it is noble to consider new ways of assisting people; I have been trying this for years. Recently, though, I have to admit, I have been asking towards what purpose? Having new resources implies alleviation, not eradication; and if all we are doing is alleviating (not a bad thing in itself), then aren't we really colluding in the process of keeping the organizational constraints going? Again, not a new thought.

I am not convinced that people will act any differently just because they have more or new resources. There are many resources that are available today. I would further that thought by noting that many people may not know about them, may not see a reason to access them, etc., and so they never use them.

I think that this latter points speaks to social control; we are all under its' effects whether we acknowledge it or not. Social control serves to maintain the organization. It is irrelevant what the organization is, who it benefits, what the purpose is, social control(s) continue to maintain it. Ironically, social control lies in us, not in the ether somewhere. Seemingly, since it lies within us, it should be easy to change; but that's the rub, isn't it? It's not.

Certainly there are insitutional arrangements that work overtly toward its maintenance, but there are those other, covert mechanisms that are far more pervasive, subtle, and insidous. Those mechanisms are utlized each day, buy us, but how many of us recognize the part we play in the maintenance of the existing social order? The same order that requires new and innovative resources to counter its effects? How many of us pay attention to our own efforts to exert social control?

I do a lecture in my Intro class on propaganda; I reference "Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion." Note the following quote:

"Propaganda is the communication of a point of view with the ultimate goal of having the recipient of the appeal come to volunatarily accept this position as if it were his or her own."

Sound familiar? Internalization of cultural ideas, beliefs, norms, etc., that we "accept as if [they] were [our] own" — hmmm, we call that socialization, don't we? And once those ideas are "ours," we can become willing to die for them; pretty powerful stuff.

If we essentially, participate in our own collective restraint, and we are completely unaware that we are doing it, how is anything supposed to change? I don't see any practical way of accomplishing the structural changes that are needed to eradicate the need for alleviation.

Intelligent design…why it upon more thought seems to be neither

The ID folks claim that, for example, the human eye is too complex of an organ to have been shaped purely by evolutionary processes. Their claim is that the complexity of it is proof of some sort of divine intervention.

Not a bad thought on the surface, but think about it…God has the opportunity to intervene and make something related to humans better somehow. Why choose the eye? Or for that matter, any other sense? What is the value of improvement to senses? If God had the opportunity (and certainly, one would conclude that God has any opportunity God cares to have), wouldn’t S/He have chose something else to improve? Like our ability to get along with one another? How about intervening on our inherent selfishness and self-centeredness? Wouldn’t that have been a better, more “intelligent design?” Instead of programming us to be inherently selfish, why not program us to be more considerate of others? To be more compassionate? To be reinforced for behavior geared toward helping others?

So, out of all of these possibilities, to improve the human being, we are led to believe that God chose the human eye???? Just doesn’t make sense, especially if the God that many ID folks claim to be, the one true God is that of a Christian nature, whose greatest commandment was to “love others.” What good is a better eye when our most blatant, characterological flaw is selfishness and self-centeredness?

damn, liberal, trouble-making sociologists

Vietnam 2 Preflight Check.

where is David Horowitz when you need him???? Or those Bruin Alumni folk????

social control and institutions

can't say i disagree with this.

BISCUITS

read this today and had to wonder about a couple of things...first, talk about utilizing human science to inform interventions; second, you know that these folks are collecting data on the outcomes of these strategies — I wonder if anyone will ever see the results? right? i mean, if they are doing this in the name of science (and i can't imagine someone with a behavioral science background NOT being at least VERY tempted to collect data), where do they publish the findings? seriously, if anyone knows, i would love to read about this; curious to see how they frame their ethics and their humanistic philosophy. hmmm, something tells me that they didn't have to get IRB approval to gather these data, either, if that is indeed what they are doing (in addition to the interventions, I mean).

i just wonder what some of the article titles would be...

