The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    Stuff I Want to Learn: Sociology Edition

    By Orlando on Sun, 10/10/2010 - 9:49pm | Potpourri

    Yesterday, I went to the mall. This is not a new occurrence. I go to the mall almost every day. It is where the grocery store and the office supply store are, as well as the Starbucks and many, many restaurants. To get to the mall, I ride for about 10 minutes on a mini-bus, filled with people heading in my direction. Yesterday, the driver stopped on the way to fill up his tires. The compressor was owned by a guy who had set up a little business for himself on the side of the road. That’s also no big deal. Business regulation is a bit relaxed here in Jakarta—there are people selling all sorts of things in all sorts of places. As I waited patiently to resume my journey, it occurred to me that the man filling up the tires was dressed in clothing similar to what a gas station attendant would wear in the United States. The driver of the mini-bus, who belongs to what would be considered the blue collar class in the States, was dressed just like my cousins who pour concrete.

    I was struck by an idea and I started to look around at others. Students were not only dressed like students—jeans, t-shirts, cardigans or hoodies, bookbags—they stood like them, with slack shoulders and heads cocked slightly to the side wearing easy smiles. Security guards also shared similar posture, with their feet spread into a wide stance, backs straight, shoulders squared, chests out, and chins up. I realized that the rich housewives I see at the mall look exactly like rich housewives anywhere in the world, with their designer handbags, meticulously applied makeup, and basic disregard for anything happening around them as superfluous to their needs or intentions.

    I wondered then, where does this come from? How is it that societies on opposite sides of the planet, with different cultural and societal mores, develop similar archetypes, not in fiction, but in real life? I haven’t studied much sociology so I thought I’d appeal to those of you who have, or who simply have an opinion on the matter. What do you think?

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    Stuff I Want to Learn

    Comments

    I think O, that the current technology/media has something to do with it. That people are more aware of and interact with others a lot more easily that they ever could before. The homogeneous of Facebook and twitter.


    by cmaukonen on Sun, 10/10/2010 - 9:57pm

    I think you're definitely on to something, C--especially when it comes to clothing and probably attitude. But do you think it goes deeper? There have always been distinctions between classes, i.e. intellectual vs. military vs. farmers, etc. I understand why people in the same class within the same society share similar characteristics. But how has that managed to make its way around the globe? Even before technology brought us information on how other societies lived, intellectuals in many different countries shared similar characteristics, as did military personnel, as did farmers. Why? 


    by Orlando on Sun, 10/10/2010 - 10:05pm

    Oh absolutely O. especially those in the upper crust and teens for sure. With the images of those in the same group they see on satellite television, on the internet and in the news.


    by cmaukonen on Sun, 10/10/2010 - 10:45pm

    TV, I just read an article about how Murdoch is making a mint off of ME TV. Even in Iran. People put up receptors to catch satellite tv. The officials come by and take them down after issuing fines.

    A week later the receptors are back up.

    The internet access to mags helps out also.

    The human being wishes to do the right thing, walk the right way, dress in the right manner...

    All actors upon the stage...


    by Richard Day on Sun, 10/10/2010 - 10:56pm

    Yes, but it happened before satellite TV. Before the internet. Before movies were widely distributed internationally. What accounts for the basic sameness in groups across cultural boundaries?  


    by Orlando on Sun, 10/10/2010 - 11:01pm

    Tourism.  Before the tech, people were visiting them. Read about cargo cults O.


    by cmaukonen on Sun, 10/10/2010 - 11:11pm

    well, before tourism there were... the colonies.

    by Obey on Sun, 10/10/2010 - 11:44pm

    Colonies! Of course. Makes sense, Indonesia being a former Dutch colony and all. But I'm still not 100% satisfied. China and Japan and South Korea were never colonies, although they were invaded and/or visited by Europeans, so maybe that does explain the spread of class characteristics across cultures. Still, seems like these ideas have been in existence maybe even longer than that, at least in some of the literature coming out of ancient Rome and Greece and even in religious texts. 

    It comes down to a macro nature vs. nurture argument. Do we act the same as our class because we're hard wired to act that way, or is it learned behavior. Because it's so prevalent across societies, maybe it's a a sort of group natural selection trait? 


    by Orlando on Mon, 10/11/2010 - 1:20am

    O, you would love the book Guns, Germs and Steel. Here is the short wiki:

    Guns, Germs and Steel: A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years.[1] The book attempts to explain why Eurasian civilizations (including North Africa) have survived and conquered others, while attempting to refute the belief that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral or inherent genetic superiority. Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate in environmental differences, which are amplified by various positive feedback loops.

    It was on the NYT bestseller list and won multiple awards including a Pulitzer.

