An Introduction

Social science has ruined my life, I can no longer simply enjoy pop culture mindlessly, without thinking about the social implications. Politics was a sore spot before years of Sociology classes that left my awareness so raw that I simply blocked Fox off my satellite dish feed so that I wouldn't accidentally flip past it and start screaming expletives at my TV. It has even crept into my personal life, sociology delivered the death blow to many of my childhood beliefs and wishes about love, faith, motivation and individuality.

In the media its the "hard sciences" math, physics, and biology that always get the attention. They are the ones that seem harsh and crushing. There is no god, no life after death, the cosmos is so vast our monkey brains just can't understand it, our sun will expand one day and kill us all. I can understand why people don't want to believe it, why religion or ignorance or denial seem far more attractive than the reality of individual insignificance.

In comparison to that the social sciences seem warm and fuzzy, sociology, psychology, political science, they just want to make the world a better place, right? Lets just sit down and talk about our problems until we find a mutually beneficial out come, now lets all hold hands. That is what they want you to think.

Sure knowing your Nana is worm food and you are never going to see here again is a downer. For me, and this is my ego showing, it is far more of a downer to understand how little of what I think of as myself I had any hand in. How easily my choices are steered, how my life is shaped by forces totally outside of my control. Yes Nana is worm food and that is sad, but what is sadder is that Nana never really loved Pop-pop, the social expectation was that she would get married and have children, Pop-pop just happened to be around when the social pressure became to great to ignore. Nana was never really happy with her role as mother and became depressed, she smoked and drank. Pop-pop stepped out more then once so you may have some cousins out there somewhere. They never did better then working class so Nana didn't get the preventive medicine that could have lengthened her life. Their lives where steered by society, that doesn't mean that they weren't happy sometimes but it implies that they where not in control of basic parts of their lives. Social expectations and roles influence our lives from life to death, those roles and expectations are different today then in they where for them.

So that is what my never ending Case Study is about, reflecting on the expectations society has for us as individuals and how we as individuals stand a chance at changing society. I want to write about social science in simple and hopefully somewhat entertaining ways.