Sociology and Folk

A look at society among other subjects such as psychology, philosophy, and ethics.

[gonialmonica]

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This is a song about my probation officer

[cardiostimulator-deactivated201]

[gonialmonica]

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Since its not strictly a sociology blog, fuck it, here's my cover of From Here to Utopia by Ramshackle Glory.

[xxiacedia]

"I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating."

- Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness

Artwork: Untitled by Rory Kurtz

[gonialmonica]

Non-Organic Beauty's Purpose

    Beauty has never really been in question, organically that is. Features of the opposite gender that seem to help progress the race evolutionarily, or that are simply useful,  are features that are attractive to the opposite gender, plain and simple. But why is the sunset beautiful, and why is art beautiful? Some portions are obvious, such as how certain colors thrive on our primal instincts, such as how blue calms us down because it reminds us of the tranquility and safety of day as opposed to night, or how green boosts creativity and motivation due to our association with vegetables, but its not really that simple with some things, because a sun set should be daunting to us with how it should remind of that night is on its way so we need shelter, but it still gives us a neurological reaction to see beauty in it. Why is that?     Well some obviously come from our genes, such as gene DRD3, which releases dopamine during noval experiences, but that's only active in about half the population, so some of it also stems from nostalgia from early childhood, but its also an instinctive thing as well; to keep us from killing ourselves. Humans are some of the few organisms that will off themselves for selfish reasons, coming from our early formation of sentience and self awareness, and we need a reason to continue living. We need to ascertain reasons to keep living, because its a harsh world, and its hard to find something to keep us going through day by day.     We humans can find beauty in many forms, such as music, art, the outdoors, and whatever we find we are nostalgic for, and beauty in itself is a beautiful thing because it ameliorates us to find meaning in the world we live in other than simple survival. We all need a reason to keep going, and sometimes its really tough to find that reason.

[gonialmonica]

"It should be clear that the most severe penalty a man can suffer who refuses to govern is to be governed by someone worse than himself. I think it is a fear of an eventual that makes the better man agree to take office. They do not anticipate either benefits or enjoyment; rather they assume political power as a necessary evil, for the reason that they can find neither better men nor equals to govern in their stead" -Socrates in, "The Republic," by Plato

[gonialmonica]

The Concept of Evil synopsis

As a preface to this, this is an early synopsis on the concept of evil, so I won't have a download to a full pdf of it at the bottom just yet, but there will be an updated version soon to come. I only have about three pages written so far and I intend on having around 15-20 pages.

      Evolution has taught us that when things become vestigial, they fade away, such as our coccyx or our wisdom teeth, but our population is too large for those to go away so they are, in a way, a legacy of our barbaric past when we would lose teeth more often, or when we had tails. Evolution isn't strictly organic, however, it can happen interpersonally, geographically, or, most interestingly, socially. We abolished slavery, but we have remnants of it through racism and subjugation; they have become vestigial, if not a hindrance to society.

     There are many social constructs other than racism and slavery that have been abolished from society, such as the caste system, inequality, proper education, and extremist leftist/rightist political ideology, but one social construct, which still has slight purpose, is the concept of evil. I say concept, because evil does not exist outside of our human perception, same goes for good, as both are subjective and social driven. Evil has been used as a means of controlling the masses through the use of creating a common enemy for society, thereby deeming the opposing society as evil, however the opposing society now sees the original society as evil, so neither can be deemed good or bad.

     Without the concept of evil in our political system, the world could unite to solve the problems humanity has created, such as climate change, over population, and because of the latter, food production, and those will become the evil that replace societal evil, such as Japan vs China, the United States vs the Soviets, North Korea vs South Korea, etc.

     Before the Abrahamic-monotheistic, black and white thinking, early religions got that the idea of evil comes from the taoist idea of everything has an opposite, but some religions such as the Bahá'í Faith believed that that idea is a human perception misconception, similar to how if it isn't hot, its cold, or if there isn't knowledge, there is ignorance, but these come from a human bias. Is a monkey ignorant, or is its knowledge being placed elsewhere based on its environment?