Cultural Values

This week we talked more about Cultural values and going along with that we watched Tuesdays With Morrie. He talked a lot about values of American's and how they don't always even realize that they're avoiding or so obsessed with specific values. For example people avoid talking about death because they find it sad and seem to think in a materialistic way when they chose to work the extra few hours every day because it will give them more money and therefore they can spend that money on more things. The main character of the movie, the man who Morrie shared his wisdom with every Tuesday was a product of those American values and without even realizing it, he lived in the culturally normal way. He never wanted to admit that Morrie was really ever dying because it was sad but Morrie and our class discussion proved that a death could be a happy thing too. It can be a celebration of life and the fact that Morrie died the way he wanted to was positive. The main character also spent most of his time working or thinking about work until he lost his girlfriend and realized how messed up his values really were.

Another thing we did this week was read an article called Thrive that explained the ways that people should live if they want to neglect a lot of the American values that people get wrapped up in and do things to genuinely make you happy. One that stood out to me the most was the idea of not over working themselves. This applied not only on the movie we watched but also to my life. I have experienced both sides of this because my parents are divorced and my mom is someone who works a lot and travels 2 to 3 times a week and my dad is the complete opposite. He's rather spend his time doing things that interest him more than his job. Growing up in both environments I can completely see both perspectives. Stevenson  and the world we live in is competitive therefore people become more naturally competitive so it's harder to break away from that. I understand both sides and each has plenty of it's own costs and benefits, it's just up to me to decide what other values are most important to me.

Cultural Values and Subcultures

This week in sociology we talked about cultural values. We learned how even though a lot of the things we do are normal to us, that is only because we have grown up thinking these things are important because the people surrounding us think so too. We read an excerpt from The Values Americans Live By and a few values stood out especially strong to me. Self Help/Initiative was one. In high school you are surrounded by people who either are active in school and get good grades or are lazy and do nothing. People who don't take initiative in school would be characterized as "lazy" even though that may not be the case. America is so competitive where if you're not constantly trying to climb higher and higher then there is something wrong with you. Americans need to take a step back and realize though that not everyone thinks that way and just because they aren't constantly climbing doesn't make them an underachiever. Another example is Action/Work Orientation which implies that people need to always be productive and efficient to be able to be successful. I have stepped back and realized that this is apparent everywhere especially in Stevenson also. Some students have such a jam packed day or stay up really late studying that they forget how important sleep is and automatically make that their last priority. Many people feel it isn't productive to just go to bed when there are lots of things to be done but in many other cultures, the idea of sleeping or resting is actually favored because it is productive in a way that helps restore your mind and body.

Another thing we talked about this week was all of the Subcultures or, smaller groups that people in society can fit into. We used Stevenson as an example and talked about the different types of material culture, mores, folkways, unique language, unique symbols and values that the people at Stevenson all posses. I began thinking about the other subcultures I might be apart of and realized I belong to a lot of them. One of them would be the town, Buffalo Grove, that I have lived in for the last four years. There are lots of trends that all of the people living in the area wear or have which could be part of our material culture. Living here with all of your friends there are always places that you shouldn't or should go at certain times, names for parks or places to go that people not from around Buffalo Grove might not understand and specific values that the majority of us all believe in to some extent. It is cool to think that just within the area I live in, there are so many people that I can still be connected to that I may not even know but they follow the same set of unwritten rules as I do because we belong to the same subculture.

Culture Part 2

This week we continued talking about different cultures. We watched a movie called God Grew Tired of Us. In the movie, we were able to follow a group of boys who not only escaped from their homeland alone, without their family and many of their friends, but many years later were taken to the United States to create a better life for themselves. To see what they went through back at home every day and then coming to America not knowing anything about how anything works really puts things in perspective. I have lived in America my whole life and the stresses for me of deciding between two amazing colleges and dealing with parents who are divorced and live 30 miles away to me are the types of things I spend a lot of time worrying about but in the scheme of things they are nothing. The young men who came to America couldn't preform basic functions like turning on lights without being taught how and they, after a few short months, were expected to make it out in the world just as I am. I feel so lucky though now for the advantages I have been given.

Another thing that has really personally affected me about watching this movie was seeing firsthand the hardships these people are going through. I have heard a lot about it because the nanny me and my sister had for a lot of the time we were growing up was from Ghana. Although the conditions she was in were much much much better than anything that the people in Sudan and the boys in the movie had to go through,  it showed me how different her life was before she moved here and how much help her family needs. She moved to the US over 10 years ago but all of her children still live in Ghana with the rest of her family because she cannot afford to fly them here. They also cannot afford a lot of things where they are and me and my sister have, for many years, sent them the clothes that no longer fit us. When she would call her relatives she would speak a very different language than what she spoke to me and my sister and she would constantly talk about how much she missed her family. Although I again will admit, she and the boys in the movie are in very different situations, there are a lot of parallels that I can notice. For example, they both decided on coming to the US to make their families proud and be able to make money to send back home to support them, also while they are doing the best they can, a lot of them was left back in their home country therefore they miss their family and home very much.