Devry SOCS185 Week 1 Discussion Latest 2022 March

SOCS185 Culture and Society

Week 1 Discussion

Personal Experiences in Social Societies

Consider your current situation: your career, your relationships, your financial circumstances, your physical and mental well-being, and so on. Is your current status purely the outcome of free will, meaning the personal decisions and choices you have made in life, or are there social forces at work that have taken you to this point in life?

While most would acknowledge that we do have some agency over our lives, sociologists believe that free will is limited, and that the social world guides our life choices in much the same way that the physical world influences our choice of clothing or the type of food we feel like eating. Sociologists believe our successes aren't due purely or even primarily to hard work and good character, and that our failures can't be put down to a lack of those qualities either.

Sociologists believe that the biggest and most persistent problems in society, such as poverty, homelessness, drug addiction, racism and many others, are caused by social policies, not individual human failings. By that same logic, it follows that addressing these issues requires systemic change.

For this discussion, think about a problem that you - or someone you know personally - have experienced. In your estimation, to what degree was this problem due to individual choices, and to what degree were larger social forces at work? Describe those forces. What social policy changes could help address this problem?