Japan is facing a decline in community spirit. Recent studies have shown that for the first time in history, the average number of people in a Tokyo home has dropped below two. While this is nothing new if we look at the rest of the industrialised world, Japanese sociologists are worried that this is becoming an acute problem in the context of an ageing society, and is creating new responsibilities for which the state and local authorities are simply not suited. Read the article and watch the news report on Al-Jazeera
Rocky. An American classic. The epitome of the American Dream through a rags-to-riches story (in a documentary on the making of Rocky, Sylvester Stallone describes the writing and making of the film as its own real-life American Dream as well). A well-made film that won Best Picture in 1976 along with several other awards. Largely considered to be not only one of the great sports films of all time, but a great film of all time for any genre.
Along with its renown as a classic, award-winning film illustrating cultural values and beliefs that many Americans hold dear, the movie also happens to be quite useful and valuable as a teaching tool. It’s one that I like to use in my Sociology of Sport class, though it could easily be applied to a non-sport sociology class as well. There are several different areas in which Rocky may be usefully applied. Here I focus on stratification and the ideology of the American Dream, race, and gender.
Rocky, Stratification, and the American Dream
As previously mentioned, Rocky embodies the American Dream and our belief in rags-to-riches stories. This is the idea that in America, thanks to our system of open mobility (the ability to move freely between different social classes – though take note that we do not live in a perfectly open system!), anyone with the right amount of hard work and determination can “make it.” In the beginning of the film, we see Rocky’s current situation – fighting in cheap clubs in the slums of Philadelphia while working on the side as a collector for a local bookie. From these humble beginnings, we can track Rocky’s improbable (and lucky) shot at the heavyweight boxing title (and especially as the movies go on, we are made aware of the wealth that Rocky has accumulated).
Our belief in the American Dream as realistic relies on the ideas of competitive individualism and meritocracy. The idea of competitive individualism is that a person’s successes are due to that individual’s hard work, determination, and skills/abilities, while any failures must result from laziness or a lack of determination and skills/abilities of the individual (effectively ignoring any larger, structural forces at play). This is the main thrust behind each of the films in the Rocky series: Rocky’s heart, determination, and incredible work ethic lead him to improbable victory. He is willing to give whatever it takes – clearly illustrated through the grueling training montages that are a centerpiece of each of the films. This is closely related to what we think of as a meritocracy – that individuals end up where they “should be” based on their individual merit; they earned it (or failed to earn it).
In a system designed this way, we can look directly to the individual to understand why he/she did or did not succeed. Indeed these rags-to-riches stories are exemplars that show us that hard work and determination can pay off. In fact, it’s quite important for these rags-to-riches stories to be highly visible and well-known for us to maintain our strong belief in the American Dream and “opportunity for all.”
However, what many conflict theorists argue is that the high visibility of these *very rare and improbable* rags-to-riches stories have created a sense of false consciousness where those who are actually systematically harmed and disadvantaged by the system, actually believe in the system and do not realize their own disadvantaged structural location within it. In fact, when Rocky is asked by Adrian why he fights, he quips, “because I can’t sing or dance.” This illustrates the idea that he views sport and entertainment as his only two ways of escaping life in the slums. He has internalized this and sees the system that promotes it as legitimate and normal – thus adding to the sense of false consciousness. It’s absolutely certain that we do not live in a complete meritocratic system. One’s race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and network ties (among other things) shape opportunities and advantages/disadvantages.
In the case of Rocky, there was a great deal of luck involved. Rocky was chosen largely because Apollo wanted to put on a show – he liked the public relations gimmicks that could come from fighting the “Italian Stallion” (Rocky’s nickname). This would be a great representation to show that an immigrant could make it in the “land of opportunity” (said several times in the film!) on America’s bicentennial birthday. However, people tend to ignore the luck and other factors involved (other fighters being injured, Apollo’s thirst for a good story, etc.), and focus on Rocky as an individual – how all of his hard work paid off.