"On the efficacy of extreme illicitation of fear response as a means of extracting information from unwilling subjects" or something of that nature; seems like the title alone would belie the violation of scientific ethics.

brief summary of what they are doing from the referenced (above) article:

"Now, just in case you've been living on Pluto for the past year or so, BISCUITS - Behavioral Science Consultation Teams - consist of military psychiatrists, psychologists, behavioral scientists, and other health care professionals. Their role, it has been charged by former Guantánamo interrogators, is to advise the military on ways of increasing psychological duress on detainees, sometimes using their medical records to find ways of exploiting their fears and phobias, to make them more cooperative and willing to provide information. In one example, published in the New York Times, 'interrogators were told that a detainee's medical files showed he had a severe phobia of the dark and suggested ways in which that could be manipulated to induce him to cooperate.'"

just !#$%^ do it!!!

my responses to three introductory questions from an e-conference i am participating in:

Q1 RE: related terms for the method?...I think the focus shouldn't be on the method and said definition, it should be on the outcome of the application of the method. WHY are we engaging in sustainability work? What is the purpose? I think that this is worthy of inclusive, definitional work, but defining the process that allows us to get to the outcome is secondary, if necessary at all. The difference, IMO is between an academic exercise (do we really need more of those?) and tangible outcomes.

Q2 RE: different trajectories?...this is where Luis' framework and the above suggestion come in. Having a clear, stated goal, an agreed upon framework and a commitment to adhere to that framework is what is necessary. Getting disparate people togther is not inherently problematic; in fact, it should be a strength. Entrenched difference only becomes a problem when project members do not adhere to the commitment to the framework.

Q3 RE: new form of science? new skills?...I don't think it matters what it is and what it is called - that is for a much later analysis and definitional process. What matters is whether or not it successfully pulls off the intended outcome. As to skills, sure there is necessity for different skill sets, and I would think that having people from different backgrounds would bring different skill sets to the project. The only new skill that I would forsee would be the ability to temporarily suspend prejudice (and ego as Luis says) and consider new ideas, new perspectives, etc. That and keeping the final outcome in mind when doing any work would be the only new skills that I could imagine.

panopticon

the panopticon works; people do what is measured and don't do what is not observed. unless, of course, they are deviant-minded and then it is just the opposite.

the bottom line is that people do mind when they know they are being watched; this is how the collective conscience works. with the diversity of groups, the collective conscience is now going high-tech -- surveillance cameras, wire-tapping, videotaping, etc.

we think we are so smart and so free...

impeachment fatigue

i think one of the reasons the "I word" is not being discussed is because of the proximity of the last impeachment process. that, and i know that many in the halls of power (media included) realize that if an impeachment process took place, all hell would break loose. people, as a collective, would begin to see just how "seat of the pants" this whole damn democracy operates and would also lay bare all of the incestuous relationships between bidness and gover-ment.

people couldn't handle that kind of truth; the whole friggin country would go up in flames.

seriously, am i the only one that this makes sense to????

(in response to a colleague about who decides on social interventions):

I won't attempt to reply on behalf of everyone (no pun intended) RE: who decides about the interventions. I will, however, argue that if we are a social scientific discipline that embraces a humanistic perspective, then we should advocate for and work towards realizing positive social change(s), IMO. We have a pretty good idea of what is best for the vast majority of people — health, nutrition, safety, opportunities, support, etc. — why not develop interventions to realize these in as broad a manner as possible? Certainly, we don't have to; we can be satisfied with just conducting research on the factors that contribute to their emergence and manintenance.

This, however, strikes me as similar to just studying viruses to see how they work and leaving it at that. "hmm, interesting how viruses work, let's look at bacteria, now" and stopping there. where would millions of people be today if researchers stopped right there?

The Scientist article is based on thorough analyses of the environment, what contributes to environmental degradation, and how WE contribute to environmental degradation. Sure, the McDonnell Group could have just stopped there..."yup, we're killing ourselves, environmentally; isn't that interesting? maybe i'll publish an article on it." I suspect because a) they are sane, b) they actually care about other people, and c) they feel a moral obligation to do something to try and prevent global, environmental collapse, they took the next step (which is where they bypassed us because we, as applied sociologists, do not have the next step) and decided to do something about it.

