Sociological Imagination - Report Example

Sociological Imagination Module Module ID: Section While wandering at the silent beach in a carefree disposition, during the early hours of a fresh morning carrying sweet breeze and captivating fragrance, I was making schemes in my mind of spending time in performing professional obligations at my office, so that the professional worries would not haunt my mind in the evening. Actually I had planned of meeting my girl-friend by that evening to go to watch movie and then for having dinner in order to make my evening wonderful. Keeping these thoughts in mind, I kept on running at the beach when the noise of some unpleasant voices interrupted my concentration. I turned my gaze towards the scene from where the voices were being produced. A crowd had gathered at a small distance, where appeared to be attempting for bringing a fight to an end. I moved forward towards the spot where fighting was observing the gradual abate after reaching its peak. I also entered the crowd, and enquired about the unpleasant incident had taken place few minutes before. The man standing by my side informed me that the white man had passed some distasteful remarks on the presence of the blacks at this specific area of the beach generally considered to be the white zone. It infuriated the black man walking on the beach with his wife, and he also exchanged hot words, which led to scuffle between the both. Since it was early time of morning, the beach was not very crowded with the people. However, the hue and cries dragged the attraction of the people at the spot, which meddled into the matter, and separated the men from one another, and the crowd dispersed eventually. Since I was also to attend my office, I also walked out of the beach to return home and make preparations for going to my office. It was almost 7 O’clock, when my girl-friend called me over the phone, and enquired me about the meeting. I informed her that I was about to leave my workplace in order to reach outside the cinema hall. I got a taxi outside the workplace, and moved towards the cinema hall. The taxi driver looked Indian, who fell into conversation till I reached my destination. I found standing at the cinema gate in my wait. We bought tickets, and went in for watching the movie. We ordered for cold drinks and nuggets, which were served by a Thai waiter-boy, had been hired by the cinema administration for the attendance of the spectators. The boy looked somewhat annoyed and disturbed, though he appeared to be struggling to conceal his emotions. The movie was wonderful, which sparked the flames of love in our hearts too. Anyway, we exited the cinema building and proceeded to the restaurant adjacent to the cinema hall. It was a Chinese restaurant, where the people belonging to various ethno-racial groups and communities had arrived. An Arab family was also dining at there, though the wife of the Arab had hided her face with veil. I also found an old Hispanic couple busy in taking meal, and giving vent to their ideas. We also noticed a gay couple making fun and love while sitting at a corner table. We had dinner and discussion, and departed with the promise of having meeting the proceeding week. Section 2: The occurrences above-mentioned, related to everyday routine life, contains several sociological perspectives in them. The first important thing mentioned in the above scenario includes the desire of the individuals to have interaction with the natural, physical and social phenomena existing all around them. People long for visiting the places close to the objects of nature in order to let their souls stroll idly for seeking mental and emotional relief. The same is also applied to the beach, as the restless waves of ocean infuse countless joys and mirth in the hearts of humans. In addition, the emergence of sudden noise and people’s rapid reaction to the same reveals the collectivism all human societies observe. Thus, the incident demonstrates the interaction between humans and natural phenomenon in an eloquent manner. The most noteworthy aspect of the incident took place that morning at the beach that day was the situation of conflict appeared on the basis of ethno-racial prejudice between two persons fighting with each other. Illustrious socialist-theorist Marx1 has elucidated the existence of conflict between the members of every society on the basis of socioeconomic, political and ethno-racial differences (Ritzer, 2007:31). Somehow, conflict arises on the foundations of racial and ethnic differences reveal the narrow-mindedness of the people. History is replete with the existence of racial bias in all multicultural societies of the globe at large. It is particularly the case with the USA and UK, where the Africans used to be brought as slaves during the colonial and pre-colonial eras; since then the descendants of those slaves had been living in the white dominated nations as the equal citizens enjoying all the privileges enjoyed by the whites. There was a time, when the black people used to be looked down upon by the Anglo Saxon White Protestants i.e. WASP. This humiliating attitude was partly due to their status as the imported slaves had been captured from African countries, which were just meant to serve their white masters. The ancestors of these African Americans remained in service of the whites for the last few centuries; as a result, the white people still take them as their