Understanding How Society Really Works

What is going on here? You'll be glad to know that this post answers that question and many others. I'll get right to it. I'm a sociologist, so my background so I am trained to approach the study of society in a systematic way. Sociology is the scientific study of society.

Sociologists, like other scientifically-minded types, focus on many different topics and pursue different specialties. Like the other sciences, sociology has many specialties. Nobody's just a sociologist. They are urban sociologists, or social theorists or environmental sociologists.

My purpose here is to comment on what's happening in the world, but from a sociological perspective. what's that? The ability to see general social patterns reflected in specific events, and the ability to put individual experiences in a broader cultural context. 

I also want to comment extensively on how statistics are used in public policy discussions. Regardless of the issue and your stance on that issue, I hope you would agree that it is better for people to know what they are talking about. It is certainly better to know when you are being mislead or flat-out lied to. A basic knowledge of how to use statistics will be critically important.

There's naturally more to the sociological perspective but some elements are common to all sciences. Sociologists have theories about different aspects of social life. Social research uses hypotheses and numerous research methods to test them.

You've almost certainly taken a survey in the past. I'm not talking about a market research survey either. Telephone polls about current events are one form of sociological research.
Here are some of the themes you can expect to see:

1. How to analyze what's going on in your world
2. How advertising and marketing affect us
3. How common errors in perception, logic, and reasoning shape society.
4. The benefits of social problems like crime and religious fundamentalism.
5. The functions of various patterns of behavior that seem crazy, archaic, or trivial.

If you want to experience a new way to think about current events or about the trivial aspects of everyday life or about the big questions about modern civilization, odds are good I'll soon be writing something that gets your brain working overtime.