Social Control and Symbolic Interactionism in Literature Essay

Throughout history, many civilizations have had ideas on how to properly manage a society. These ideas go as far back as ancient Greece and the philosopher Socrates, but the most notable and widely accepted ideas on this come from the philosophers Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Their ideas about how a society should be run were known as social contract theories, and although their ideas were different, they all had a common theme that would shape today's definition of the social contract. A Social Contract is basically an agreement between the members of a society to work together for mutual benefit. All the philosophers deemed a social contrast necessary for a properly functioning society.

In “Higher Education and the ‘American Dream’: Why the Status Quo won’t get us there” by Sara E. Keene asserts that in order to achieve a successful life, college should be able to make students become intuitive, studious and persistent . In Keene’s first attempts in college, she came to a conclusion that the “American Dream” has become unattainable to numerous amounts of students. The reason behind Keene’s statement is that most colleges do not challenge the minds of their students for the sake of saving students’ dignity in themselves. Therefore, these students can not achieve their full intellectual potential. They are not able to climb up the socioeconomic ladder of their careers, which subsequently harms their chances in obtaining the “American Dream.”

Hobbes believes that in the state of nature, man has no power to control others, and because of this, everyone is aggressive towards one another, as no one can trust another. Because of this, social order is necessary to give man incentive towards cooperation and trust, by selling your individual rights to freedom in order to gain social rights of security and safety. The role of the social order is to combat man’s aggressiveness, man’s power to hurt one another and direct this towards positive social ends instead of destructive.

Charles Murray’s essay proposes that American colleges are being flooded with individuals who are either unprepared for higher education or who are simply forced into attending college and can’t succeed because of the lack of certain innate abilities. Murray’s essay goes on to take issue with the idea that the pursuit of a traditional college education is somehow strategically creating a separation of the American class system. While Murray makes many salient points with regards to America’s obsession with college education as a standard into a class of the intellectual elite, the essay fails to take into consideration the various motivators that can lead to student success, despite

Ever since a young age, the youth of the United States are taught that they must strive to be the best they can be. This would ultimately result in one possessing a competitive edge, once one enters the selection process of joining one of many higher institutions of education or the job market. In the essays “Project Classroom Makeover,” “Biographies of Hegemony,” and “Rent Seeking and the Making of an Unequal Society,” respectfully by, Cathy Davidson, Karen Ho, and Joseph Stiglitz, the topic of competitive behaviors and practices is widely addressed and heavily criticized. Education is competitive, yet bias. Institutions of higher education value students based irrelevant factors, something which is unacceptable in the modern, digital age. This heavily impacts the selection process of candidates, leading the system to favor unqualified individuals. Prevalent business superpowers, many residing in Wall Street, pick low hanging fruit. In other words, these firms take very minimal effort to choose candidates in positions that are extremely competitive and valuable. They recruit individuals who graduate from top schools and have no other realistic edge for the company, aside from namesake. Woven into these practices, many examples of uncompetitive behavior arise as well from other factors of the system. In this essay, I argue that competitive and uncompetitive behaviors have molded modern America, with massive organizations and authorities playing into these behaviors from all

Hobbes believed that people should not possess any rights, because if we did, chaos would be created. Chaos would come afloat because humans are greedy, selfish and self-interested, making us unable to think of anyone else but ourselves. Our responsibilities would be to simply follow the “ king’s” rules, or in a society like ours, simply follow the laws. Ultimately in Hobbes's ideal society people would have no freedom and one responsibility, with the exception of the king who is in charge of keeping order; thus making his/her rights and responsibilities flexible. He thought this was because, during the English revolution, the chaos was created because people opposed the leader, and instead disagreed with him and his ruling

America has transitioned from the land of unconditional opportunity to the land of predetermined success. However, this can’t be a surprise with by “2000, the top 1 percent of households holding more wealth than the entire bottom 95 percent” (Draut 21). This fact is still true today, with the top 1% holding, “35.6% of all private wealth” ("Facts and Figures in 99 to 1). Now the impact this has is, with attending college being the route to wealth more than ever, prosperity in United States is becoming a game only the privileged can play. “Nearly three quarters of students at the nation’s top 146 colleges come from families in the top quarter of the socioeconomic status (SES) scale” (Draut 48), leaving millions of Americans from reaching their full potential. It goes beyond race, even though lineage and class have a huge correlation. The fact that if you don’t have money in the United States from birth, your opportunities are significantly limited. This is proved with only 3% of freshman from the bottom quarter income bracket going to the top colleges (Colleges, American Association Of Community). A large reason for this is the fact that government funding for students college education has largely decreased with student loans/debt being more prominent. Added to this is the fact that many minority communities are still living with the repercussions of America’s white prejudice past.

