Dynamic Nominalism

While these white punks were able to return to their middle-class, financially stable lives, many minorities had no choice but to live in the cheap apartments they were offered at the time. Although the intention of the white punks may have been to unify all races under the label of ‘punk’, they actually reinforced clear differences between the two groups. The lifestyle became a desired object to white privileged punks into which they launched themselves head-on. The white punks desired to internalize the struggle rather than be contradictory by singing about it and not actually living it. White punks believed that by doing this, they were not only eliminating race within the punk subculture, but they were also furthering their own participation within the subculture by creating a “self-imposed minority”2 and an “appropriation of Otherness”2.

Some of those youths spent that income on new fashions popularized by American soul groups, soon enough these youths became known as mods, a youth subculture noted for its consumerism and devotion to fashion and music and in the 1970s and 80s the youth subculture of the skinheads was formed. • This is England (2006) depicts an honest and accurate account of the subculture of ‘skin heads during the 1980s, after the Falkland’s war so their clothing no doubt an expression of youthful angst in a troubled era. • Jeans, shirts, braces and doc Martens became iconic clothing amongst the skinhead subculture and their shaved heads on both men and woman signified defiance against society. The clothing was ‘media of information’ (Barnard, 21, 2007) about the person who is wearing it. • These items acted as a code that needed a decryption in order to understand what kind of person is underneath it.

Symbolic Interactionism (1)- The theory of symbolic interactionism conveys how society is made up of symbols that create meaning, develop communication, and produce world views. At the North Hanover Mall all interactions and even moods were established because of simple symbols. The overall mood of the mall was almost the same form person to person, a look of boredom was on the faces of many whether young or old. The attitude seemed to appear in people shortly after they entered the mall, once they had observed other individual’s body language and expressions, they shifted theirs as if they were trying to fit in with the crowd. Contrastingly when an employee

Dalton Conley’s book, You May Ask Yourself, defines sociological imagination as, “The ability to connect the most basic, intimate aspects of an individual’s life to seemingly impersonal and remote historical forces” (Conley 2015, pg. A-11). Sociological Imagination is the idea of being able to step outside of the box, and evaluate society from an alternative point of view. Symbolic Interactionism, norms, socialization, and the idea of understanding yourself vs. understanding the social aspect of society, are some of the key concepts mentioned throughout this paper, to help break apart what the sociological imagination consists of. Society is changing a lot, and change can sometimes make it hard to cope with the world around us. Sociological imagination is a lot deeper than just common sense. Author of The Sociological Imagination, C. Wright Mills states, “ Talking about sociological imagination is what makes us feel more grounded in the face of all these changes” (C. Wright Mills). If I keep an open mind, and pay attention to the larger world around me, I am better to understand the connections of what is going on in my individual life, and what is going on in the social world.

The sociological Imagination template is a tool that is used for social analysis (Germov, 2014). Social imagination was devised by Charles Wright Mills (as cited in Germov, 2014), to explain the “sociological approach to analysing issues” (p. 7).

In Justin Pearson's memoir, From the Graveyard of the arousal Industry, he recounts the events that occured from his early years of adolesence to the latter years of his adulthood telling the story of his unforgiving and candid life. Set in the late 1970s "Punk" rock era, From the Graveyard of the Arousal Industry offers a valuable perspective about the role culture takes in our lives, how we interact with it and how it differs from ideology.

Labels are everywhere. Whether conscious or subconsciously, they are a fundamental part of our lives. We label together foods, clothing, colours and things that are alike. But what happens when we expand this form of “labelling” to split up types of people? When we assume character traits about those who belong to a certain group, this can intensely affect the way many react in life. Those who are judged for their sexual orientation, gender, income, mental problems etc., may eventually begin to conform to a stereotype that they belong to. In turn, this stereotyping may be the reason for certain people to partake in deviance acts.

From waking up to an alarm clock in the morning, to texting our friends during the day, to using an electric toothbrush at night, we have all relied on the use of technology. Today, technology has become an essential part of most people’s everyday lives. With the rapid growth of technology, we are continually discovering new ways to make our lives faster and simpler. However, there have been many debates regarding how these new methods have concerning side affects. A lot of concern is shown on our societies dependency upon these new innovations; our inability to cope with life without these useful but not necessary tools.