Stop and think about how people are "manipulated" by different agents daily, hourly, — watch "The Merchants of Cool" to get a visceral understanding of this process. hell, we are ALL brainwashed by our respective exposure to culture. Right now, we are self-destructing due to our engaging in "normal" habits, i.e., habits that are environmentally unsound, yet are popular and typical, and supported by the media, the gov't, by religion, etc. Makes sense to me to try and promote (social marketing is great at that, yes) alternative norms that might actually extend life on the planet a few more centuries.

lastly...i think it IS important to engage people in social change and include them in the process. i don't necessarily think it is so because of a moral reason, but because that increases the likelihood of the success of the endeavor.

I guess it comes down to this...do people have the right to self-destruct? sure, watch any alcoholic drink him/herself to death. one alcoholic is not the problem, however, especially if s/he drinks him/herself to death in the privacy of his/her own home. when s/he gets behind the wheel of a car, then his/her problem is no longer personal; it becomes my concern, too.

Similarly, if there are compelling data that I and my collective partners are killing the environment (and ourselves in the process), isn't it wise to do something about it? of course we can self-destruct, we have the moral right to, but why should we? talk about "irrationality!"

common misconceptions

dawned on me the other day that i keep getting sucked into some common misconceptions. these have to do with the types of words that are used to describe a particular phenomena. so, to clarify for myself and to have a record of this so I won't forget (or rather, when i do forget to come back and remind myself), here are some corrections to common misconceptions:

mind is a verb

self is a verb

group is a verb

society is a verb

self is a verb

identity is a verb

personality is a verb

ah, much better.

bad-mouthing my discipline again

(to a sociology list)...

I wanted to call to your collective attention, to an article written by a leading zoologist and evolutionary biologist (Paul Ehrlich and Simon A. Levin), entitled, "The Evolution of Norms," published in the Public Library of Science Biology Journal (see link below). It is a fascinating article (brief in length) about the evolution of social norms with an eye toward understanding the process so that some can be changed. Both Ehrlich and Levin fear the consequences of some unchecked social norms (WMD, environmental deterioration, global collapse, etc.).

I find it very interesting that two "natural" scientists are engaged in this kind of endeavor; I suspect that they don't think it is that unusual as they see it as an extension of human evolution, in which they are well-versed. They bring their best thinking, their best simulations and their best reasoning to bear on the problem.

Applied sociology? IMO, you bet, at its best. Do they mention sociologists anywhere in their article? No. Why? IMO, because we have current connection to "evolution" nor anything having to do with the biology of humans. Our loss, IMO.

From an evolutionary perspective, what is occurring? Scientists are adapting to the changing social environment, posting new ideas for new problems. Which scientific perspective will survive? Dunno...but ultimately, it will in all likelihood be that perspective that is best suited to the environment. And, what is that environment? "Science-speak," both popular and professional, and are we "household names" in science speak? Not in the reading that I am doing.

So, are we modern-day Neandertals?

The link to the article (.pdf) is here.

Practicing Sociology Podcast

I have started interviewing sociological practitioners and rendering the interviews as podcasts. So far, I have one completed and posted; another interview completed that needs editing and four or five others lined up.

The URL for the site is here.

If you have any ideas for a show, recommendations for the site, etc., feel free to drop me a line.

whammer-saucer!

my son has come up with a new phrase...whammer-saucer! you can say it in reference to just about anything -- a person, an object, an action, a whatever.

Feel free to use it as you wish; the correct way to say it is with much enthusiasm, hence the exclmation point at the end (this is a requirement whenever you write the phrase).

If you say it and someone says, "what's that?" just roll your eyes and shake your head and walk away; they'll get the picture.

You can also say it when alone, it's fun.

remember, you read it here first.

whammer-saucer!

rewarding craving

i realized this morning that craving and the satiation of craving are two entirely different phenomena and don't have the relationship with each other that we think they do.

sating a craving is NOT actually sating anything, it is actually reinforcing craving as a behavior. craving can never be sated as it is merely a sensation; it arises due to conditioning, and is reinforced when "rewarded" with the object of desire.

hmmm...

now, there's an idea!

