...example from my life to utilize the sociological imagination, which depicts the linkage between personal troubles and public issues, how public issues caused my personal troubles. I will talk about pressure of the media and society, and how they influence many girls to go to the gym to get perfect body image. Mills believed that being able to see the relationship between the ordinary lives of people and the wider social forces was the key to the social imagination. The sociological imagination helps individuals understand the society by looking into a bigger picture of the position they are in, mostly in the environment they are living in. Going through this process helps individuals to see great link between personal troubles and public issues. In this paper I will describe an example from my life to utilize the sociological imagination, and how public issues affected my life. I will describe how public issues caused my personal trouble of conveying beauty and a good body image. As I was grew up I was a chubby kid, and although I didn’t have any major troubles I started growing an obsession of having and creating perfect body image. At that time both of my parents were not emotionally available and both of them struggled with alcohol addiction. Most of my friends who were not concerned about their body image, started going to the gym to exercise for the body they wanted. I started going to the gym almost every single day, and became more and more conscious of my body image...
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...novels, We and Brave New World, the reader is educated about the possible future of our society. Both book’s idea of a perfect utopia may sound a little extreme, however. Looking at today’s society, it is possible. We already have shock therapy for psychiatric patients, so using it for babies could possibly happen. Between reading We and Brave New World, I can see what rules are beneficial to its citizens and what is not. In the novel We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, the main goal was to almost to dehumanize everyone. The One State officials had direct control over the city: making privacy no longer, destroying any emotions one might feel, and drilling into everyone’s mind that praising the Benefactor is the right thing to do. If...
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...When my group and I were creating the “perfect society” or when we viewed the other utopias, it had been clear that all the utopias were different, unique but had one major common idea or belief; the ability for people to have their own beliefs, religion, opinions, and the idea of equality was at an all-time high. It was clear that every society, had a specific goal to achieve with different pathways possible, but they all had a flaw including ours; these utopias are ideals, and will never be possible because of the human nature. The utopias (including ours) is a world where everything is perfect, safe, and pure. But without a doubt, the utopias can never realistically happen. People are not perfect, everyone has their own laws, and sins. The...
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...most perfect way. These adverts show beautiful and flawless women exposing not only their desirable bodies and faces but also, their ideologies. Every time regular TV viewer watches television, magazines and even newspapers he is constantly in contact with this a massive and wild environment that has a clear effect in society. Sometimes the audiences do not realize the significance and the...
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...Dream of an ideal society There are emerging and ongoing wars that destroy lands and nations. There are the continuous dilemma of inequality, discrimination and other social issues that despite the modern trends and rapid technological advances of the society are still haunting and dividing the members of the society. The perfect society does not exist. This Utopia does not physically exist, but in our minds, it goes something like this. In my ideal society, every person is treated as an equal. No one person would think or act as if they were better than someone else was. There would be no racism present, all types of people would reside here and get along together. It would not matter if you were African, Caucasian or any color of the rainbow everyone is treated the same. In addition, there also would be a diverse amount of different religions that would coincide with each other in the ideal society. Today religion is one of the most controversial topics in society. There are countless numbers of active religions coinciding with and contradicting each other. In the ideal society people would love their religion and respect the others. All religions would co-exist peacefully. An ideal society should not be bound to the oppression of the wealthy and powerful. This society should not be unfair or unjust to the citizens that are of a different color or race that of the minority. An ideal society is one in which people act together as...
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...English II Mrs. Quick 11/8/12 A perfect society A perfect society is hard to come by. As a matter of fact, it is impossible. Human beings by definition are imperfect. There is not a single way in the world human beings can be in a utopian. Fahrenheit 451 (UNDERLINE and AUTHORS) is a great example of this. There are many things this book can be called. A science fiction, dystopian, bildungsroman, and a satire are all examples of what this book entails. Fahrenheit 451 proves countless times that it is a science fiction novel. In this novel, there are many changes in the world that many might not be able to adapt to. Books are highly illegal and whoever has books are killed by the hound. The hound is a robotic killing machine that sniffs out books and injects the culprit with a lethal substance. The government allows people to be killed inhumanly and without questions being asked. “We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?” (Bradbury). Nothing in this society is real. “I'm seventeen and I'm crazy. My uncle says the two always go together. When people ask your age, he said, always say seventeen and insane.” (Bradbury). No one during this time in society are actually sane. Everyone kills and kills themselves; it is something wrong that cannot be undone. Science fiction is a great word describing how this society works. A dystopian is...
