| | >> Herbert Spencer had different ideas than August Comte because Spencer was born in a more prosperous and peaceful age, whereas Comte experienced the French Revolution which shaped his ideas. Spencer siad that society is a like a human body. He taught sociobiology which is biological determinism within the social order. The Bell Curve -- Spencer said that women are poor because they are stupid. Evolution put white men at the top, according to Sir Herbert Spencer.<<
[I've been doing pretty good in this class because I know the answer she needs, I sit close enough for her to hear me, and no one else knows the answer or wants to speak up. So, if it is not a rhetorical question, I'll answer it, and she can move on. That works well. In fact, it is an example of STRUCTURALISM or STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM in understanding social relations.]
However, she shut me up last night. I know from experience at this school that if she gets any more pissed off, she can -- and will -- have me removed from the class, academically dropped.
What happened last night is that she was talking about Marx. "My favorite guy. I love Marx." (blah blah blah) and then she said..."But Marx, communism, is perfect in theory, but not in practice, does not take gender and race differences into account." And I piped up with: "Well, first of all, if the theory does not work, what does that say about the theory? But Marx did take race and gender into account because according to communism, race and gender differences are used by the ruling class to keep workers separated and in a communist society, race and gender would be irrevelant." And she said, "First of all, you are being too assertive..."
... and then she went on to talk about the loss of communal values as rich farmers in an agricultural society would pay people to work for them and then skilled trades declined because people did not want to wait two weeks for a pair of customized handcrafted shoes for $20 when they can go to the village and buy one now for $5. ... Money defines who gets eduction, healthcare, and technology. And then several other students got to express their opinions about the relative success of communism as a system that almost worked pretty good in Romania where I am from, or in India, which I have read about, or in China, which does not have true communism, but Maoism.
And of course, we learned the first night that success comes from recognizing that there are no rights and wrongs, but only socially derived opinions, so I said said no more the rest of the class. From now on, I am sitting in the way back corner. I need to finish this class and all three professors are of the same stamp in this program. However... get this... there is young guy in back, who, on the first night, said that he wants to be a banker, and he is taking this class to see how other people think. So, there is hope for me -- and the world...
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