Have you ever thought that you and your parents live in separate worlds? I know that I did when I was a teenager. And you know what? You’re right! Your parent may listen to Chino Moreno from the Deftones sing and say, “Why does he have to sound like that?!?!?!” And then they point to the “beautiful voice” of Charlotte Church and tell you “now that’s the way singing is supposed to sound.” It’s kind of amazing, but people can look at the same thing and see very different worlds. Think about this story: There once was a group of blind men who examined an elephant, and each, by his individual experience of the animal, drew very different conclusions about the nature of an elephant. One determined that an elephant is like a very smelly rope (based on the tail); another said that an elephant is like a tree trunk (based on a leg), yet another concluded that an elephant is like a brick wall (based on the side), and the last one said that an elephant is like a hose (based on the trunk). Forrest Gump may be right and life is like a box of chocolates. But the world is like an elephant too: what you see is what you get! (And what you see depends on where you stand.)
So, what does this have to do with sociology? Good question. Sociology is an academic discipline that generally uses scientific methods to understand how social factors influence human thought, feelings, and behaviors. We're going to find out just what that means in a little bit. But right now I want you to consider that sociology is simply one perspective. It's just one way of looking at the world. (I think it is a pretty good way, especially because it can be critically reflexive, but that's beside the point right now.) And like all perspectives, it tends to tell us what to see (and what not to see)!
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