While there’s no doubt that Rocky worked hard, we cannot neglect the broader context in our hurry to pin all of his success on his own individual hard work and determination. There were plenty of other individuals who were working just as hard and had just as much skill/talent (and likely many who were working even harder with more skill/talent), yet did not get a shot at the title. Did Rocky truly merit this opportunity more than anyone else? Was it all based on his individual hard work and achievements?
Rocky and Race
In the movie, Rocky’s opponent is the current heavyweight champion, Apollo Creed. Creed is an African-American – not at all uncommon for many heavy-weight boxers over the years. However, his portrayal and some of the themes we may see are not inconsequential when thinking about race.
While Rocky’s story focuses on his intense training and hard work to overcome his clumsiness and lack of “natural ability,” Apollo’s is the direct opposite. We do not see any of Apollo’s training regimen – we are actually led to believe that there probably wasn’t much of one at all!
Apollo is portrayed as a naturally gifted and extremely arrogant athlete. His first priority is to put on a “show” for the fans. This was what inspired his decision to select Rocky as a challenger; we see him ignore his trainer’s advice to take Rocky seriously because he is more concerned with planning the event; and we can see his emphasis on putting on a show at the actual fight when he shows up dressed as Uncle Sam alongside the Statue of Liberty.
This feeds into common stereotype that many have: that when it comes to sport, African-Americans are simply “naturally gifted” and are able to be lazy at times because of this extra skill/talent they have been endowed with. The white athlete, on the other hand, has to make up for this lack of “natural ability” through extra hard work, or “knowing the game” better (designing some sort of superior strategy – relying on intellect). This downplays the amount of work and effort that African-Americans do put into particular sports, instead relying on these ideas of “natural” or “genetic” ability.
We can see variations of this theme over and over throughout the subsequent films. In Rocky III in particular, Rocky fights Clubber Lane (Mr. T), another African-American fighter. Though not portrayed as arrogant as Apollo Creed was, Lane is the epitome of the stereotype mentioned above: the black man as naturally gifted and a physical specimen. Many early sportswriters (especially those covering boxing) explicitly described black boxers as being “instinctual,” “coming straight out of the jungle with other wild animals,” and other similar metaphors. Again, this characterizes the black male as a physical specimen born to fight – it is a part of his intrinsic nature.
In fact, the only reason that Rocky is able to defeat Lane in their second matchup (Rocky loses the first), is because Rocky outsmarts him. He sets a “trap” by allowing Lane to dole out some heavy punches anticipating that this will “tire him out.” Again, this puts emphasis on using his superior strategy in order to “keep up” and eventually win the fight.
The final point of interest with respect to race that I’ll point out here also comes from Rocky III. After Rocky initially loses to Lane, Apollo and his trainer decide to take Rocky under their wing and train him to fight. Rocky accompanies them to their gym and there is some immediate racial tension as Rocky enters the gym with Adrian and Paulie to see only African-Americans there. Paulie also constantly remarks that Rocky “can’t be trained like a colored fighter because he’s got no rhythm.” Again, this reinforces the idea that African-Americans have these types of physical abilities come to them much more naturally and without the amount of hard work and effort it takes others.
Rocky and Gender
When it comes to Rocky and gender, this may seem like a moot point to some – “this is a film about boxing, it’s not supposed to have anything to do with gender.” Well, that very idea explains one reason exactly why it does matter with respect to gender. The idea that we don’t expect (or perhaps don’t want) a boxing film to have any type of gender dynamics is telling. This is a sports-film that centers on the experience and identity of *surprise* a male. Check out this link for an interesting analysis of the lack of female-centered award-winning films in general.
In fact, the only real female role in the film is that of Adrian, Rocky’s eventual girlfriend and wife. And Adrian does not embody a strong, independent, important female character. Exactly the opposite, in fact. Adrian embodies the ideals of very traditional femininity: passive, shy, timid, dependent, frail, unable to take care of herself, nurturing, supportive, and not especially financially successful.