(from a list; me talking)...

makes sense to me; i think that the approach shouldn't be, "look at what sociology can do for you and your students," though. really, what we need is to have the ENTIRE discipline adopt an "applied" perspective. if you stop and think about it, all serious scientific disciplines have an inherent "applied" aspect to them. this is the product of the enlightenment — we want to understand things so we can change/manipulate them.

we seem to be content to just "study" how things change; we really need to take the next step and then utilize that knoweldge to DO something. i and others have argued that sociology is a humanistic endeavor; as such, the manner and direction of change is in the improvement of the human condition.

A colleague argued at a recent SAS meeting that we need to re-embrace evolution as part of our perspective. I agree entirely; i also agree that we need to understand how our science fits in with the other sciences. if we don't understand the links, what we can offer, how we can fit into the dominant paradigm, then we will be left behind. i think we have been left behind already to some extent. whenever i read popular literature and/or news, and they are discussing human endeavors, they inevitably mention psychologists, anthropologists, biologists, geneticists, etc. rarely, if ever do i hear about sociologists in that mix.

imo, we are not considered because we have become so "disembodied" from the study of humans — what the hell are they? we're interested in systems, processes, institutions, etc. most of the people i come in contact with really don't care about that stuff — they care about themselves, their family, their workers, their colleagues, etc. in other words, they care about "humans" — maybe it is time for us to do the same thing. we can still be concerned with the social at that level (as well as all the other stuff); what we need to do is frame our findings in ways that people can immediately use/apply.

we lost much credibility with our embracing of post-modernism, hermenuetics, narratives, etc. personally, i love that stuff and think it is quite compelling — all of it has certainly influenced my thinking and still does. we lost the masses when we went with it to the exclusion of other things that they could readily understand.

sometimes it appears to me that we are a discipline in search of a purpose; i think we should understand that our purpose is to be a humanistic social science that investigates social reality, discerns sociological principles, and then tells people how to use them to improve their lives.

principles of social change

(from a list)...

To demonstrate what I am talking about with developing principles of social change, i will use Rokeach's values test as an example. The overriding principle is something like:

When people's awareness of contradictions in their personal values is increased, the likelihood of changing one or more of the values also increases; the value that changes is in all likelihood one that is liked least (or something to that effect).

see, with something like this, we have a generalizable proposition that we can use to develop specific interventions; we can take something like this along with us when we are encountering different situations that someone wants changed. let's develop some more!

caveat(s)...of course, this will not necessarily apply to ALL situations; it is predicated on several underlying assumptions that I don't know that we have data on -- people prefer values consistency to values inconsistency, people are uncomfortable when their values are in conflict (i think this is where cognitive dissonance comes in), etc.

more sociological practice thoughts (so i wont forget)

in response to a colleague...

I do think that there are social change principles that can be identified and then interventions developed in concert with those principles that will result in social change. I think this is a very realistic and reasonable goal for applied soc/soc practice.

in response to another colleague...

I am familiar with Rokeach's work -- even used it in a class; I am also familar with how values change. My point (in these apparent last 90 days) that a trip to the library WON'T assist, because it doesn't exist, is empirical applied sociological literature on the efficacy of these methods to facilitate change.

I know that there are numerous disparate interventions that exist; to my knowledge, they do not exist in a "social change" handbook, nor have they been empirically evaluted for their efficacy. I am simply advocating for the development of both of those things.

If you recall (I guess it was 90 days ago), i posted a little test...i'll update it using your example -- ask an applied sociologist to provide you with five empirically validated ways that they can change values in 30 seconds or less and see what happens. Other professional change folk (physicians, counselors, etc.) would probably pass a similar test in their respective disciplines. I wonder how many of us could?

