Social stratification is a system in which groups of people are divided into layers according to their relative property, power, and prestige. It is a way of ranking large groups of people into a hierarchy according to their relative privileges (Henslin ch.7 , pg. 191). Every society has a form of stratification although the criteria for it might be varied. Everywhere we go there will be a working class and there will be elites. The question would be how do the elites maintain power? How do the masses blindly follow those with power without even realizing that they are at a disadvantage? Controlling peoples ideas. The elites have devised ways to impose their will unto others. Ideologies are beliefs that justify why things are the way they …show more content…
How many times have we heard information was withheld because of possible threats to national security. High ranking government officials are especially guilty of this. Information that would be detrimental to their seat of power such as scandals and irregularities are often obscured from the public. I remember during my tenure in the military, being ordered not to visit certain websites such as wiki leaks as it would be detrimental to the mission. What happens then when the information does get out? Stifling criticism. They place sanctions on who ever is the whistle blower and if that doesn't work they pretend its not a big deal. I remember back in 2013 Bradley Manning a prior military member was prosecuted for sharing classified information over the internet. The amount of information hidden from the masses is overwhelming. As we progress with the new generation, however, it becomes more and more difficult to hide information from the public. Some form of censorship is good with the likes of high risk military missions and covert operations but we have to draw a line as to what information is withheld form us. We need to use critical thinking to interpret and pick out information passed on to us. Big brother technology. Advancement in technology permits sharing of data, on a positive note it is easier to spread information and it is harder to hide facts from the masses and control information. On the other side of the spectrum, however, technology permits the elites to monitor citizens without anyone knowing they are being watched (Henslin ch. 7, pg 204). This alone provides the elites with immense advantage. The elites even have access to our
We are letting the dominant group remain in power and limit our will because we have a financial disadvantage to the rest of the world because of our style and taste. However, reading this book about social stratification is the basics of what controls our mind and how we accept that control. I recommend this book to anyone who is committed to understand the class system. After reviewing this book I have came to terms that no matter where I go I will always label people for what they may or may not
In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a former United States military analyst employed by the RAND Corporation, instigated a national political controversy when he released the top-secret Pentagon Papers to The New York Times (Bean, 2014). These papers exposed presidential deception about the Vietnam War by revealing that the U.S. had secretly enlarged the scale (Bean, 2014). In 2010, Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, a U.S. army soldier leaked the largest set of classified documents in history to WikiLeaks (Bean, 2014). The information consisted of substantial archive of confidential government documents and the U.S. government has revealed that it was in the hands of Osama bin Laden (Bean, 2014). Even with the amount of information disclosed by these so called ‘whistleblowers,’ no official investigations into alleged war crimes or government misconduct has been issued (Bean, 2014). Both Ellsberg and Manning however, were charged with the Espionage Act of delivering factual information to American citizens. Ellsberg claimed, “The public is lied to every day by the president, by his spokespeople, by his officers. If you can't handle the thought that the president lies to the public for all kinds of reasons, you couldn't stay at that government at that level, where you're made aware of it, a week.” (Kreisler, personal communication, 1998). The privacy and civil rights abuses along with fear of...
Social stratification as defined by Brinkerhoff et al. is “an institutionalized pattern of inequality in which social statuses are ranked on the basis of their access to scarce resources” (Brinkerhoff et al. 152). By scarce resources, many people have to deal with poverty and having a lack of money to buy the things they need in their lives. Social class is defined as “a category of people who share roughly the same class, status, and power and who have a sense of identification with each other” (Brinkerhoff et al. 155). Your social class has to do with your socioeconomic status along with the power and connections you have. Social mobility on the other hand is “the process of changing one’s social class” (Brinkerhoff et al. 153).
Ideology is defined as the representation of the imaginary relationship of the individuals to the real conditions of their existence. This creates an air of false consciousness that conceals the truth, controls class conflicts, and maintains the status quo. Ideological State Apparatuses, the institutions in which ideology operates, imposes onto individuals a designated role, or forme, and restricts their ability to transcend those objective roles. Since humans cannot recognize themselves outside of their assigned ideologies, they must acquire their identities by seeing themselves through the perception of others. (Althusser ISA's)
Stratification systems, categorized people by class, gender, ethnicity, wealth/income. When people are categorized, start looking at different systems within the social system or social mobility. “The four main systems of stratification have been slavery, caste, estate, and class. Each of these systems allows greater or less flexibility in terms of social mobility. Social mobility is the ability to move up or down within a social stratification hierarchy” (Larkin, 2015). Slavery is a social status began with social norms allowing people to own others. The slaves had no wealth or power while under this social status. Caste systems are all aspects of social status are assigned at births and held forever,
“You ruin your life by desensitizing yourself” (Sparacino, n.d.). This quote by Bianca Sparacino (n.d.) points out the gravity of the impact desensitization can have on someone. When the word “desensitization” comes up, people tend to think of an emotionally insensitive or callous human. Although this is true, desensitization involves much more than most realize. Whatever leads someone to the point of desensitization takes hold of their emotions, actions, and mind. The term “desensitization” can be defined as overstimulation to the point of indifference, a lack of empathy, and a conditioned response.
