Category Archives: Sociology

From backstage to frontstage, US diplomacy edition

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One of Erving Goffman’s insights into human interaction was his analysis of the frontstage and backstage. These insights about what happens when in trusted company (backstage) versus the public presentation of self (frontstage) is very applicable to the latest Wikileaks news story where about 250,000 United States diplomatic cables have been made public. The leaking of this amount of information about the United States’ true views is remarkable:

Never before in history has a superpower lost control of such vast amounts of such sensitive information — data that can help paint a picture of the foundation upon which US foreign policy is built. Never before has the trust America’s partners have in the country been as badly shaken. Now, their own personal views and policy recommendations have been made public — as have America’s true views of them.

All governments put on a very public face and try to control the amount of information released to the public. Particularly when dealing with allies or foes, the public rhetoric is crafted very carefully in order to send the right public messages. But this latest leak reveals what happens behind the scenes and offers insights into the backstage world of the United States government. On one hand, this should be no surprise: we should assume that those in government discuss and debate ideas and stances before putting together a public message. On the other hand, it is rare for the average citizen or even journalists to have an opportunity to hear about what happens behind the scenes.

If we keep using Goffman’s analytical devices, what we can see now is the US government attempting to “save face,” to both condemn the leaking of this backstage information but also to try to patch up relationships that might be troubled by hearing what the US government “really thinks.”

The long process of foreclosure: an average of 492 days

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Even though Black Friday sales may have been decent, housing is still lagging. Another indicator: “the number of days since the average borrower in foreclosure last made a mortgage payment” is 492 days. The Wall Street Journal adds more about this figure:

In recent months, the number of borrowers entering severe delinquency — meaning they missed their third monthly mortgage payment — has been on the decline, falling to about 700,000 in October, according to mortgage-data provider LPS Applied Analytics. But it’s still more than double the number of foreclosure processes started.

As a result, banks are taking progressively longer to foreclose. The average borrower in the foreclosure process hadn’t made a payment in 492 days as of the end of October, according to LPS. That compares to 382 days a year ago and a low of 244 days in August 2007…

Speeding up the process won’t be easy, as demonstrated by the banks’ continuing legal troubles related to robo-signers, bank employees who signed foreclosure affidavits without properly checking the required loan documentation.

Millions of Americans still are paying their mortgages even though they owe more than their homes are worth. The more banks’ backlog grows, the more likely they are to join it, adding to the already giant pile of foreclosures weighing on the housing market.

In my mind, one of the issues is that we don’t really know the true state of the housing market until all of these foreclosures go through. And if the average length is more than a year, it is going to take a long time to get all of these through the system, let alone deal with new foreclosures.

I wonder if the length of foreclosure differs by location. In areas that were hard hit by foreclosures, like Las Vegas or parts of California, are the banks ahead or behind in regard to these 492 days? Are there areas of the country where it is in the banks’ interest to slow down the foreclosure process because they can’t really do anything with the houses anyway?

h/t Instapundit

More financial problems in Chicago suburbs: underfunded police and fire pensions

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If the federal government is short on money and so is the state of Illinois, then financial problems were eventually going to trickle down to individual communities, even those who would usually be considered wealthy. The Chicago Tribune details how many suburban municipalities have fallen behind in funding police and fire pensions:

Of the 300-plus pension funds across the region, only about 20 are rated by the state as fully funded…

The flaws and excesses were long masked by a strong economy, when big investment returns pushed average funding levels to nearly 80 percent a decade ago — which many experts consider to be healthy. The latest figures from 2009 show suburban public-safety pension funds, on average, have just 52 percent of the assets needed to be fully funded.

Though the true cost will vary from place to place, the unpaid tab averages nearly $2,700 for every suburban household. A strong economy could boost investment returns and lessen the liability, but experts say the financial sins of the past are too great for pension systems to merely invest their way out of them.