Yes, I know that the discipline is young, however, like much of our parent discipline, we seem to lack some agreement on how to proceed in regards to developing it as a science. Maybe some don't want it to be a "scientific" enterprise; that's fine, too. I do because otherwise we have only anecdotal and experiential data to fall upon in determing our course of intervention. Not bad things, but I feel much more comfortable when working with someone, attempting to facilitate change with/for them, when i know that the methods i am using have some empirical backing.

i know this FROM experience working with substance abusers -- it was a heck of a lot more reassuring using evidence-driven change methods than just shooting from the hip using theory and or a smattering of "this seems to have worked in the past;" also nice for liability purposes.

"What are the principles of social change?" seems to be a good place to start. Finding out what they are, through empirical means is IMO, the way to go. I am planning on proceeding in this direction; if others are, too, maybe we can build something together.

skype

in case you haven't heard about this, there is a free VOIP program that allows anyone to talk with someone else who has the software (anywhere in the world) for free. i got it yesterday.

give me a call, my "number" is johneglass. oh, and i have voice mail, so if i'm not there, leave a message.

it's called skype.

a real holiday gift

these folks make very good use of the money they get. All of the people in the service need some care packages from us, especially now.

give till you feel like you've done something good.

simple, but not easy (a reprise)

this is in reference to a new book by Theodore Roszak...

Okay, so much of what Rozsak says is not really new, is it? World dominated by a small group of people intent on securing self-interest above all else? No surprise, eh? What else is new?

What can we do with this info as far as informing an intervention to THIS social problem (there's one that is NEVER recognized, right)? IMO, it is getting people to REALLY realize their sociological imagination. How? By getting them to realize that they are indeed a collective and have the power of a collective IF they act as a collective. Those yahoos intent on world domination only have power if WE permit it. This is what is conveniently forgotten all the time.

The issue is NOT education, it is REALIZATION. I KNOW that I am part of a greater collectivity (my education has given me that), but I haven't realized it yet; if I did all of my daily actions would be fundamentally different. Realization speaks to a profound change in behavior; it is an action, it is not mere knowledge that one can retain. So, what we need to do is to create an opportunity for ourselves and other people TO realize it. I think it would only take one event to achieve this kind of realization.

So, what to do? This is where having established, testable (as Mindy notes) methods of intervention would come in REAL handy. Lacking those, however, here is something that I bet would work. Not a new idea, just never been successfully pulled off (that I know of) on any signifcant level (with the one exception of the Harmonic Convergence back in the middle 80's — this event managed to get over 140,000 people, around the world doing the same thing, at the same time, on the same day).

The intervention is to get millions of people to do something that will jerk our leaders' chains (and voting is NOT it); we need to get their immediate and undivided attention. Some suggestions...get millions of people to not buy gas for a day, get millions of people to boycott anything made by General Electric for a day. Nothing violent, nothing anarchic, just something to demonstrate that we DO have power and we WILL use it. IMO, the best demonstration would be economic — don't mess with us or we will stop buying X. Would that get someone's attention? Yup. Would people then have a tangible, visceral experience of the sociological imagination? Yup. Would it put those in power on notice that they DO, indeed work for US and not the other way around? Yup.

Now, before you say, "that will never happen, imagine what would be involved, that's naive, yadda, yadda, yadda..." think about all of the other seemingly insurmountable problems that other sciences have encountered and succeeded in overcoming. We can't rely on the "we lack resources" argument, not in this day and age of the internet, instant, world-wide communication, instant online payment, etc. If we lack any resources, it is in figuring out how to use what we have — the resources are there, we just haven't figured out how to tap them.

Our job is not to figure out what the specific action would be, our job should be to figure out how to do it. How to get those people to do the same thing, at the same time, on the same day. Would that be a method of social change? Yeah, an IMMEDIATE one.

Now, IMO, we DON'T know how to do this or else we or someone else would have done it already. IMO, this is one of the things that we should be figuring out. We need a Manhatten project on the science of social change (to paraphrase some wise person making the same observation about poverty in the US).

my little boy is #@!$% smart!

Last night, my son ask me what "ours" meant (recall, that he is 3 years old). I thought he meant "hours" so I started talking about time, the passage of time, etc. But then he clarified (I don't recall how) that he meant, "ours," like possession.