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...Have you ever seen a commercial with an attractive person in it and thought to yourself, “I wish I could look like that?” Well, so have other Americans and that is what are wrong with today’s society. People feel that they need to look like a superstar to be happy. One thing that influence this thought process are popular magazines showing how people can lose weight and saying that if you’re not in perfect shape then you’re not attractive. “One body-image study found that 45 percent of men were dissatisfied with their physiques; women were only slightly less satisfied at 55 percent.”(Potter). Most people think that this only happens to females but it affects males greatly also. In today’s society women feel that they need to be 5’5” and 110 pounds to be attractive. It is reasons like this that females suffer from diseases such as anorexia and bulimia all because advertisements imply that they are not attractive. Women look at magazines like Victoria’s Secret, Playboy, and Maxim and see how guys react to those pictures and think that they need to look like this to get the same attention. So, it is pretty obvious that the majority of males are not helping this cause out at all, because they participate in the purchase of these items and act negatively towards women who do not fit this image. Although men may cause women to feel like this, women do the same exact thing to men. Every time a girl see’s a 6’0” muscular man with a six pack they get all googly over him. That...
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...base their opinion of humans on their faith; we are human simply because we are not God. At times science, philosophy and religion can confuse a person opinion on what it actually means to be human. Maybe the concept of being human is much simpler then some may think. Being human could simply mean that we as a collective race are imperfect. The idea of human imperfection is not easily explained by science, philosophy or religion. They can all sometimes be too complex to understand. Science exemplifies the human race as a species, philosophy praises human race as thinkers and religion looks at the human race as sinners and how we all must be perfect to please God. Even society tells us we must be perfect in the eyes of the world. We as a human race all possess the trait of imperfection thus making us all the common men among one another in society. The concept of the imperfection of the common man is addressed in many different pieces of literature. In William Shakespeare’s play, Othello, Shakespeare created his characters to depict the...
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...lot of pressure on members of the public to feel, act or look a certain way. This is because they often create a perfect image or perfect lifestyle by which consumers feel they have to abide by. Members of the public see the images and messages created by advertisements as something they should achieve. Fowles (1996, p.156) supports one of my main arguments by highlighting that ‘the imagery in advertising is that of idealized human beings’. Beauty adverts often put pressure on men and women to look a certain way by presenting the people in their adverts as being perfect or the ideal way to look. Another way pressure is put on people is when advertising sells the idea of a perfect life or perfect family. This puts pressure on members of a family, especially the parents, to build up or portray their family to other people the way that they see is correct from these adverts. Moore (1985, p.65) states that ‘extreme ads are assumed to capture more attention than effectively neutral ads’ which suggests that adverts that make people feel pressure will do this more effectively as they will get more attention paid to them. People wear and use products that relate to how they want to be seen by the world. This creates pressure because people feel the need to buy luxurious products if they want to be seen in a positive way by society. This is especially relevant now that society seems to be very materialistic based and people want to be seen with nice possessions. Women’s beauty advertisements...
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...In a perfect society conflict, pain, distrust, and secrets would be eradicated. That is a far cry from from society today where people fight constantly, there are grave differences in the way people think and act, and pain is evident everywhere. But while we are not perfect people are still happy and if you look true joy can be found in many places. Through Jonas’ experiences over the course of “The Giver”, Lois Lowry develops a theme of nothing is perfect. Though opposing readers may believe that perfection is attainable, Jonas’ actions and experiences throughout the novel convey that attempting to become flawless can only lead to ignorance and the unavoidable idea of an escape from a life of strict perfection. Jonas society strives to be...
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...people over the last couple of decades, even though it has been around for centuries. The public eye has been watching movie stars and rock stars enhance their looks by getting breast implants, nose jobs, lip jobs etc. Shows on TV and images produced by the media will make people do almost anything to fit the world’s standards of the perfect body, perfect face and even the perfect toes. Plastic surgery offers a quick fix to help achieve this goal but no matter how much surgery nothing or no one will be perfect. With cosmetic surgery being made affordable to more people than ever before, more individuals are getting cosmetic surgery to look like the perfect person or the favorite celebrity. But then, there are some people who get plastic surgery not to just look like the famous celebrity but also because of the parents who pressure the child or teenager to get cosmetic surgery due to the child or teenager’s “abnormalities” and “low self-esteem”. Although cosmetic surgery can help with low-self esteem, images, shows produced by the media and even some parents are the problems that many Americans of all ages deal with to want to look like the perfect person or the famous A-list celebrity. From the beginning of time people of every race and culture have gone to extremes in the name of beauty from foot-binding in China, to dangerously constricting corsets in Victorian times, to nose jobs in 800 B.C. India. In the Sunday Times, the article “Ancient Plastic Surgery” written by John...
