Learning to See the Multiple Realities That Exist in the World

I’ve had this list, given to me by my foundations of sociology professor, hanging on the fridge in my apartment since last spring. The list consists of nine ground rules for “learning to see the multiple realities that exist in the world.” Among these, the one that has stood out for me the most has been number five: “Agree not to blame individuals for the condition of their lives; you and they did not get to choose the circumstances into which you were born.” As a sociology major I make an effort to preface my inquiries and studies with this perspective. After all, studying social life objectively is what we aim to do in sociology, yet for many people this is often misunderstood: “so, you study what everyone already knows,” a friend once told me. No, we study what everyone has an opinion on, but in an objective manner absent of the biases of our lived experiences. Or, so we aim to. Ultimately, of course, our lived experiences are inextricable from our opinions. Just as the issues we study in sociology are created through the intricacies of external forces, so too are our beliefs shaped. That is not to say agency and autonomy do not play a role in this process, but we all too often dismiss the complexities of social problems as the result of personal decisions or blame them on superficial differences like race, sex, or age. We then bridge the gap between differences and behavior, abandon our inquisitive nature, and confirm our beliefs through selective attention, and alas, oppressive isms are born. I bring this up hoping not to sound preachy, although it may already appear that way, but because I think it is extremely relevant in this previous weeks topic.

Looking through some of the other blog posts and hearing some of the perspectives given in class, it became evident to me that we've reached some topics which will expose different opinions. Our authors for this weeks’ readings, Wilson in particular, echo this idea of contrasting perspectives and suggests that although highly contentious, topics like the welfare state and poverty should be examined from a macro level perspective. This is not often the case, unfortunately. The dominating voice has long suggested that welfare is responsible for the creation of an urban underclass and that said class is perpetuated through personal behavior and a culture of poverty. Common discourse among the privileged asserts “If I can do it, so can they” and “If they can’t, they must have chosen not to.” Cue ground rule number two: “Understand that denial of inequality by the privileged is one way of maintaining privilege.” This second ground rule suggests that in order to understand the struggles of others we must first be able to recognize our own relative position within society. For many this is a challenge; examining our own privilege makes us vulnerable and threatens our egos, and yet doing so can reveal the ways in which our lives have been externally shaped and allow us to consider how the lives of others have been as well.

Reading Wilson and Massy’s discussion on the urban underclass and ghetto reminded me of this. Both authors posit a social structural force at play in the creation of an urban underclass. For Wilson, the disadvantages facing social dislocations have been exacerbated through social isolation, a distinct separation between occupants of the underclass and mainstream society. Introspectively, who I am has been largely shaped by the community I was born into. Raised in a middle class rural town with good schools and in a good neighborhood has certainly impacted my life in a way I often take for granted. Wilson suggests that just as this has positively impacted my life, so too have social limitations negatively impacted impoverished areas, the result of social hierarchy and the exodus of the middle class. For Massy and Denton this division was enacted not so much by class differences, but by racism and clear residential segregation. In chapter two of American Apartheid they highlight the ways in which blacks have been explicitly segregated and discriminated against in housing access and residential zones. Unfortunately, this is frequently discredited with ignorant claims of equality (i.e. “Equal opportunity, different outcome!” - White Man born in America). Despite the overwhelming evidence provided by Wilson, Massy and Denton, these ideas still wrongly pervade our society - that somehow the inequalities we see are the result of personal affect, rather than historical and contemporary oppression. Considering the previously discussed ground rules, perhaps given a different perspective we could eventually begin to make progress towards equality.