I explained to him that if we had something, then it was ours.

He then asked what if we stole something, put it in our car and drove it home...would it be ours? I told him, no, because for something to be ours, we have to get it the right way, by buying it, receiving it as a gift, etc.

He thought for a minute, then said....

What if someone else stole it, gave it to us, and we drove it home (we were driving, so I assume that this where the whole, "drive it home" thing came from). I told him that if we knew it was stolen, then it wouldn't be ours; if, however, we didn't know it was stolen, then it would be.

Nuances aside, that is one hell of an example of some serious logic. That boy was thinking.

Am I proud? You bet your $#@!% ass I am.

i think i finally got it!

a colleague writes...

"Objectivity is not mere culture. Objectivity is "making individual sensory experiences social experiences."

And this is where the rub is...how those sensory experiences are transformed into social experiences. as each of us is embedded in different social realities, mediated by differing linguistic and experiential histories, there can not be universal agreement on what those "sensory experiences" are. Furthermore, it is a SOCIAL process in which they become "social experiences," even when this occurs within us.

IMO, any SOCIAL process is inherently contextual, inherently cultural, inherently definitional — these limitations, by their definition, deny any kind of sense of universal objectivity. Now, this is not to say that we cannot suspend our own bias, prejudices, beliefs, etc., when we are conducting an analysis. Furthermore, this is not to say that others when reviewing our methods, engaging in the same suspension of these things, agree with our findings that we have not achieved something that is commonly called "objectivity." What we forget is that this notion of objectivity is defined, through cultural means — it is a process that we engage in, a process of bracketing (if you will). It is still bounded by cultural/inguistic parameters, however; if it were not, we would never know if we achieved it.

It is assumed that objectivity is a particular stance that is somehow inherent in any situation, i.e., it is there and can be accessed if one simply looks for it or aligns oneself with it. It is assumed that this stance is independent of any other considerations, a "univerally true" assessment of what is under observation. Presumably, when learning how to do science, one learns how to access this objectivity in any situation. How? By letting go of preconceived ideas, suspending beliefs, etc. Note that in order to attain objectivity, we must DO something; it is not a "natural state." In fact, it is supposedly an unnatural state, hence the need for extensive training ob how to conduct reserach. If we look at the process of how objectivity is achieved, however, we notice that we can never be sure if we have actually attained it and that others will attain the very same stance that we attained when conducting our observation.

I guess what I am saying is that it seems to me that unviersal objectivity, when considered phenomenologically (and how else COULD it be considered), is essentially what Husserl referred to as the transcendental ego. From my reading of this idea, it is purported to be something that exists independent of culture, as objectivity, in its purest definition is.

If, however, we must go through a bracekting process to get to it, and everyone else who is interested in attaining objectivity must go through the same bracketing process, how then do we know that whomever is interested in observing the phenomena that we did, bracketed the same things that we did? We don't and we can't.

I am not suggesting that we abandon the heuristic of "objectivity," but merely note that it is not as fool-proof nor as "universal" as we think it is.

Now, some REAL freakin' heresy

RE: Intelligent design...I like it for several reasons. 1) It challenges us, as scientists to be very precise in defining what we know, what we are talking about, how we arrive at knowledge, etc.; I think that is a good thing 2) It notes that an underlying assumption of science is naturalism, i.e., that all things have natural (VS supernatural) causes; inasmuch as we are bound by our language, we cannot reject any notion of God, Creator, etc., as we cannot know if these things exist indepdent of culture (or at least by linguistic methods; personally I think Buddhists and other meditators hit on a non-ordinary reality that sounds like a hell of a place to live - screw science at that point! Hell, if I can live in peace, equanimity, and universal compassion, I'll take it, even if it can't be "empirically verified") 3) I think if they have what they think are reasonable data on intelligent design, they should be allowed to present them 4) evolution IS a theory after all; granted it is widely accepted by many scientists, but big deal, acceptance doesn't mean accuracy and 5) I don't think it should be taught in school until it has been thoroughly vetted in the public-scientific discourse, which if everyone automatically rejects it, it will never have a chance.

