Category Archives: Sociology

Geneologies as “heavily curated social constructions”

Posted on by

Tracking genealogies is both a popular hobby and big business. A sociologist argues that these genealogies are actually social constructions of our past:

In Ancestors and Relatives: Genealogy, Identity, and Community, Eviatar Zerubavel, a sociologist at Rutgers, pulls back the curtain on the genealogical obsession. Genealogies, he argues, aren’t the straightforward, objective accounts of our ancestries we often presume them to be. Instead, they’re heavily curated social constructions, and are as much about our values as they are about the facts of who gave birth to whom…

“No other animals have ‘second cousins once removed,'” Zerubavel points out, “or are aware of having had great-great-great-grandparents”; only people have the more abstract sorts of relatives necessary for a real genealogy. In the meantime, as categories for relatives proliferate and family trees expand, we accrue large numbers of ‘optional’ relatives. We construct our genealogies by choosing, out of a nearly endless array of possibly important or interesting ancestors, the ones who matter to us.

Those choices are highly motivated, and often obviously artificial. Because we want to stretch our family lines far into the past, we often “cut and paste” different branches, claiming, for example, a great-great-grandmother’s stepfather as one of our own ancestors, and following his line into the past. We “braid” ancestral identities together, emphasizing, as President Obama has, that we come from two distinct lines of descent (“a mother from Kansas and a father from Kenya”). Sometimes, though, the opposite impulses take hold. We might deliberately “lump” our diverse ancestries together, aiming to consolidate them, using a label like “Eurasian,” to lower the contrast (as Tiger Woods does when he refers to himself as “Cablinasian” — a combination of Caucasian, black, American Indian, and Asian). Or we might “clip” our family trees, obscuring their origins so as to preserve coherence and purity. That, Zerubavel writes, is what the Nazis did with Jewish genealogies: “Going only two generations back when formally defining Jewishness… helped the Nazis avoid realizing how many ‘Aryan’ Germans actually also had Jewish ancestors.”…

The point, Zerubavel writes, is that genealogies don’t all follow the same rules. Depending on what you’re trying to emphasize, you accept, reject, combine, or contrast individuals, families, and even whole ethnic identities. The most objective point of view, as Richard Dawkins has written, would probably hold that “all living creatures are cousins.” But genealogies are partial, selective, subjective, and social. They are as much about the present as they are about the past.

This isn’t too surprising: humans commonly pick and choose what we want to believe and then display to others. Could we argue that genealogies are simply another tool of impression management where we show our best (past) side to others and cover up the people we aren’t as proud of? This doesn’t seem that different than communities that cover up infamous parts of their histories or patriotic narratives that emphasize only the positives.

This reminds me of a high school history project I had to do. For my American History class, we had to make a poster out of our genealogies and there was a prize handed out to the person who could go the farthest back. Several of my family lines didn’t go more than four or five generations back but one of them had been extensively researched back to 46 generations and Alfred the Great, king of the Anglo-Saxons in the late 800s. Several things struck me then as odd:

1. I ended up losing out to a girl who could trace her family back 47 generations. Is this a prize-worthy objective anyway?

2. Who has the time and money to spend on tracing one’s family back 46 generations? Perhaps this doesn’t require to many resources these days with online resources plus what is often available at libraries but it still requires time.

3. Some of the family line was strange as I think one time it went through a cousin and another time for a daughter rather than a son. It seemed clearly set up to get back to people like Sir Francis Bacon and Alfred the Great.

But, for the day or two that my poster was up in the classroom, I could say that I could trace my family back 46 generations when most people could not.

Michael Bay putting together new TV show about sociology professor who studies subcultures

Posted on by

There are not too many sociologists in television shows or movies but producer Michael Bay is currently working on a show that has a sociologist in a prominent role:

Michael Bay is on board to exec produce an hourlong drama for the CW.

Net has bought the script “Outsiders” from writer Adam Glass, who most recently was a writer and supervising producer on “Supernatural.” He was also on staff on “Cold Case” and “The Cleaner.”