slaves or at least servants, which should have not been granted the rights as per granted to the indigenous white race. Famous black human rights activist Rosa Parks (1999)2 also writes in her book by recalling the incident of the refusal of the white driver in respect of allowing the black individuals to have seat in the public transport, which had taken place with Parks personally in December 1955. Thus, the African Americans were considered to be inferior citizens, and were treated in all public places with bias and prejudice. However, the black activists launched a campaign against such prejudiced attitude, which paved the way towards the blacks’ winning many rights on the principles of equality and justice. Though the time has taken a drastic turn, and the rights and privileges have been granted to all humans without discrimination, yet some areas and regions of the USA, UK, South Africa, Zimbabwe and other countries of the world observe uneven state of affairs even till this day. It is partly due to some irresponsible behaviour witnessed by the African Americans, predominantly their aggression, intolerance and lack of compromise, which may aptly give a go to the fights and street quarrels in almost all multicultural societies of the globe at large. Nevertheless, the whites could be not stated to be free from all responsibilities; on the contrary, they also display rudeness and irresponsibility to some extent, by calling the Africans as nigger and passing other insulting remarks as well. The communication between me and Emily, my girlfriend, over phone demonstrates the wonderful inventions the contemporary era technological revolution has brought in the wake of it. Thus, people are in a position to trace out each other whenever and wherever they like in order to share their joys and sorrows with them in one way or the other. Moreover, my hiring the taxi and meeting with an Indian owner of taxi reveals the immigration phenomenon has been in vogue in various regions of the globe. Since many developed countries have introduced immigration schemes in their respective countries, the people from third world states appear to be proceeding to these states in order to enjoy the quality life these regions offer to humans. In addition, the rendering the services at the position of taxi driver and waiter by the Indian and Thai individuals respectively also demonstrate acculturation and assimilation have been becoming very popular in the multicultural countries. Acculturation simply refers to the process in which the minority ethno-racial groups adjust themselves with the mainstream culture by adopting its traits, norms and values, and thus get absorbed into the same by negating their individuality to a great extent. Similarly, cultural assimilation stands for the submission to the mainstream culture by absorbing the language, mores, traditions and conventions of the mainstream culture the individual belonging to the minority group has migrated. Hence, on the one side, Indians are successfully rendering professional services in America, Europe and Australia, and on the other side, the Asian and African people from pole-apart zones look making adjustments with their works in the developed nations. It is also applied to the affluent nations including the Chinese and Arabs, which make huge investments, and enjoy themselves with their prestigious status while visiting every nation of the world at large. The Chinese and Arabs have established their hotels, restaurants and other business centres in most parts of the world in order to maintain their unique identity on the one side, and for leading a prestigious life on the other, which could be witnessed by finding Chinese dishes and various products, Arabic qehwa and shwarma available in their respective restaurants, which are the symbol of their individuality and affluence that keep their morale high during their stay in any area of the globe in general. Section 3: Sociology is the study of social institutions, as well as various processes, forms and modes of interactions people enter into in their everyday life. In other words, the discipline of sociology discusses human life in groups and communities. The present paper aims to elucidate the occurrences take place in everyday human life on the one hand, and their sociological elaboration as well on the other. It has frequently been observed that the people spend most of their time while entering into interaction with different members of society, which may include the members of one’s family, peers, friends, churchmen or members of the religious institution, play-mates, class-mates, professional colleagues, bosses, servants and clients etc. In addition, man also comes across the strangers while making shopping, going to bar, club, playground, public transport, healthcare centre, and other recreational and public places at large. In most of the cases, the people, particularly the laymen, take their activities as a routine matter, and do not consider or evaluate the sociological significance of these occurrences altogether. It is partly because of their unawareness regarding the sociological perspective, and partly due to their commitments and/or qualifications to some other tasks and areas of interests that they do not have any need or desire to look into every occurrence with the sociological perspective. However, the sociologists cannot play the role of reticent altogether, and