Adrian is viewed in two main ways in the film by men: as an obstacle, and as a source of social support. Adrian is viewed as an obstacle by both Mickey (Rocky’s trainer), and Paulie (Rocky’s friend and Adrian’s brother). According to Mickey, “women weaken legs,” showing his belief that she is only in the way of Rocky’s training. Paulie claims that Adrian cannot survive on her own and is thus his responsibility, which has limited his options in life (a rather far-fetched claim coming from a raging alcoholic who has trouble himself of maintaining a job). For Rocky, Adrian is there to support him, both emotionally and physically. While this is helpful for Rocky, it still clearly places Adrian in the role of care-giver while Rocky’s career and well-being takes precedent. Both her role as an obstacle and as a source of support display her as status as a woman as being of secondary importance to the men in the film.
Gender analysis, however, should not be limited to looking at how females and femininity are often marginalized in society. We can see the characterization of masculinity (a specific kind of masculinity) and how that is portrayed as well. First of all, it is a film about boxing; it doesn’t get much more masculine than that. Secondly, we can see Rocky’s identity as a fighter as central to him. Males have a tendency to create their sense of self and identity to be closely tied to athletics and sport. This can be detrimental to other aspects of one’s life as different relationships and other areas take a backseat to the importance of sport. Finally, Rocky gets the girl (in large respect by ignoring Adrian’s initial refusals to his advances). What is more masculine than a male, heavy-weight prize fighter, who is heterosexual and ends up getting the girl? I don’t have an answer for that.
I have used Rocky mainly to illustrate a rags-to-riches story and tie it in with stratification while also attempting to touch on at least a couple of salient points on gender and race mentioned here. It is worth noting that there are other aspects of the film that could be equally fruitful to examine, as well as some of the other films from the series (Rocky III, and Rocky IV immediately come to mind).
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Facebook has experienced huge growth since its launch in 2004 with a reported 845 million active users in February 2012. The social networking site provides a shared online webspace for individuals and their friends to chat, post messages/email and share uploads /activities relating to their interests.
I’ve been a member of the site since around 2007/8. Since I joined I’ve spent a good amount of time using the site. I currently have around 250 friends (although at one stage I was hitting 700). I have been in contact with old friends from school, joined groups for events, shared photos and communicated with friends across the world both whilst at ‘home’ and whilst abroad travelling. I can literally communicate ‘on the move’ picking up facebook from my smartphone at any time where I have a signal. It has had some positive impact on my life, increased my online presence and connection with others. So why the change?
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly where the tipping point was that made me want to take a step back from it. From a practical level the site has been subject to constant upgrades and re-designs with privacy rules and process changing frequently. This unsettles me as I feel less in control of the data that I share. The most frequent introduction ‘timeline’ encourages you to input all your personal history and it got to a stage where I didn’t understand why that was really necessary. The accuracy of the targeted marketing on facebook is frightening (with ‘bots’ often picking up key words from status updates etc ) and whilst its great to share info on line this can also backfire with the world being informed of your relationship breakup or latest family drama. This is pretty rubbish if it’s something serious such as a hospital emergency or similar.
One of the key things I have noticed is the more that I have shared on facebook the less people in my life have felt it necessary to actually to talk to me. Being a research student can be a lonely process at times, and whilst other people have felt that they are up to date with my goings on via facebook, I’ve really missed having face to face contact with them. My main resolution is to try and get back into the habit of having actual conversations with people and hopefully encourage them to do the same.
I started to also wonder what the implication was in terms of emotional investment in the past. Having your entire life history mapped out in front of you may not be the best thing in terms of relationship break up or family dispute and who really needs to be reminded of certain past events? I know several of my friends who have completed the obligatory ‘facebook stalk’ of their new partners torturing themselves with photos of their current beau in previous relationships. I was also contacted by a ‘bully’ from years gone by who seemed to have no recollection of what she put me through. So I silently ignored her friend request and the more I ignored her well guess what? She attempted to bully me again via the internet. Not really sure I needed that… is it really necessary to get back in touch with everyone from our past.. maybe if we’ve not kept in touch it’s for a reason and it’s better to let them go?