Storyline involves a quirky sociology professor with an almost savant-like expertise in subcultures. He is partnered with a young but uptight female detective and the pair solve crimes involving youths and subcultures in Los Angeles…

New CW topper Mark Pedowitz has said he’s interested in expanding the net’s reach beyond the core 18-34 female demo. A Bay series would likely bring along a male audience, and potentially tap into the international market.

Who knew that young males wanted to watch television about quirky, savant-like male sociologists? And how many odd subcultures could a show like this display?

Occupy Wall Street in Naperville

Posted on by

National coverage of the Occupy Wall Street groups has emphasized the city gatherings. But Occupy Wall Street has even made it to conservative Naperville:

About 50 people joined the event, forming a group just slightly larger than the one gathered outside a nearby Apple Store, for demonstrations modeled after the Occupy Wall Street encampment that began last month in lower Manhattan.

Organizers said they will return each Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon until their demands are met. It’s a list that includes increased regulation of banks, rollbacks on the rights of corporations and forgiveness for student loans…

“Well, there’s at least a couple dozen people over there, and there’s what? Maybe (140,000) people here in town? I’d say that’s probably an accurate representation” of support for the demonstrators’ agenda, said Eloe, grinning.

Alesch began planning the event last week with a few friends at a Wheaton coffee shop after hearing about an Occupy Aurora demonstration.

This reminds me of research I’ve seen regarding the diffusion of riots in the 1960s. How widespread are the Occupy Wall Street protests? Is it unusual to find one in a suburb like Naperville that has over 140,000 residents? Are suburbanites more or less likely to support the movement?

If this group continues to protest in Naperville, it will be interesting to see how onlookers and the community responds. An Occupy Aurora protest might make more sense since Aurora is more diverse and less wealthy. But would a continuing protest in Naperville draw more attention?

The Beatles on immigration in “Get Back”

Posted on by

One discussion topic among The Beatles during the late 1960s would have some bearing on current discussions: immigration. Their hit single (#1 in both the US and Britain) “Get Back” was originally about immigration though lyric changes obscure the initial message.

Here is what the Wikipedia entry on the song “Get Back” has to say:

“Get Back” is unusual in the Beatles’ canon in that almost every moment of the song’s evolution has been extensively documented, from its beginning as an offhand riff to its final mixing in several versions. Much of this documentation is in the form of illegal (but widely available) bootleg recordings, and is recounted in the book Get Back: The Unauthorized Chronicle of the Beatles’ Let It Be Disaster by Doug Sulpy and Ray Schweighardt…

Around the time he was developing the lyrics to “Get Back”, McCartney satirised the “Rivers of Blood speech” by former British Cabinet minister Enoch Powell in a brief jam that has become known as the “Commonwealth Song”. The lyrics included a line “You’d better get back to your Commonwealth homes”. The group improvised various temporary lyrics for “Get Back” leading to what has become known in Beatles’ folklore as the “No Pakistanis” version.This version is more racially charged, and addresses attitudes toward immigrants in America and Britain: “…don’t need no Puerto Ricans living in the USA”; and “don’t dig no Pakistanis taking all the people’s jobs”. In an interview in Playboy magazine in 1980, Lennon described it as “…a better version of ‘Lady Madonna’. You know, a potboiler rewrite.”

On 23 January, the group (now in Apple Studios)[ tried to record the song properly; bootleg recordings preserve a conversation between McCartney and Harrison between takes discussing the song, and McCartney explaining the original “protest song” concept. The recording captures the group deciding to drop the third verse largely because McCartney does not feel the verse is of high enough quality, although he likes the scanning of the word “Pakistani”. Here the song solidifies in its two-verse, three-solo format.