While America continues to battle racial inequality, the education gap in our country continues to spike. The most influential growth has been the importance of education over the years. A high school diploma will not allow an individual to climb the ladder of success without attaining a Bachelor’s degree or some form of proper education. Education in America is considered to be valuable and an important dimension of one’s life. Researchers state that there is a definite link between the individual’s zip code and their chances of success (Ireland, 2016). Individuals are often ranked based on the kind of degree and education one possesses. In America, researchers have stated in order to be “accepted” as a member in a status group it requires certain credentials (Ireland, 2016). Several see education as a key to maintain status and prestige, because individuals believe by attaining an education allows them to advance in society. Researchers then state that attaining a proper education benefits the class structure by

Hobbes believed that in nature people had to do whatever was necessary to survive and that even if living together, people were still likely to fight. His view of people was dark and most likely due to the horrors of a series of political schemes and armed conflicts he had seen during the English Civil War. He believed that a contract was necessary. Hobbes felt that people were not capable of living in a democratic society. Instead, a single dominant ruler was needed, and if everyone did their part, then the community would function smoothly. Hobbes’ theory is unlike Locke and Rousseau’s. He believed that once the people gave power to the government, the people gave up the right to that power. It would essentially be the cost of the safety the people were seeking.

Hobbes’s suggested government is needed to take control of senseless and lawless people. But how were the government formed in the first place? The government must be formed by the group of individuals and they are capable of limiting people’s action to do create certain action and most of those are the crime. Wouldn’t it mean even though some people were born bad, they must have realized what is right and wrong? Benedict would disagree with Hobbes’s point about humans being equally bad. However, Hobbes does have some approach towards human nature that is similar to Benedict’s. Individuals being under control by government is somewhat a relationship between individuals and society, similar to Benedict’s idea about how society “shapes” human nature and vice versa. Both philosophers have the same idea about how individuals and society are interlocked since the government is a group of people and they have an impact on individuals life alike to Benedict’s claim. Without individuals, there would be no society and without

In a community some form of order is an essential foundation for people to live and interact together. ‘’Order is part of the way people both imagine and practise their social existence.’’ (Silva et al., 2009, p. 311) Taylor (2004, p.58) argued that ‘’ the human capacity to imagine order is at the foundation of society itself.’’ (Taylor, cited in Silva et al., 2009 p.311) Social order draw in imagination, practices, the fitting together of people and things, and ideas about the past and the future. (Silva et al., 2009)There are many explanations of how social order is produced, Erving Goffman (1959, 1971 and 1972) and Michel Foucault

From the complex ideas introduced in the selected passage, Hobbes proceeds to construct a very significant yet disputable argument in which he encourages the need to submit ourselves to political authority. He justifies that although men are rational they are naturally self-interested and thus require the authority of a sovereign to govern them. The

According to Hobbes, human nature is such that if there were no rules or a law enforcing

American society values higher education. College provides many opportunities for developing a variety of social networks, both formal and informal. Obtaining a college degree will be such a valuable and

Without knowing it, social order is very important in everyday life. As Elizabeth Silva says ‘social order is a key principle of living together’ (Reflections on Ordered Lives, 2009, Audio). The ordering of social life can be looked at in many ways. However, two theories stand out when looking at the making of social order, that of Erving Goffman and Michel Foucault. Both of these theories are concerned with how society is produced and, more specifically, how social order is made and remade. While the two theories aim to understand a broad picture of understanding society, they do so in very different ways. They both split the big questions down into smaller ones, Goffman looks at how an individual creates order, and Foucault looks at how