The United States government has been known to high known secrets from the public. Now the public wants to know what they have been hiding and why it was so needed to be under cover that they had to literally have many cover ups like with the UFOs and with the Watergate scandal and with other many scandals that or cover ups that happened in the United States. The best solution to this problem would be to have where the United States government reveals the secrets to the public without scaring the public into doing other stuff and causing riots there should be a limitation on what we should know. The point that needs to be saying is that the government wants to scare the people into thinking that if they can find out all the information because
What is inequality, social structure and social stratification? According to Study.com social inequality is, “the existence of unequal opportunities and rewards for different social positions or statuses within a group or society.” Sociology.about.com says, “Social structure is the organized pattern of social relationships and social institutions that together compose society.” Wikipedia says Social stratification, is “a society 's categorization of people into socioeconomic strata, based upon their occupation and income, wealth and social status, or derived power”.
Social stratification has been around all through out history in all kinds of different societies. Newman defines social stratification as “the ranking of entire groups of people that perpetuates unequal rewards and life chances in a society” (Newman 2014). Stratification categorizes people into social classes based upon their occupation, wealth, income, social status, and power in society. This creates social inequality because people who fall into the lower social classes don’t have the same opportunities to thrive in society as people in the higher classes.
Similarly some information are kept from being publicized to the whole world by the government. Wikileaks has done otherwise: material that they disclosed to the world was sensitive material that belonged to the g...
First, the chapters cover stratification. According to study.com “Social stratification refers to a system by which a society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy. In the United States, it is perfectly clear that some groups have greater status, power, and wealth than other groups.” According to the textbook “Stratification is unequal distribution of valued
Ideologies are mental systems that organize socially shared attitudes, and these mental systems are social representations that function as “models which control how people act, speak or write or how they understand the social practices of others” (van Dijk, 1995: 2).
It is reasonable to argue that, governmental institutions or people with authority are subject to withhold a great deal of information from society. Many may argue that secrets are kept to ensure the safety of the nation. Thus, upholding the governmental duty of protecting the nation against possible threats. On the other hand, many believe that secrets may exist which violate our constitutional rights. Over the last year, Edward Snowden, has made headline news for leaking sensitive governmental information to the press. Edward Snowden is a 29-year-old high school drop-out, who was a tech specialist for the National Security Association. Snowden had discovered and later exposed the NSA for monitoring the nations e-mails, phone calls, and internet searches. As the allegations spread like wild fire, Edward Snowden sought asylum in Russia for one year. Snowden had a valid and justifiable reason to expose the NSA to the world because they were in violation of our fourth Amendment rights to unreasonable searches and seizures. The government called him a traitor, while others viewed him as a hero for exposing the government. Edward Snowden is a whistle blower because he felt that it is up to society to decide if governmental practices are just or unjust. Snowden does “express the highest respect for the law”, and he wanted to protect the right of privacy for American citizens.
Apart from the natural differences, human beings are also differentiated according to socially approved criteria that are upheld. Haralambos, Holborn and Heard (2004:p 1) stated that social stratification is a form of social inequality that represents distinct social groups which are ranked about the other in terms of factors such as prestige and wealth. Social Stratification draws attention to unequal positions occupied by individuals in society. In the modern industrial world the stratification system that has been dominant is a class system. Sociologists such as Karl Marx, Max Weber, Davis and Moore have all added their perspectives to social stratification. Perspectives of social stratification include the functionalist perspective, the conflict perspective and Weber’s class stratification. Class stratification proposed by Max Weber best describes social stratification in the English speaking Caribbean. Weber believed that social stratification results for competition for scarce resources in the society. Like Marx, Weber believed that class is based on power and the distribution of that power, Weber proposed that power is not limited to economic dimension but also involves social and political dimensions as well. Empirical studies in the Caribbean have mainly focused on class distinction, status hierarchy and power. Class, status, party and power are dimensions Max Weber class stratification perspective that is most relevant in the English speaking Caribbean.
Most people have heard about live theatre and what tends to happen during the plays. It seems that many people however still do not attend live theatre, and each person has a different opinion about why people do not go. There seem to be many differences between both that keep people away from live theatre. However, are these difference the actual reasons in why live theatre is not as popular as movie theaters? Meghan Milewski is a junior at UIS and is heavily involved in the theatre program at UIS.