Watch and listen to the never-released song, “Commonwealth,” here:

Last weekend, when I wasn’t delivering meals to the homebound, I was “researching” Beatles bootlegs. And I discovered the so-called “Commonwealth Song.” It’s not so much a song as it is an extended improvisation during the interminable “Get Back” studio sessions in 1969 (in fact, some theorize that “The Commonwealth Song” is a prototype for “Get Back”). “Commonwealth” name-checks Enoch Powell (the Tom Tancredo of his day, or Thilo Sarazin, if you prefer a German reference), who had delivered his anti-immigrant “Rivers of Blood” speech the previous year. “Commonwealth” was Paul McCartney’s mocking response. All of which shows that the sun never sets on some issues. It’s also nice to know that as late as 1969, Lennon and McCartney could still crack each other up, especially when John interjects his high-pitched “Yes!”

But the Beatles were not in support of Enoch Powell or anti-immigration policies – they were trying to satirize the debate:

The most infamous of the unreleased Get Back versions is known as No Pakistanis, and contained the line “Don’t dig no Pakistanis taking all the people’s jobs”. While mostly unfinished, the song did include a mumbled rhyming couplet which paired the words ‘Puerto Rican’ with ‘mohican’.

Various demo versions of this early version were recorded, one of which contains the following lines:

Meanwhile back at home too many Pakistanis
Living in a council flat
Candidate Macmillan, tell us what your plan is
Won’t you tell us where you’re at?

Despite being satirical in nature, it didn’t prevent accusations of racism being levelled at McCartney for years to come, after the Get Back bootlegs became public.

When we were doing Let It Be, there were a couple of verses to Get Back which were actually not racist at all – they were anti-racist. There were a lot of stories in the newspapers then about Pakistanis crowding out flats – you know, living 16 to a room or whatever. So in one of the verses of Get Back, which we were making up on the set of Let It Be, one of the outtakes has something about ‘too many Pakistanis living in a council flat’ – that’s the line. Which to me was actually talking out against overcrowding for Pakistanis… If there was any group that was not racist, it was the Beatles. I mean, all our favourite people were always black. We were kind of the first people to open international eyes, in a way, to Motown.
Paul McCartney
Rolling Stone, 1986

Today, could a popular musical act speak openly about controversial issues or would they, like the Beatles, have to tone down some of their lyrics and ideas in order to not be misunderstood by the mass market? If the Beatles were opposed to immigration, would people have different opinions about them or does the quality of their music overshadow some of their political leanings? And how many Beatles fans had any idea of what “Get Back” was actually about?

More $1 million lottery winners each year than NBA players since 1990 that have career earnings over $1 million

Posted on by

I’ve written before about using the average vs. the median salary in the NBA lockout discussions and here is some more fuel to add to the fire: there are more $1 million lottery winners each year than NBA players who since 1990 have had career earnings of more than $1 million.

I want to call foul on the mainstream media. As I mentioned, a majority of the players in the league make less than $2 million, and yet people like Stephen A. Smith throw around that $5 million figure as gospel. We keep hearing the NBA lockout being described as “millionaires versus billionaires”. But most NBA players won’t become big earners like Kobe and LeBron. Here’s a fun breakdown:

Since the 1990-1991 season 1461 players have entered the NBA and of those:

  • 490 — or 33% — never earned $1 million in career earnings*
  • and that means… 971 have earned at least $1 million in career earnings*
  • 752 have averaged a salary of at least $1 million per year*
  • 643 have earned at least $5 million in career earnings*
  • 165 averaged a salary of at least $5 million per year*

As we can see, less than half of all NBA players in the last 20 years — the period of time where NBA salaries have been at their highest — have hit that $5 million mark over their entire careers. Just over one third — 33% — of all NBA players in the last 20 years have not even hit the $1 million mark in career earnings. And these numbers have been adjusted for inflation!

Here’s a fun comparison: on average, 1600 people win a lottery of at least $1 million every year! That’s right; the lottery has produced almost twice as many millionaires in the last year as the NBA has in the last twenty years!  The popular perception is that once a player enters the NBA they will earn millions and millions of dollars. The truth is that many players don’t hit that high mark.