As lawmakers consider reforms, town leaders and unions point fingers. Unions complain towns haven’t saved enough and lawmakers failed to force them. Suburban leaders complain lawmakers required them to offer lucrative benefits without the cash to pay for them. The one thing they agree on: The recession made the problems far worse…

The state doesn’t compile figures of how many towns have done that, with such findings usually buried in individual fund audits. The Tribune reviewed every audit the state would provide — 153 of them in metro Chicago — and found regulators cited a third of their taxing districts for not providing enough cash to their pension funds.

A couple of things stand out to me about this story:

1. One issue appears to be that of fragmented suburban government. Illinois, specifically the Chicago region, is well-known for its many taxing districts and municipalities. If each community, big or small, was to provide a pension fund, there were bound to be problems when some of these communities cannot meet their obligations.

2. Residents are not going to be happy about this. There are a couple of places they might direct their anger: toward local officials who didn’t properly fund these pensions or toward police or fire unions (a common issue in more conservative locations). Residents are also likely to be unhappy if fire and police personnel, people who many citizens feel keep their communities livable and safe, are let go.

3. How would local communities explain their actions regarding funding pensions? Can they or local officials be held responsible, outside of voting against them?

Thinking about the sociology of cricket

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If you thought that cricket was a pleasant and quaint sport with matches that last days, a British commentator suggests otherwise. Like other sports, cricket has become dominated by money (“lucre”) and this threatens to overwhelm the commentator’s interest in watching the interactions between players:

Cricket has had a real battering in the last few months. This was not just because of the match-fixing scandal at the end of the last English season; it was also because of the rather gutless way in which certain parts of the cricket establishment, here and internationally, responded to it. Cricket is a game now obsessed with money. Even those who do not engage in match-fixing, and who condemn (quite rightly) those who do, share the same devotion to filthy lucre. The only difference is that they prostitute the game in different, and entirely legal, ways.

I have never been an especially partisan follower of cricket. It is not just that, on one level, it’s only a game (I shall deal later with the charmingly old-fashioned notion that it is, by contrast, more than a game), and therefore which side wins or loses is in the end irrelevant. It is that the main interest to me, as a follower of the game, has been its aesthetics and, almost as much, its sociology. It has the capacity to be a visually beautiful game, and because games of cricket can go on for up to five days, there is plenty of time for the spectator to examine the interaction of the players with each other – with those on their own side as much as with those on the opposing team.

The solution for this writer is to watch cricket at a lower level, such as watching is son play with other 14-year olds. You will hear this argument from some Americans as well: the professional sports are tainted and if you want to enjoy an authentic version of the game where players play because they love the same, you have to go to the college level or lower. I tend to think this argument leaves out an important aspect of why people watch sports – they want to see the best athletes in the world perform amazing plays. High school athletes may love what they are doing but it is hard not to think about how a college or pro athlete could athletically do so much more.

I have also always enjoyed watching the interactions between players. Additionally, I enjoy going to sporting events to watch interactions between fans and the players and amongst fans. In short, if you gather so many passionate people together in a relatively small location with much on the line, there is bound to be some interesting interactions.

Of course, cricket on the international level also has the potential to open up discussion about colonialism and class – how exactly did an English sport find its way to the streets of Australia, the West Indies, Pakistan, and India?

How location, particularly living in the city, affects health

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Two sociologists argue that location, particularly living in poor neighborhoods in large cities, can lead to more negative health outcomes:

“When trying to understand a person’s health and well-being, we believe that their zip code may be just as important a number to their physical health as their blood pressure or glucose level,” Fitzpatrick says in a statement.

Fitzpatrick and Mark LaGory of the University of Alabama at Birmingham have authored, “In Unhealthy Cities: Poverty, Race, and Place in America,” about high-poverty urban neighborhoods and the health of Americans…

For example, there have been numerous studies on how a concentration of fast-food restaurants in poor, predominantly minority neighborhoods impacts the health of the residents, while other studies show many of these poor neighborhoods may not have a single grocery store offering fresh, nutritious food or safe places to exercise.