hence look bound to examine and analyse every incident within sociological perspective. The same is also applied to the above debates narrated in simple and sociological perspectives respectively. While elaborating the first section, it becomes evident that the narration throws light on the events of visiting the sea beach and get involved into jogging, discussions, fights, conflicts and co-operations aptly appear in human life. Man smiles and cries, as well as admires the things and rebukes the enemies etc at various occasions according to the situation he experiences. It is therefore the greatest playwright of all times Sir William Shakespeare has compared the world with a great stage, where men and women are just players and spectators, which appear and disappear after accomplishing the tasks of their part eventually. Somehow, sociological perspective views man’s visiting the area close to the objects of nature as the source of his interaction with natural phenomenon, which could reveal several realities of life to him. Similarly, their meeting with different people at various occasions do not make any difference for them, though every situation reflects some specific state of affairs in their nature and scope. For instance, the quarrel between the white and black individuals just means the happening of a sad incident for the laymen and ordinary people, though the same serves as the reflection of social conflict between two people belonging to two different ethno-racial communities, entering into clash with one another because of the racial hatred and prejudice existing between the communities for the last many centuries. Moreover, the people’s reacting to the noise appeared in the wake of quarrel between two people simply stands for ending the clash. Nevertheless, the same appears to be a state of co-operation in the eyes of a sociologist, which was observed by the people present at the occasion in order to protect the quarrelling people from harm and bitterness. It is a fact beyond suspicion that sometimes a trivial incident may lead to big catastrophe, as it had happened in the London Riots of August 2011, when a black named Mark Duggan, was killed by the London police, and had ignited the fire of hatred taking all the area in its fold. Moreover, the America’s policy of promoting the condemnable Afghan terrorists against the former USSR during 1980s had resulted into the projection and spread of terrorism in all parts of the globe, which has turned the world a highly unsafe and insecure place to dwell and reside in the aftermath of it actually. Thus, the people interruption in the fight and rescuing two people appears to be equivalent to safeguarding the interests of two rival communities, conflict between which could take the entire country into its embrace subsequently. In addition, while discussing the communication between me and Emily, it apparently looks the presence of feelings of liking (and love) between two individuals. Somehow, the incident reflects the idea of heterosexual affectionate attraction between the two adults, which appears to be developing into the further relationship for the future days to come. The movie and theatre depict the recreational activities prevailing in every society of the globe. Renowned early twentieth century theorist Thorstein Veblen (1902) has articulated his Theory of Leisure Class (2004), where he has associated the leisure time activities with the elite class only, which contains time and resources in order to spend their leisure time in a recreational manner. Somehow, Veblen’s theoretical framework portrays the eighteenth and nineteenth century societies, where recreation was really confined to the upper stratum only. However, with the advent of technological revolution, recreation style has observed significant expansion, and now every stratum of society can get involved into multiple types of recreations modern era life offers to humans. Thus, cinema watching serves as a source of entertainment for the general public, though the same is taken in the light of the Theory of Leisure Class by the sociological analyst. The Chinese restaurant presents a neat and clean dining place, though the same serves as a symbol of globalisation for a sociologist, which presents the Chinese cuisine and culture through it. Moreover, the presence of an Arab woman in veil represents the Islamic civilisation had been in vogue for the last fourteen centuries. The elderly Hispanic couple demonstrates the traditional feelings of love and respect between the spouses, which seldom abate with the passage of time. And while examining the activities of gay couple, the popularity of homosexuality and freedom of gay rights, attributed to the modern times, reflect the liberty and freedom the individuals enjoy in modern societies, though the same is looked down upon by the conservative cultures as a sign of perversion and immorality as well. Hence, the sociological perspective investigates into every aspect of social activities within the purview of various theoretical frameworks and definitions defined and elaborated by the researchers and theorists at large. Bibliography Macionis, John J. (2007) Sociology Eleventh Edition Pearson Prentice Hall Inc Parks, Rosa. (1999) Rosa Park: My Story Puffin Books Ritzer, George. (2007) Sociological Theory 3rd Edition, McGraw-Hill, N.Y Veblen, Thorstein (2004) The Theory of Leisure Class Kessinger Publishing Read More