Both events, winning the big lottery jackpot and becoming a NBA player, are statistically unlikely. However, I suspect that most Americans would say that winning the lottery is much more unlikely. But this blog post points out that even when players do make it to the NBA, a third don’t rake in the big career earnings associated with professional athletes (measured here as $1 million).

This would make for an interesting discussion starter for any professional athlete’s union: should the union be more concerned with allowing a smaller percentage of the athletes maximize their salaries or be more interested in guaranteeing a baseline for the majority of the league that are not stars?

The lottery figures themselves are interesting:

According to the TLC television show, “The Lottery Changed My Life,” more than 1600 new lottery millionaires are created each year. That doesn’t include people that have won jackpots of, say, $100,000 because than the number would be much higher. Still, 1600 is quite a high number.

If 1600 win at least a million in the lotto every year, it means that there are more than 130 each month, more than 30 each week, and more than 4 each day. That’s a lot of winners.

It would be interesting to see more documentation on this.

KPBS San Diego on Proposition 13

Posted on by

The great property tax revolt of 1978 in California has had a big impact on American politics. KPBS in San Diego put together a number of reports on the history and legacy of Prop 13. You can also find a number of other interesting videos if you search YouTube. The Wikipedia entry gives a decent overview.

When I showed one clip to my American Suburbanization class, I was struck again by how much of the rhetoric from both sides matches current political discussions: a desire to cut lard from the government and save the middle class versus providing needed money for social services and asking people to pay their fair share. This is an issue that still hasn’t been decided and is particularly pertinent today in an era of budget shortfalls.

Facebook also building profiles for non-users?

Posted on by

A complaint recently filed in Ireland alleges that Facebook is collecting information about non-users:

Eight hundred million users are not enough. Facebook, the world’s biggest social network, is now building profiles of non-users who haven’t even signed up, an international privacy watchdog charges.

The sensational claim is made in a complaint filed in August by Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner. It alleges that users are encouraged to hand over the personal data of other people — including names, phone numbers, email addresses and more — which Facebook is using to create…

European law carries heavy penalties for companies that violate “information privacy” laws — in contrast to the relatively lax U.S. laws. But the U.S. has issues with Facebook as well: Privacy rights litigation is proceeding in Mississippi, Louisiana, Kansas and Kentucky. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is also probing complaints about Palo Alto-based Facebook, while Congress is calling for an inquiry.

Kubasta noted that — for better or for worse — Facebook’s best defense may be a good offense. After all, it’s not alone: Several other websites are undertaking this kind of tracking as well.

“Regardless of what Facebook is doing, many websites collect and propagate personally identifiable information about individuals who have not entered into any agreement with the website. Just a few examples include Spokeo, iSearch, WhitePages.com,” Kubasta told FoxNews.com.

Three quick thoughts:

1. Doesn’t it really depend on what Facebook actually does with this data? If other companies are also doing this, what is so insidious about Facebook doing it? Is Facebook held to a different standard because people voluntarily give their information to them?

2. This sounds like it could have some interesting legal ramifications as companies have to comply with both European and American regulations.

3. I’ve said this before: if you are really worried about your information being collected anywhere on the Internet, the best solution is to not use the Internet at all.

“The Sociology of Professional Wrestling” course

Posted on by

Even as news about the Sociology of Jay-Z course at Georgetown continues to spread, I ran into news about a sociology course about professional wrestling:

On Oct. 16, professional wrestling came to Brock University with the third annual “Brock Brawl”. The live pro wrestling event not only served as entertainment for members of the Brock community, it also represented a learning experience for students at Brock enrolled in the SOCI 3P55 course, also known as, “The Sociology of Professional Wrestling”.

Daniel Glenday, a Professor in the Department of Sociology, teaches Sociology (SOCI) 3P55 at Brock, which is the only course offered in North America that purely focuses on pro wrestling.