Labeling theory emerged as a perspective rather that a scientific theory (Cohn and Farrington 2012). After an initial enthusiasm in the 60’s and 70’s the theory followed disillusionment in the 90’s. It wasn’t until the early 2000’s that scholars tried to revive the theory. The aim of

Symbolic Interactionism suggest that humans define situations upon past experiences, and then act on those definitions. The legitimacy of the stratification structure is established and perpetuated through teaching beliefs to the young and enforcing those beliefs. Children are taught that ones place in the stratification

The authorities might feel threatened their hegemony, therefore they make an objection to confrontational topics and promote their own interests through media that has usually right-wing political nature. The subculture’s creativity involves polemics that try to oppose to traditional moral values; and these creative artists are often comes from young generation who wants to sell their work through provocative themes otherwise a project would not be able to sell itself. Music, for example, Emo- hard-core punk provides example of the criminalisation of culture. It is a youth movement based around clothing, music, and characterize a dark a view of the world. Members of this group adhere to a conventional cult in lifestyle with melancholy and emotions. Emo emerged in mid 1980s as post-hard-core style. Schoolgirl performed suicide because she wanted to impress other people from the emo movement (Alleyne, 2008). In the Daily Telegraph, Alleyne suggests that the authorities blame emo culture for ‘a self-harming youth cult which glamorises death’. The printed media try to associate Emo subculture with something controversial that has an image of a violent result and can lead to anarchy. In this case, the authorities try to make a link between the girl and a music band with its lyrics that might inspire her to commit a

What is social imagination? American sociologist C. Wright Mills describes social imagination as the ability to “think yourself away from the familiar routines of everyday life” and look at them from an entirely new perspective. Quite merely it is the insight offered by the discipline of sociology. An example of sociological imagination is the ability to see things interactively. For an individual too experience a sociological imagination, they must step outside of a certain situation and observe it from another point of view, an individual must step away from a personal experience and see how others are shaped through their values in the way they act.

Erikson 's theories were formulated, in part, on the back of his own adolescent experiences; growing up in fascist Germany as the child of a German father and Jewish mother, he agonized over his own cultural label in the face of the Third Reich. At the age of 37, he voiced his self-affirmation by renaming himself Erik Homburger Erikson. Literally, he redefined himself as his son; metaphorically, he redesigned himself as the culmination of the experiences of the first four decades of his life. Torn between his own unsteady conscience and the strident, crippling strains of Nazi propaganda, Erikson struggled to identify with his own notion of himself. This same dichotomy - the notion of a struggle between the inner self that one conceives, and the self-thrust upon us by the world - is the very fight that Turkle argues is necessary for the emergence of a purposeful, mature self. Today 's adolescents, she says, bombarded by the beeps, hums, and whirs of technology, have become co-dependent with the piece of metal of their choosing, unable to complete even the most basic human functions of prioritization, organization, and independent thought. Instead of enabling, technology effectively becomes a crutch -- an unwitting maneuver to postpone, conceal, and disingenuously morph. The price of quick-and-easy, Turkle contends, has been a debilitating mental servitude. Creating technology is in the hands of the people, and

Labelling theory refers to the ability to attach a label to a person or group of people and in so doing the label becomes more important than the individual. The label becomes the dominant form of identify and takes on ‘Master Status’ (Becker 1963; Lemert 1967) so that the person can no longer be seen other than through the lens of the label. Words, just like labels, are containers of meaning. In this case, the label and the meaning attached to it becomes all that the person is rather than a temporary feature of something that they have done or a way that they have behaved.

With the economic decline and availability of jobs with upward movement, a culture of youths formed in Britain that challenged the ideals and cultural norms of the generations that came before them. A consistent movement from traditional society through youth subcultures brings light through the eyes of the musicians that describe their generation’s feelings of homelessness in an era filled with unemployment, low wages, and violence. The insurgence of the counterculture movement, poor economic conditions, and the commercialization of previous Rock and Roll music in Britain directly led to the punk subculture because it allowed youths to speak up about their conditions and frustrations through an easily understood and accessible medium while maintaining a different stance than their predecessors.