I don't think "real" scientists should be afraid of it; if they are pissed about it because it smacks of religion, that is a different matter. Lastly, I think the real issue is the powers that are pushing it - promoting something that has not been thoroughly vetted as having equal standing along with their persistent attacks on traditional science and scientific methods.

All of the above said...until I am enlightened (!!!!), I consider myself to be a humanistic, evolutionary, behavioral scientist and promote all of that in my teaching. God, religion, etc., are not relevant to science as epistemologies because they cannot be empirially verified. And yes, from a cultural standpoint, these are my biases/prejudices, and I am aware of that.

it all depends on how ya look at it...and that sucks

a colleauge writes...

"My concern is helping people with and preventing them from experiencing social problems. Social problems such as date rape, AOD problems and "mental" illness."

I don't think it is that simple. Can we all agree that date rape is a social problem? On the surface, the answer is YES! However, think of the people who commit date rape...do THEY think it is a problem? No. Most of them don't even think it happened, right? "it wasn't rape, it was consensual." Of course for the person who suffered the rape it is a problem, a serious, life-changing one.

The intervention then seems obvious, right? Get people to understand that date rape does happen, is wrong, and they shouldn't do it.

Herein lies the problem; there are several "work-arounds" to that in the mind of a potential rapist which increase the likelihood of occurrence. He doesn't see it as wrong, because he doesn't see it as rape; he might see it as wrong, be he thnks he won't get caught, so he proceeds anyway; he intends to rape someone, so he drugs her to increase his likelihood of committing the rape and decrease his likelihood for getting caught afterwards; he knows that if he is caught, SHE will be put on trial, too, and in all likelihood, will drop the case (think Kobe). All of these increase the chance that rape will occur and continue.

Fear of jail time does NOT deter people who are intent on crime from committing crimes. That is why they commit the crime — they aren't concerned about getting caught. Fear of jail time probably works for many people (like ME!), but for those people who are interested in doing something illegal, it is just another problem that needs to be overcome before the crime is committed, hence the work-arounds.

These are the actual realities that need to be intervened on. When looked at this way, the target of the intervention becomes much clearer and it takes on a different tone entirely. Since we know that men rape, we must target men; not only that, but we must target the way men can and do make sense out of situations; we must target how men use power and force, etc.

So, the social problem, when carefully analyzed moves from DATE RAPE to MEN RAPING WOMEN AND NOT BEING THAT CONCERNED ABOUT IT FOR ANY NUMBER OF REASONS.

Hmmm, is THAT going to be recognized as a social problem as easily as "date rape?"

I doubt it, yet that is much more accurate of a description of what is happening. And, again, is illustrative of the need for behavior change, IMO.

geez, I can be wordy...

I wasn't joking when I said you could take a sentence as a way to introduce students to sociology and use an entire semester to do that. IMO, THAT is the sociological imagination at work. Allow me to demonstrate...

take the word...ME

first how do we understand that word? those of us who speak English, understand it because of the joining of the two letters, M & E.

Our understanding of those two letters speaks to our individual embeddedness in a linguistic/social reality; a linguistic/social reality complete with millenia of history that links us (through the understanding and internalization of those two letters) to millions of people who came before us; those people who "brought forth" our language, that same language (having gone through countless iterations) that we now use to create meaning in our lives. The soc imagination is the intersection of biography (me — this body which sits here and types this in 2005) and history (all of those people and all of those iterations of our current language). My personal experience of life is mediated by thousands of years of social history and in some respects is ONLY possible because of that past history. so, I use something thousands of years old, that has been passed through millions of minds, to understand MY CURRENT EXPERIENCE. Pretty freaking amazing, if you ask...ME.

Then think of how you learned those letters — how they were taught to you, in what situation? in school? in your family? why is it that those two letters, in particular represent something that we find to be so personal? what is about those two letters in particular...why not S & E? what were the consequences you received when you misused those two letters?