“The idea of this course is to ‘wise people up’ to wrestling,” said Glenday. “It’s a big part of cultures all around the world, but no one is studying it. It’s everywhere, so we should really take a look at what it means.”…

The Sociology of Professional Wrestling was first offered at Brock in 2006. Glenday said the course addresses the misunderstandings and prejudices people have towards pro wrestling, which has been criticized for its “excessive violence, sexism, homophobia and ethnic/racial stereotyping”. Glenday also hopes to dismiss the argument that pro wrestling leads to an increase in bullying by younger girls and boys.

I assume there would a lot of material to work with in this course regarding masculinity, violence, and popular culture.

Is professional wrestling still popular? I know it is still on the air but I haven’t seen many commercials for it or heard about it leaking out into the popular culture. One website suggests the October 10th Monday Night Raw pulled down a rating of 3.2 and the latest “Impact Wrestling” (Thu Oct 13) had a 0.5 rating (better than “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report”). Perhaps I am in the wrong target demographic and/or am not watching the right channels.

“The Steve Jobs Anti-Eulogy” raises some interesting points

Posted on by

Now that the media blitz following the death of Steve Jobs has slowed, there is more space to consider the coverage. Here are five interesting observations from one writer who also wins points for invoking “Victorian sociologist Herbert Spencer” and Malcolm Gladwell:

1. People write about Steve to write about themselves…

2. Individuals do not make history. Populations do…

So the idea that Steve Jobs changed history is just plain bad analysis. Victorian sociologist Herbert Spencer argued that attributing historical events to the decisions of individuals was a hopelessly primitive, childish, and unscientific position. After he published these views in The Study of Sociology, the case was closed. At least for professional historians.

3. You can tell a lot about a society by the people they honor…

4. Steve Jobs sheds more light on the nature vs. nurture debate than he does on the history debate…

5. Espousing the glories of genius gets us nowhere.

What I like the most about these is that they try to place Jobs within his context. They also raise larger questions including “what does it mean to be a genius,” “what values does society promote,” and “are societal or group trends more important than individual actions.”

Senate proposal to reward immigrants who would buy $500k in housing

Posted on by

The down housing market is leading to some interesting ideas including one from two Senators which involves rewarding immigrants who are willing to buy expensive homes:

The reeling housing market has come to this: To shore it up, two Senators are preparing to introduce a bipartisan bill Thursday that would give residence visas to foreigners who spend at least $500,000 to buy houses in the U.S.

The provision is part of a larger package of immigration measures, co-authored by Sens. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Mike Lee (R., Utah), designed to spur more foreign investment in the U.S.

Foreigners have accounted for a growing share of home purchases in South Florida, Southern California, Arizona and other hard-hit markets. Chinese and Canadian buyers, among others, are taking advantage not only of big declines in U.S. home prices and reduced competition from Americans but also of favorable foreign exchange rates.

To fuel this demand, the proposed measure would offer visas to any foreigner making a cash investment of at least $500,000 on residential real-estate—a single-family house, condo or townhouse. Applicants can spend the entire amount on one house or spend as little as $250,000 on a residence and invest the rest in other residential real estate, which can be rented out…

International buyers accounted for around $82 billion in U.S. residential real-estate sales for the year ending in March, up from $66 billion during the previous year period, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. Foreign buyers accounted for at least 5.5% of all home sales in Miami and 4.3% of Phoenix home sales during the month of July, according to MDA DataQuick.

This seems like it would be part of a discernible shift in the immigration conversation: primarily letting rich or educated immigrants into the United States.

The real question: does this really help the housing market? What kind of impact are we talking about – a 1% boost, 10% boost? As the article suggests, wealthy foreigners are already buying property in other countries. I’ve highlighted a couple of stories where wealthy Chinese buyers have purchased homes in New Zealand and Vancouver, Canada. When this happens, locals have mixed reactions. Would this proposed policy simply promote more foreign investment or would it push people to actually move to the United States and work here?

Would this bill also only help more wealthy areas, such as big cities or coastal/vacation regions? Would this primarily benefit people with bigger, more expensive homes?