    It was made into a documentary as well by Nat Geo. Here is the link to watch online:

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4008293090480628280#


    by mageduley on Mon, 10/11/2010 - 1:55am

    Thanks, Mageduley! I've heard of that book before but I probably read one non-fiction book for every 50 novels. I'll put it on my list. Right now, I'm still trying to finish The God Delusion. And of course, Blowing Smoke is next up!


    by Orlando on Mon, 10/11/2010 - 2:17am

    We have them here too.

    (The original is no longer there, this one, though, ahowed up with a quick Googling.)


    by Austin Train on Mon, 10/11/2010 - 12:19am

    I suspect the underlying mindset was always there.  A peer group homogenizes itself according to its own characteristics.  That the manifestations are more in tune with each other irrespective of distances or the differences between their parent cultures is likely a consequence of the increased ability to spread such imagery worldwide.


    by Austin Train on Mon, 10/11/2010 - 12:26am

    When we observe people in unfamiliar cultures (or social mammals in flocks), the patterns of similarities in observed groups are more obvious (amplified) than the variations. This is a trick of the brain, which is a pattern-finding machine. (It's at the root of racism, at its worst, and innocent oversimplification, at best.)


    by Rootman on Mon, 10/11/2010 - 7:59am

    Great thinking-points, Orlando, as usual.  My "experience" from reading about tsarist Russia, the French pre-revolution, South American despots, and also China during the opium wars (as well as our own royalty, such as Hollywood. the Reagans, etc); is that the behavior was always the same, with cultural differences.  

     

    <p> In other words, totalitarian regimes could get away with more than others, but the sense of entitlement was always the same.  Now it is "globalized" because of the internet, the teevee, and easy international travel.  

     

    <p> Bottom line:  There is a common theme here, which is that only the rich matter.  The others will scrape by somehow.  Their particular personnae really are not what matters; it is their toxic behavior.


    by CVille Dem on Mon, 10/11/2010 - 7:46pm

    Angkots FTW! (I assume that's what you meant by "mini-bus").

    I miss those. I think we might all learn to be a get along a bit better if angkots were widely used back home. I suspect there might be something inherently civilizing about tooling around every day with a small group of strangers and sitting next to or face-to-face with all them. Maybe that's my sociology question...


    by Steve (not verified) on Tue, 10/12/2010 - 10:20am

    Yes, I do mean angkots! I'm forever bruised from climbing in and out of the Alice-in-Wonderland doors and cutting the corners too closely. They are not made for a 5'7" frame! But they do get me where I'm going quickly and cheaply! 


    by Orlando on Tue, 10/12/2010 - 1:42pm

    The writers of the HBO miniseries "John Adams" did a riff on exactly what you are talking about, as regards the minibuses of Adams' day. I thought it an incredibly memorable scene, it sticks in my mind (evidenced by your comment making me think of it!) And apparently others did too, because I just found out that it's available on YouTube:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JHDinpGIw

    It's not long and I recommend a watch.

    (A side note explanation of some shots one sees in there for those not up on the related history: when he resided in the White House, it was unfinished, and slaves were still at work building it. The film represented him and his wife being appalled at that, but not able to do anything about it. Also, the White House was in the middle of nowhere back then, on a messy muddy lot with no urban amenities, all undeveloped.)

     


    by artappraiser on Tue, 10/12/2010 - 2:41pm

    Ummmmmm, I know people wanted to slag Seaton off about this the other day, but it's fairly simple. It's an Empire. We're at the center, they're at the margins, and preferred/desired styles are modelled by us, and often simply transmit to them. 

    Example. In 1980 - 30 years ago now - I lived for 3 months with rural Malay families in rural Malay villages. We did rice growing, batik-making, coffee plants, that sort of thing. The local Mullah was the boss, nobody had cars, houses on stilts, the usual. Anyway, we went to a local wedding, with the traditionally-garbed couple and traditional ceremony, etc. Then the dancing started, and Saturday Night Fever and Grease and so on completely dominated the soundtrack, dance styles and poses. We saw it everywhere. Had we ever met John Travolta was the #1 question we were asked. 

    I've seen it a dozen other times, from Finland before it came out from behind the wall, to Soweto, to rural Nova Scotia. 

    I'm sure there are lots of aspects of the styles of the classes you observe which are pretty much eternal, but when it comes to clothes, music, doodads.... it still seems to work pretty much as a giant trough, tilted downward towards other nations.


    by quinn esq on Tue, 10/12/2010 - 11:32am

    I get asked if I've met Justin Bieber, who I'd never heard of before moving here. I agree with much of what you've said here, Q. But I still think there's something that runs deeper and older. I think these differences in the way that people of different social (and yes, economic) groups dress, walk, speak, and act are the genesis of fictional archetypes. It's in our blood, so to speak. I continue to wonder why.


    by Orlando on Tue, 10/12/2010 - 1:40pm

    I think mass media's pop culture is more pervasive than you may think but there also appears to be genetic bottleneck ~50,000 years ago that could explain cross-culture primeval archetypes.  For example, there are several different cultural myths about stealing fire from other beings. 