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...influence in society. Sociologists use the word status in reference to “any social identity recognized as meaningful by the group or society”. A status is a “position that carries with it certain expectations, rights, and responsibilities”. There are many statuses that we are born with, such as our ethnicity, race or sex, but there are also the other statuses through our lives that we enter and exit. The three primary statuses I feel that I occupy and are most important to my identity would be that I am a mother, a wife, and a photographer. I feel that of all the statuses I myself embody, those are the ones that are most important to me, those are the ones that consume most of my time, and those are the ones that others identify with me. All three of my primary statuses are achieved statuses, and that type of status is defined as “a status that we attain through talent, ability, effort, or other unique characteristics”. Whereas ascribed statuses are “received involuntarily, without regard to our unique talents, skills, or accomplishments”, all three of my primary statuses were not received involuntarily. When we occupy a certain status, society expects us to follow certain sets of behaviors, and to play a certain “role”. We are constantly being watched and our roles are constantly being evaluated by society. I feel as a mother, I am supposed to perform the role of being caring, loving and attentive. For most mothers, this role comes naturally, but when society thinks we...
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...For Girls. It’s Be Yourself, and Be Perfect, Too: Pressure on Young Women For young women today there seems to be enormous pressure to be beyond perfect. Why as a society do we place these kinds of pressures on our children? A good example is the story “For Girls, It’s Be Yourself, and Be Perfect, Too” by Sara Rimer. It focuses on two amazing teen girls Esther and Colby who have to face many issues that many young women today have to confront now as well as the stress it entails. Esther and Colby learn right from the start that they have to be perfect during every waking hour and not waste anytime. The girl’s lives are influenced by their parent’s desires and the opinions of their peers. They don’t even think of themselves. Today’s amazing girls are facing pressure from their parents, as well as images they see on T.V., in magazines, as well as everywhere they look. Society pressures young women to be smart, sexy, and athletic. Sara Rimer writes; “If you are free to be everything, you are also expected to be everything” (page 2). At one time young women were viewed as the lesser sex; and were expected to become obedient wives and good mothers. They weren’t expected to go to or even complete their schooling. It was viewed as a waste of time. As time passed women started to become able to receive an education, vote, and have a job outside of the home. Society then started expecting more out of young women. The young women today have to become the amazing girl’s...
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...Many people of today’s society have many different perceptions of what equality actually is. Each individual's morals and values are responsible for these differences. For quite some time now, people have been debating about the topic of equality. They want to ensure that everyone is treated in the exact same manner but the big question that they’re faced with is how. While some believe society should be completely equal, I do not agree with this. The short film “2081” influenced the way I now look at this topic. “2081” is a short film that is based on if everyone in the world was equal in the year 2081. Since some people in society were born naturally smarter or more talented than others, those people were issued handicap devices so that everyone would be average. Harrison Bergeron is imprisoned in the film because he refused to wear his devices. He breaks out of jail and pretends he will detonate a bomb under the stage of a ballet performance that is being televised. Instead he activates his hidden camera just when the governor shoots him for all of the world to see. His goal is for the people of that society to see that the governor wasn’t as perfect as she made herself out to be. The moral of the story is that trying to create a utopian society will only create unnecessary problems that were not originally there. Putting these handicap devices on people made people of the society rebel against the government. Other examples of utopian societies are “The Hunger Games” and...
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...modern trends and rapid technological advances of the society are still haunting and dividing the members of the society. The perfect society does not exist. This Utopia does not physically exist, but in our minds, it goes something like this. In my ideal society, every person is treated as an equal. No one person would think or act as if they were better than someone else was. There would be no racism present, all types of people would reside here and get along together. It would not matter if you were African, Caucasian or any color of the rainbow everyone is treated the same. In addition, there also would be a diverse amount of different religions that would coincide with each other in the ideal society. Today religion is one of the most controversial topics in society. There are countless numbers of active religions coinciding with and contradicting each other. In the ideal society people would love their religion and respect the others. All religions would co-exist peacefully. An ideal society should not be bound to the oppression of the wealthy and powerful. This society should not be unfair or unjust to the citizens that are of a different color or race that of the minority. An ideal society is one in which people act together as one for the greater good of the society, rather than the individual. In a rational society, people know their place and their duty. In my ideal society, everything would be uniform, a by the book world,...
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