Moving on to the word itself, ME...think of this personal and social history of this word. How many millions of people have used it? What were they referring to when they used it? was their ME the same as my ME? if not, how did they differ? what do I currently think about ME? as a word? as a sociological concept? as part of a theory of self? as a reference to this thing, this "self" that allegedly inhabits my body? how are the different ideas of ME that i have had reflect my social situations? how about the ME's that others have had?

IMO, we can do this with any object. Granted it is a rather micro use of the SI, but I use it to demonstrate how pervasive social reality is. it is inescapable. and it inflitrates ALL of what we do, who we think we are, how we make sense, how we think, etc.

in sum, the fact that we can even talk about something called, "the sociological imagination" is evidence that it exists.

more heresy...(I can't stop it!!!)

yes, I am familiar with the work and some of the approaches (of clinical sociology). My contention is that we don't have a coherent body of knowledge about how to effect social change. Nor is much of it empirically validated. I am all for pragmatic, "the proof is in the pudding" strategies; to my knowledge, however there is not a substantial body of work that demonstrates the utility of specific interventions.

Little test...ask three applied/clinical sociologists to name, off the top of their heads, three established intervention strategies to increase family bonding/attachment; give them each one minute to do it.

Compare this with a physician who can tell you three ways to decrease your likelihood of having a heart attack, in less than thirty seconds.

This is what I am talking about. This is why, IMO, we have an identity crisis in this field.

sociological heresy...(mine, of course)

RE: deviance...I have never understood the reason to have any entire class devoted to "deviance." deviance is pretty simple to explain and then it's just a parade of different forms of deviance — like a freak show. i always tell my students that deviance and conformity are two sides of the same coin — they fuse when one takes into consideration how they are both relative and neither is absolute; you can cover that idea in one class period.

RE: SP vs Social work...i made this statement some time ago on the list (or the SAS list, rather) and it seems to make the distinction for me. SP/AS should be about changing/modifying institutions — patterns of social behavior, on whatever level. Social work is not about that, it is about assisting specific individuals; yes, they might do some advocacy for groups, etc., but their focus is not on collective, institutional change(s), it is one individual change.

I think the reason that we continue to be bewildered about what AS/SP is, is the fact that, as far as I know, we have no established theory nor methods for effecting different kinds of social change — we don't have a science of social change. IMO, to be a "real" discipline, we need to have some general principles or ideas about how we go about creating change, what works, what doesn't etc. We do not have a systematic body of knowledge like this. Again, IMO, it goes back to my suggestions about developing manuals or handbooks on how to create social change(s) at different levels of social reality. You want to change your familial behavior? Do this. You want to change your classroom behavior? Do this., etc. We don't have a tested, agreed-upon body of work to build on. Other disciplines do, but we don't.

This, however, is how I see our entire discipline — disparate and fluffy — no grounding. Yeah, we have data on everything social, but we still think (and teach) students about these three perspectives all of which are much more conceptual than empirical. You can't build a science on concepts alone. Functionalism is a conceptual scheme; conflict is, too. This is not to deny the evidence of inequality nor of stratification, but do we really believe that patterns of behavior are responsible for this? Patterns of behavior are "disembodied" ideas; we are really talking about people and what people are doing. Seems to me that is what we need to find out more about — how and why do people change? Once we know that, we might be better able to begin building some testable ideas about how to change the social behavior of those people.

I recently finished reading Skinner's Walden Two and am now reading Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Skinner was ahead of his time, IMO. He was not the monster I understood him to be. Many of his ideas have tremendous relevance for sociology and AP/SP. I think he was found to be distasteful because his perspective pulled back the covers of social/human reality — something that no one wanted to see or seriously consider — we are all controlled by something, mainly through fear, so it is an issue of who is doing the controlling, not whether or not we are controlled.

Skinner knew about how people change and so do many people who adhere to a behavioristic approach. I think it is very worthwhile to investigate. After all, what are "social rewards/benefits" and "social sanctions" but reinforcers and punishers?

Hmmm, maybe I'm going to start calling myself something else...