Sum Blog 5

                A full night of drinking in a dirty city, filling your lungs with smoke and smog, disoriented, swimming in soiled sheets with someone who’ll give you the reason for your next prescription, then waking up and being flown away to a utopian valley set a top a mountain summit with nothing more on your mind than the warm breeze coming across the lake as you walk along the soft shore.  Harriet Martineau’s reading was revitalizing. Maybe not quite as extensive as that but I definitely enjoyed that very much.

                The fact that such wonderfully fresh ideas were ignored soon after she died, even with the great impression she made was a sure sign of the time, what a bummer. She had it all figured out, happiness, that’s all. If everybody’s happy what could possibly be the matter? Eliminate all created inequalities and be kind. Rationally, it’s a far out idea but it’s the blueprint to societal perfection. Her four anomalies of slavery, unequal status of women, pursuit of wealth, and fear of public opinion are wonderful. Everybody should be able to at least have an understanding for how these are “misalignments of societal morals and manners”. For me, as I’m sure for you, one sticks out more than the other. The most prominent for me is fear of public opinion. Growing up I was always concerned about others perceptions, it dictated my mannerisms, values, opinions, everything. It sucked, and in short I got sick of it and snapped. It wasn’t overnight but roughly the course of a year or two I had spun all the way around, and let me tell you what a breath of fresh air that was. I think if everyone could honestly be unapologetically themselves it would make the world a marvelous place (unless you’re a murderer or a rapist or some kind of screw up).

               Another thing I loved was how she said “the sociologist must try to develop a sympathetic understanding as a strategy for discovering the meanings of an activity for the actors.” Aristotle had said; “It’s the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” That’s the first thing I thought of after I finished reading her sentence. I love talking to people that understand (or at least try to) what you’re saying before they blurt something back. I feel like I recognized, after reading Martineau’s paper, that a few of the previous sociologists had more or less of a “my way or the highway” type of attitude. Anyway, I like what she had to say a lot, my favorite so far.