     


    by EmmaZahn on Tue, 10/12/2010 - 3:30pm

    Exactly--for a multitude of examples ad nauseun, see Joseph Campbell for instance. Injokes are made about Campbell carrying it too far, however there are enough solid examples to prove you don't need an empire. Actually, blaming it all on empire treats some cultures like dummies, as if they can't pick and chose, adopt or alter what is simpatico, refuse what they don't like, and alter new input to fit their own culture.


    by artappraiser on Tue, 10/12/2010 - 4:22pm

    'Cause I'd say ignoring empire is what turns us all into dummies. Do you have any sense of how hard the American Entertainment industry works to shove their product into other nations, AA? Or the absolutely ferocious negotiations on their behalf during trade talks? Any sense of how US cultural products fare, depending on the local laws? Sure people work and shape what they can, and sure there are aspects that cut across all cultures. But if you're force-fed American TV or films or music - and yes, I DO mean force-fed, because to think this is all just a world of fabulous "free choice" is to completely erase entire industries and the history of their development - then, SURPRISE! People tend to adopt what they're force-fed.

    So maybe take a look at the nation most thoroughly absorbed and indoctrinated into American culture (us.) Ever wondered why Canadian music, to take just one example, went from absolutely nothing at all in, say 1970, to producing and exporting far beyond its small population? As in Celine Dion and Shania Twain and Sarah McLachlan and Alanis Morissette and Avril Lavigne and Justin Bieber and kd lang and even Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene and Michael Buble and Nickelback and Feist and Metric amongst dozens of others? 

    Yeah. Canadian content laws. We forced Canadian artists back onto the radio after 1970. I think the % is now at 30% or somesuch. With even that tiny share (30% of a small population) guaranteed, local artists could develop, and then make the transition into the US and then worldwide. But FIRST, we had to figure out a way to break into the machine. 

    "As though they can't pick and choose and refuse what they don't like?" 

    Wow. Big on fairy tales, are we AA?


    by quinn esq on Tue, 10/12/2010 - 9:22pm

    Works in mysterious ways, though. I discovered Cake in the summer of '97 when I saw the video for The Distance in an Indonesian hotel room - when I got back to San Francisco (aka The Empire), no one (including Deadman and Genghis, two very hip fellows) had heard of them.

    That said, during thi we had a rule that wherever you were, whatever you were doing, if you heard someone playing "Mmm Bop," you had to immediately call someone and hold your phone up to the speaker. Many, many company cell phone minutes were wasted on this game, as Mmm Bop battled various Spice Girls tunes in a summerlong battle for supremacy. Many meetings with PT Telkom executives were also interrupted for important calls, as well.

     


    by Steve (not verified) on Tue, 10/12/2010 - 4:18pm

    I'm going to go with Quinn and go with empire/colonial influence for the win.

    Everywhere you go, people in industrialized societies have been, and continue to be, influenced by Western norms. Being industrialized and modern has been synonymous with becoming Westernized. This is why political and business leaders in Africa and Asia often wear European-style business suits.

    Why are the college kids like that? Because the kids who set the norm in Indonesia, the ones you imitate in order to be cool, are the kids who've studied in America or Europe.


    by Doctor Cleveland on Tue, 10/12/2010 - 9:54pm

    It's not that I don't agree with Quinn and everybody else who is arguing that mass media and a sort of "empire" culture are responsible for the dissemination of western culture (music, clothing, etc.). However, it goes both ways. The music, food, and even clothing in the United States over the past thirty years has been greatly influenced by other cultures. It's happening faster than it did before and it's easier. But, again, there are underlying archetypes: politician, soldier, intellectual, student, common woman/man that precede radio, television, and the internet. Maybe the cultural bleed is making it easier to spot the similarities, but there is evidence that they have always been there.


    by Orlando on Tue, 10/12/2010 - 10:56pm

    Well, my favorite sociologist on questions of culture and class formation is Pierre Bourdieu. Distinction is a masterpiece; it uses French data and examples, but you can use it to extrapolate.


    by Doctor Cleveland on Tue, 10/12/2010 - 11:01pm

    Ha, I actually have a similar observation - http://bonvoyagemaria.blogspot.com/search?q=hair+salon! I'm not a sociologist / anthropologist either, but maybe we just choose jobs based on our personality? On the other hand, there's no denying that our personality gets affected by the job we are at. Or is it just a vicious cycle? And then what happens to your personality in a bad job market...


    by Maria (not verified) on Wed, 10/13/2010 - 4:34am