I noticed other changes in social activity too. One of my interest is photography and lately I have been making greater attempts to understand and document different aspects of social life. I want to understand and represent social issues (by social I mean those concerned with society) using photography to try and do that. So I am trying to think more about the meanings of the photos that I take. I’ve been on a few nights out recently where the activity seemed to be taking photos for facebook. Not enjoying the moment, or celebrating a specific event but for taking photo after photo of ..well..not a lot really. The whole dynamic of an evening out seems to be shifting from enjoying the moment to documenting it. Performing it even. Don’t get me wrong I’ve been just as guilty of this in the past as others have. I guess from my clowning training I am learning to try and live in the moment, but I witnessed how facebook is changing our sense of ‘being there’ with people posting on facebook groups about the night out whilst all being on the night out and a few metres away from each other. I started wondering if this was quite right. Also my research is concerned with the older people and they highlight so much the need for ‘being there’ with others. It made me more aware of my own absence in the present through technology/facebook.
I’v e been having these thoughts for a while and Shelly Turkle’s book ‘Alone Together’ has been on my amazon wish list since last year. Recently I picked up on a TED talk via Twitter (Oh the irony) given by Sherry regarding her research which discuss this concept of almost individual/group isolation. Have a look and see what you think.
One of the most interesting things is the way people react when I tell them. It’s become such a social norm that most people think I am bonkers. In addition more and more activities are being organised via facebook and my lack of an account has been seen as a real inconvenience. Also interesting to note is that a lot of people weirdly assumed they had done something to me personally and that I had singled them out for deletion rather than cancelling my own account.
I didn’t delete my facebook profile as I have lots of info I need to pull off as well as contact details of friends and family. I can go back in at any time and restore things if I want to, it has had some great benefits and in the past I have enjoyed sharing certain things with my friends and family. I guess what I’m doing currently is taking stock. Trying to exist in the moment and rekindle the physical co-present aspects of my relationships. Although people think I’m weird I’ve felt a lot better. Maybe I will re-boot the profile at some point in the future, but currently I am enjoying a new kind of freedom, – one of privacy, of acting in a different way, of trying to be in the here and now…. and to be honest the strongest feeling I have is a strange sense of relief.
In recent months, both sides of the Atlantic have witnessed renewed calls to apply the so-called Precautionary Principle to limit, if not outright, stop a variety of publicly and privately funded research and development projects around the topic of ‘synthetic biology’, an umbrella term for all attempts to redesign life, either by altering existing organisms or introducing new ones. The UK’s Green Party, currently enjoying its first Member of Parliament, has even proposed a permanent precautionary branch of government with the power to refer any legislation back to committee if it fails to be properly cognizant of its potential effects on future generations. You can find out more about it here. However, the most ambitious attempt to enforce the Precautionary Principle will be unveiled in one week’s time (18th April) at Washington’s Wilson Center. 113 NGOs from across the world have signed a statement that would effectively impose enough regulations on the pursuit of synthetic biology to make it unfeasible. If you’re interested in finding out more or attending the event, go here.
Generally speaking, the Precautionary Principle proposes a version of the Hippocratic Oath for the entire planet: i.e. above all else, do no harm. At first hearing, who could disagree? However, in practice, it turns out to be a radically risk-averse strategy that mistakenly sees the wholesale arresting of scientific and technological innovation as the solution to genuine problems of social injustice, poverty, inequality, insecurity, etc. I say ‘wholesale’ quite deliberately because, while Precautionaries have been traditionally preoccupied with stopping the spread of ‘genetically modified organisms’, their arguments are typically pitched at such a level of generality and abstraction that they could be easily extended to any genuine innovation in the Schumpeterian sense – that is, a market game-changer. In short, Precautionaries are completely blind to the positive character of risk-taking, even when the risks fail. Indeed, the failures may teach us more, if the data they provide are collected and made publicly available so that others may learn and take more informed risks in the future. A truly progressive society insures against the inevitable negative outcomes of risk-taking without discouraging the taking of risk altogether.
