soc

Joy Marie Prior; February 11, 2010; Sociology 112H; Section 04; Question number 1
When I first started thinking about what has changed social inequality throughout the ages I was thinking that skill level is one of the determining factors of social inequality. For example a hunter gather society values hunters, farming societies value farmers, industrial societies value industrial worker, and the postindustrial generation values (I think) professionals. Would providing everyone with a the right marketable skill or talent close the social gap. What really got my brain thinking in this chapter was on page 73 when the author mentions Hobbes and how “he believed that civilization was “nasty, brutish, and short.” This has often described our carton image of the “caveman,” who himself is nasty, brutish and short, and lives just such a life.” I like to think a more highly of the “caveman” age, and I imagine them working together, hunting together, and cooking together.
There were skills specific to that society that created social status, such as being a talented hunter would give you more voice. I was thinking about talents and inequality while I read chapter 3, because I am not sure if our talents can really make us all equal. There is obviously inequality around the world just in the few examples the author mentions: his own German ancestors, racial differences, language, and so on. I was mainly thinking about inequality in talents though. Particularly how different talents and skills have determined the upper class throughout the ages.
One of the passages that stuck out to me in the book Worlds Apart Social Inequalities in a Global Economy on page 62 “You may also know people who “have it made” and wonder how they got to where they are. If you ask them, most will decline to claim special talents or brilliance; instead, they’re likely to say something about diligence and hard work.” Could it be possible that some people naturally have the talents diligence and hard worker? The idea that such things can be talents lead me back to the nature versus nurture debate, and if we are born hard workers or learn to be hard workers. If we could learn to be hardworking and hard work is the only talent that gets people to the top of society then wouldn’t everyone who is hardworking be successful
I was really concentrating on Hobbes while I read about how in our postindustrial economy talents like hard work and diligence really come in handy. I guess when is there a time in history when those talents not come in handy? So if hard work and diligence are appear throughout history why is it that I someone is hardworking, and diligent they don’t always make it. I think that simply giving people needed skills and talents for that society are not enough to cause equality. In my last class we discussed how in historical Japan the farmers were just under the highest class. It went Samurai, farmers, and then the artisans and merchants. This was because the people recognized that without the farmer there would be no food, and so they were put into an honored part of society. All the same the farmers lived under a crushing taxation and did not have much political influence. Although farmers were considered a level of honor in society there was a prevalent amount of social inequality.
Would providing everyone with the right marketable skill or talent close the create inequality. I don’t think so, because just as the skills and talents like hunting are not the needed skills today, and the needed skills for today are continually changing. I believe that one of the determining of inequality is that people who possess the needed skills for that society advance only as long as that is the modern skill needed. I don’t think that this is a new idea, but I believe it more and more.