“Some parts of the city seemed to be designed to make people sick,” the authors say.

These conclusions are not surprising though they may contribute to the growing field of the sociology of wellness. I particularly like the last quote: “Some parts of the city seemed to be designed to make people sick.” This leads to a question: how could cities or neighborhoods be designed to make people healthy?

Reading about this reminded me about some of the rationale used by some of the first suburban residents in England and the United States. Among other factors, the suburbs were said to be healthier and have cleaner air. The big city, particularly by the late 1800s, was viewed as dirty and crowded. The single-family home allowed families to spread out and take in more of the country air.

I would be curious to see if this study, or other studies, could provide estimates of life expectancy for people with similar socio-economic status living in different locations.

Athletes, their wives, and infidelity

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In a world seemingly full of athletes who are cheating on their wives, people wonder how this happens. A sociologist who has been studying this for years sums up some of his research:

None of this surprises Steven Ortiz, an associate professor of sociology at Oregon State who has spent nearly 20 years studying the wives of professional athletes and what he calls “husband-oriented” sports marriages. In one study, Ortiz interviewed 47 wives married to men in the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL.

He chalks up the pattern of behavior to a patriarchal society and what he calls “spoiled-athlete syndrome.” Since childhood, he says, athletes are enabled because of their obvious talent. And in the same way the culture of celebrity is celebrated, athletic heroes are worshipped.

Ortiz says he observed three ways in which the issue of infidelity is handled in these marriages: one, with humor, and two, avoidance of the subject. The third, he says, typically occurs when the wife searches for evidence in laundry, e-mail messages or phone calls.

“A major stressor is the fear of infidelity,” Ortiz says. “[The wives] have no control over the situation.”

According to the rest of the ESPN story, a number of wives know this is a possibility while they are married. It sounds like others had no idea that athletes behaved like this before getting married. Could there be some sort of athlete’s wives support group that would help those who are currently married and counsel those who are about to get married?

A few other questions I had after reading this:

1. How much do teams support, overtly or covertly, this behavior on the parts of male athletes?

2. Does this sort of behavior occur among female athletes? If not, why not?

3. Why do some male athletes not fall into these traps? What factors influence the decisions of male athletes to cheat or not to cheat?

4. How common in this behavior? Are the stories we see in the news, such as those about Tiger Woods or Brett Favre, the norm or are they outliers? Would fans pay less attention to sports if they knew all about this area of life?

5. How does this all affect athlete’s children?

Differences in political activism in mainline and evangelical pastors

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Christianity Today contrasts the political stances and activities of mainline and evangelical pastors. The data is summed up this way:

[A] new study from Calvin College’s Paul B. Henry Institute shows that for the past decade, evangelical pastors have been more likely to take public stances on political issues and candidates than have their mainline cohorts. Overall, some differences between evangelical and mainline clergy are shrinking as mainline pastors become more conservative and evangelical pastors become more socially active.

This is some interesting data: it suggests both mainline and evangelical congregations don’t hear much about politics even as pastors themselves took stands on particular public issues and a sizable minority supported a political candidate.

On the whole, however, it looks like there are not too many differences here between evangelical and mainline churches in these matters. Outside of more mainline pastors being more liberal on political and economic issues than their congregations, about half of evangelical and mainline pastors engaged in some form of political activity in church. Perhaps we would need some more data to find sharper differences (such as about the particular congregations and contexts where these sorts of activities took place – this could be found in the National Congregations Study) or more qualitative data that could provide insights into how politics is acted upon in particular congregations and through particular pastors.

With all of those cameras watching, few people change their public behavior

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A Canadian sociologist argues that although more people are being watched in public, through phenomenon like Google Street View and a multitude of security cameras, few people are changing how they act in public settings:

Nathan Young, an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology, believes few Canadians have altered their public behaviour.

“When we’re out on the street, there’s an understanding we’re in public and there’s a risk of being seen or talked to,” says Young. “What’s different now is if we go outside to change a tire in our underwear, it can be exposed worldwide.”…

Voyeurism has always been a part of human motivation, says Young, an authority on privacy issues.