Behind this last sentence is an alternative to the Precautionary Principle, namely, the Proactionary Principle, which has been so far promoted only in transhumanist circles. You can read its latest version here. The Proactionary Principle ties our distinctiveness as creatures to our proven capacity for taking calculated risks from which we emerge not dead but stronger as a species. The trick is to provide a normative framework that makes the Proactionary Principle attractive not only to self-styled heroic entrepreneurs and libertarians but also to ordinary, often vulnerable people who are not normally inclined to risk so much of themselves and the world for some unknown future. At the moment, Veronika Lipinska and I are writing a book that will sketch out the basis for a new sort of welfare state that is not so much focussed on preventing worst outcomes but rather encourages the taking of risks from which all of society may benefit.
Over the past month, much has been written about the Invisible Children’s campaign “Kony2012” and the 30minute film made to raise awareness of the activities of the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony. Leaving aside comments on its content and the ends, from a sociological perspective a very interesting aspect of the video concerns its virality, and how this unveils the potential of weak ties in network in the age of the Internet. In a recent article published on the Guardian, John Naughton reflects on this.
Certainly, viral dissemination has always been one of the key features of the Internet, but it is only in recent times (e.g. with the launch of YouTube in 2005) that its deliberate exploitation has been reached. On the one hand, the ‘explosion’ of the Internet has allowed for any kind of information to be virtually available to anyone across the globe. However, in the midst of such abundance of inputs, ‘attention’ and the ability of ‘getting noticed’ have become two of the scarcest and most sought after commodities in the cyberspace, and ‘virality’ something that every hackers, politicians and advertisers long for, but only few achieve. In this sense, the “Kony2012” meme stands out possibly as one of the most successful cases of exploitation of virality to date.
As Naughton aptly reminds us, the viral dissemination of the video can be understood looking back at one of the precepts of network theory developed over 30years ago by the sociologist Mark Granovetter—the strength of weak ties in networks. This refers to the crucial role played by links among people who are not closely bonded, to spread ideas and help people join together for action. From this angle, the prominence reached by the “Kony2012” video seems to owe much to one particular weak tie—a tweet by Oprah Winfrey in support of the film. Having 9.7million (!!) followers on twitter, her comment created a chain of reactions (or, better, twits and YouTube clicks) amongst her ‘virtual acquaintances’ which boosted the dissemination of the video and its message, allowing it to reach 26million views in less than six days.
Such level of dissemination has exposed the film to all sorts of criticisms, especially due to the rather simplistic ideology and analysis behind it. In spite of this, what is truly remarkable about the “Kony2012” meme is how it has exposed the power of the weak ties in networks, and the way in which these can allow for an idea (good or bad) to spread across the globe via channels beyond the reach and control of established media outlets. This raises crucial questions not on the content of this specific campaign, but rather for the future diffusion of ‘alternative information’ by any campaign able to instigate such virality. Following the view of positive hyperglobalisers, this kind of development could put pressure on democratic politicians, opening up the way to morally driven interventionism. As in the case of the Arab Spring, there comes a point when unremitting shouting that “something must be done” can no longer be ignored. In practice, however, it still remains to be seen whether this great potential will be fulfilled, unleashing an era of network power where the weak ties that populate the Internet can successfully spread across the globe not only videos of cats and celebrities, but democracy.
Love him or hate him, Slavoj Žižek is no ordinary thinker, with a reputation for his always provocative and take-no-prisoners approach to social analysis. In an interview for Al-Jazeera released at the end of the year just passed, the Slovenian philosopher takes the audience through an intellectual journey across the momentous changes and the subsequent upheavals that have shaken the global financial and political system. As ever, his analysis is controversial and yet fascinating. It starts from the protests movements, and goes on touching the widest possible span of issues, from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the rise of China, challenging our understanding of the world order as we (think we) know it.
