Sociological Imagination Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Sociological Imagination - Essay Example According to Robert Weiss, there are two types of loneliness. In social isolation, a person feels deprived of a network of friends or relatives; in emotional isolation, a person feels deprived of a single, intense relationship. These two kinds of loneliness share a common emotional core, and there is some debate about how clearly they can be distinguished (Russell et al., 1984). Either one can be momentary or a long-lasting characteristic of the individual. Emotional Isolation often strikes the war veterans at the same time as social anxiety and depression. Like social anxiety, emotional isolation and depression are characterized by the deliberating pattern of social interaction. Social anxiety comes in two varieties. The state of social anxiety is a momentary experience that flares up at a certain time or in a certain place, and then passes. The trait of social anxiety is more enduring: a characteristic of certain individuals that persists over time and across situations. For those chronically afflicted, their anxiety locks them into increasingly unpleasant social interactions. Such individuals tend to reject other people, perhaps because they fear being rejected themselves. They are withdrawn and ineffective in social interactions, perhaps because they perceive negative reactions even where there are none. In fact, however, other people often do react negatively to interactions with socially anxious individuals. Feelings of social discomfort can arise from a number of sources. They can be a learned reaction of to unpleasant encounters, as social problems in the past contribute to social anxiety about the future. That is why, it has often been seen that war veterans usually suffer anxiety. Depression: Depression is a psychological disorder characterized by negative moods, low esteem, pessimism, lack of initiative, and slowed thought process. Although there are numerous influences on depression, social psychologists have paid particular attention to the role of cognitive factors. Researchers believed that depression is caused due to the exposure to uncontrollable, aversive stimulation. They proposed that organisms exposed to an uncontrollable event learn something- namely that control is not possible. Faced with this knowledge, they stop trying to exert control even in a different situation. That is the case of war veterans. They have seen too much cruelty, huge toll of human lives, immense loss of property and resources, heinous and inhuman war crimes; and above-all the aftermath-miseries, diseases and moral decay, over which they have no control whatsoever. This feeling of

Two Journal Entries Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Two Journal Entries - Essay Example If the protection of the environment will be disregarded and we would resort to wanton use of our resources, it would take its toll in the environment that nothing would be left for the future generation to sustain itself except environmental degradation. Taking care of the environment however is a concerted effort and a global concern. In as much as we do our part here in the US, our counterpart in China or India must also do its share in preserving the environment. For what point will it make when we lessen our carbon footprint here when else where in the world is excessive. b. My persuasion is simple but compellig, if we do not act today, we will have another planet in a decade. The damage is already irreversibe and the talks about climate change is real. See Katrina? Tornadoes, floods here and there? They are just the preliminaries of a damaged world. If we continue doing what we are doing right now, the worst is yet to come. a. Journal entry #2: Question 1 under "Writing From th e Text" Hesse summarized the modern organic consumer’s pretension with colorful words such as the oxymoron green consumer, conspicuous and patron of the culture of obsolescence. These are pretenses because these consumerist habits defeat the very purpose of going green and organic of which it was supposed to serve. As Hesse put it, â€Å"It's done with the best of intentions† (page number). Despite all these trumpeting about taking good care of the environment, they still â€Å"buy a lot. They drive a lot (page number)." Hesse called it the oxymoron green consumer because people still buy a lot of putative organic products not realizing that the same habit of over consumption is what takes its toll on the environment. As Hesse would put it "The greenest products are the ones you don't buy." Such, buying a lot, albeit well intended defeats the purpose. This consumerist tendency is done through conspicuousness thinking that if we flaunt that we are buying â€Å"greenâ €  and â€Å"organic† it would make us feel good. The conspicuousness corrupted the organic initiative because it was made as a marketing attraction for even to consume more to the point that â€Å"we buy and buy and hope we're buying the right  other  things, though sometimes we're not sure† (page number). And this is highlighted with our deeply ingrained sense of riding the fad of replacing things that we still need. We used organic and going green as an excuse to â€Å"consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate." b. I know a lot of people like this. My neighbor is one. Actually, I was thinking about her when I wrote this paper. When the hybrid cars became in vogue, she readily purchased one even is just purchased a huge SUV. All in all, they got four cars and two SUV’s and there’s just two of them (the other is a husband). Not only that, she virtually changed all here television with that earth friendly television and come to think of it, her television were just a couple of years old and there were five of them. Just last month, she had her who house renovated (at around 800 square meter two stories) to make it more â€Å"nature friendly†according to her. She justifies her latest conspicousness that it is â€Å"hybrid† (for the new cars) anyway and for the replacements and renovations as for the environment. So the purchases were just okay even if they were not