But ogling the Google images also tells us something about our sense of fun, he explains, pointing out some of the images are theatrics or misunderstandings of a moment.

“Clearly, there are people out there that want to play (with the technology),” he reasons. “Not for politics or protest. Just a personal imprint.”

Young says there’s no evidence people are more aware or cautious as they head out their doors.

At this point, if you are acting “normally” in public, you don’t have much reason to worry that some camera out there might see what you are doing. At the same time, there seems to be a decent number of people who are worried that these cameras and technologies could end up being used against them.

It is interesting to note how people do act in public and to think whether this differs from how they act when they are alone.

Black Friday as people watching paradise

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Even if shopping for big ticket items on Black Friday does not sound like your idea of fun, why not go out just to do some people watching? One person from Wisconsin with a sociology degree suggests this very idea:

Count Carly Simon, 26, of Racine, in the second group. Simon, a graduate student, said she, her two children and her sister, Jessie Baker, start at Target, 5300 Durand Ave.

Always integrated into their plans are getting Simon’s daughters new Christmas outfits and holiday haircuts – and they love it.

“It’s like their makeover day,” Simon said.

For Simon, who has a sociology degree, Black Friday’s main attraction is people-watching. “I joked that I would do my master’s thesis on that,” she said.

What she sees in fellow Black Friday shoppers is “not only their holiday excitement, but that they’re so driven. People don’t act like they’d act normally.”

She added, “You’re dealing with group think and you’re dealing with money; those two things are driving forces in large groups.”

This student suggests “people don’t act like they’d act normally” on Black Friday, a description that could fit a lot of sociological work that tries to understand why people and groups do what they do.

If I had to pick several locations for observation on Black Friday, here is what I might suggest: Best Buy at its opening, Wal-Mart at its opening (though they are mixing this up with midnight hours this year), and a large mall relatively early in the morning, say 7 or 8 AM, to watch people scurry from store to store.

One scenario I would be interested in following up on: what happens to people who have waited for hours to get into a store like Best Buy only to find that they are the fourth person who wants the only three available special deals? How do people reconcile the time they put into this sort of excursion with the possibility that they won’t get what they really came for?

SI cover story on Vick says “You can’t turn away”

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The story of Michael Vick seems to bring out the passions of sports fans. For those who love stories of second chances, Vick is a great example – a guy who didn’t play up to his full talent in Atlanta, ran into trouble, but now is playing great and seems to have turned the corner. For those who love dogs or think NFL players (and athletes in general) get too many breaks, Vick is a perfect example: just because he is a possible MVP candidate, Vick gets a free pass for his bad behavior.

The recent cover story in Sports Illustrated explains the situation:

The Vick paradox is simple: You can’t look away from the beauty, and you can’t quite forget the brutality. His game is rivetingly kinetic, and now that Vick’s commitment to football is making itself evident, it’s impossible not to wonder how good he can be. Yet his infamous stewardship of the Bad Newz Kennels created a discomfort that has endured longer than the usual distaste for bad actors. On Thursday, Goodell stopped in Philadelphia and, 14 months after he lifted Vick’s playing ban, spoke of the “message” behind Vick’s rebound, the “lessons” to be learned. “We need our kids to see that kind of success story,” Goodell told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “This young man has turned his life around, and he’s going to contribute.” But Vick’s tale is not that tidy, and it’s far from finished.

For some, Vick might never be able to make up for what he did. But if he proves himself to be a winning and successful NFL quarterback, many will look past his transgressions. And along the way, he is likely to get paid handsomely in salary for his efforts.

More broadly, Vick’s situation raises all sorts of sociological issues: should athletes get a second chance? Should anyone who mistreated dogs in the way he did get a second chance? Can jail time rehabilitate people or are they tainted forever? Can Vick become a hero or role model in the future? If Vick can’t be redeemed in the eyes of most Americans, who can?