In the wake of the most severe global crisis of our times, Žižek suggests that the much needed ‘revolutionary change’ will not come about in the form of a miraculous solution. Change is already taking place, and it is manifesting itself though the growing, fast-spreading awareness that the difficulties we are all confronting are neither temporary nor compartmentalised. The current global issues have not been merely caused by some bad, greedy guys operating in an otherwise good system—they are part and parcel of the system itself, and the recent protest movements have clearly shed light on this. Hence, what really matters in this specific conjuncture is not to find fast solutions, but to break what Žižek calls ‘the iconic Fukuyama-taboo’—the so far largely unquestioned “unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism” and its assumed irreplaceability.
From this angle, the very remarkable achievement of the protests lies in the way in which they have exposed how the system is not simply ‘faulty’ and needing fixing but, rather, it is likely to implode— because it has lost its self-evidence and ‘automatic legitimacy’. This is why, in Žižek’s view, it is beyond the remit of protest movements such as ‘Occupy’ to make realistic demands or to suggest for stable solutions to the global crisis. Their truly revolutionary aim has been fulfilled: they have removed the lid of one of the most cumbersome Pandora’s boxes of our age—they have revealed the limits of the “End of History”, and released a large flux of energy of protest in this way. However, Žižek concludes, what the future has in store for us is uncertain, because it will depend on the result of the final and most difficult of the battles— the struggle for who will appropriate such great energy.
To find out more about Žižek’s work, check out our Žižek bundle
If you’d asked me while I was still at school, it’s pretty likely I would have said ‘yes’. A decade later, having watched this video, I realise that I feel the same way. Except that having now watched this great TED talk from Ken Robinson, education guru and all round interesting guy, the reasons I’d cite for this are a bit more intellectual than they would have been during my school days.
Robinson argues that the assumptions embedded within prevailing education paradigms are increasingly anachronistic, structuring the education process around an abstracted and inadequate understanding of ‘intelligence’ which leads to students being divided into the ‘academic’ and the ‘non-academic’, frustrating a great deal of human potential in the process. So too the Fordist assumptions underlying school as institutions, arbitrarily dividing students into age cohorts – which, when you think about it, is a bit weird really – before shuttling them, en masse, through the school/factory system. It’s individualising and atomising, with the omnipresence of standardised testing leading to widespread disengagement and alienated learning. If we’re going to prepare students for the 21st century economy we need to do things differently.
«Вместе победим!» ('Together we shall win!'). Russian Legislative elections: 2011. Source: National Post (http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/03/russian-vote-monitor-detained-in-moscow-before-election/)
As someone who is half-Russian myself and counts Russian as her first language, but who has never set foot in Russia (only to Ukraine), I often find myself torn between a ‘Western’ and a ‘Russian’ logic. This is not something I can analyse: for better or worse, sociology does not give you the tools to rationalise your own self; in Marx’ expression, I am unable to see underneath my own feet. I seem to understand both, to some extent, but when they clash (and they quite often do), I often cannot make up my mind.
Good analyses of Russian affairs by Western authors are few and far between. This is why I was so impressed by Mark Harris’ brief but excellent analysis of Russian attitude to democracy, in the context of the recent elections in Russia that took place on 4 Dec 2011 and have not finished yet. Harrison’s argument cuts through a usual misunderstanding and a clash in the basic meanings taken for granted by people on both sides of Europe. His analysis also touches on the issue of translation – not only linguistic, but also cultural. In a nutshell: before judging, we need to make sure we are aware what exactly it is that the two sides understand when they use the same term, in this case – democracy and the terminology surrounding it. As Harris argues, and the Russian, Bulgarian, and English sections of my brain all agree, democracy does not necessarily mean the same thing in the different [national, cultural, and political] languages.
Mark Harrison writes about economics, public policy, and international affairs. He is a Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick and a research fellow of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University.
In this article, Kristen Howerton unveils some of the secrets behind Haloween treats (and other chocolate). What happens in the modern globalised world is that the products that we consume often have extremely long ‘trails’ about which the ordinary consumer has no idea. Similarly to the 2010 Gap child labour scandal, Howerton argues that ‘hundreds of thousands of children in West Africa are enslaved harvesting cocoa beans’.
After reading this, I think I’ll opt for home made pancakes and roast pumpkin this year.
