A Sociological Eye

  People will say students today are "digital natives" who should navigate school software and web platforms with east. They are so wrong.  Today's students aren't "digital" natives, they are SMARTPHONE natives. They know their social media, and can pop a snarky gif reaction into a group chat with astonishing speed. But unlike Millennials, who were the first generation to be named digital natives, they have never loved their laptops. Millennials first interacted with the internet on computers, and it was their window to a wider world. As kids, they saved their schoolwork onto floppy disks. Later, they burned their own CDs, and saved their papers on thumb drives. They knew as routine chores such activities as updating their drivers and reinstalling their operating systems. They used word processors with practiced ease.   My Gen Z students feel like their phones are an extension of themselves. Their laptops are just a tool they use for school. A lot of my stud...

  Max Weber, my friends, is one of the most famous sociological theorists. This week, you might say he was canceled by Florida! I'll tell you about the irony of all this in a minute. But first, let me say that I am a sociology professor--one of those who teaches a large intro course to masses of students from all sorts of majors. My course is called Solving Social Problems, and it teaches students how to recognize social problems in their communities, understand why they arise, and provides some tools to empower them to help solve those problems. We look at all sorts of issues: failures of our healthcare system, why people struggle to meet obligations to work and family, persistent inequalities, crime, economic insecurities, climate change, political polarization, and many others. And instead of sitting around feeling depressed and powerless--which is, sadly, kind of a national mood today--I work to give students optimism! I provide them with sociological tools for their skillsets ...

 Are you you familiar with the Nestle's Lion Bar?  It's a product available in the UK, and as a US resident, I'd never had one. I was gifted one last month by a family member who knows I like to try foods not typically sold in the US. I looked forward to trying it, but when I did I stopped after a couple of bites. I didn't like it much at all--there's textural interest as it contains both rice crisps and wafer cookies, with "creme" between the wafers and caramel in there somewhere, but it is overpoweringly sweet. For me, it was so sweet as to be actively unpleasant. But that's not what I'm here to talk to you about! It interested me to see that at the bottom right corner of the top of the product packaging, there is an overall nutrition rating provided. Rather than the useless health proclamations so often found on US products (like a bag of sugar I saw truthfully but very unhelpfully proclaiming "FAT FREE!"), products are given an ove...

[Image courtesy wayhomestudio on Freepik] Recently the news has been full of stories about politicians being outraged on behalf of Jews over the way universities are tolerating antisemitism. The top headline in the New York Times on the day I am writing this is, "As Fury Erupts Over Campus Antisemitism, Conservatives Sieze the Moment." Subtitle? "Republicans have been attacking elite universities for years. After a tense Congressional hearing last week, many on the left are joining them." This framing is extremely misleading. As someone who teaches at a large state university, let me explain. With war raging between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, many people have been protesting on behalf of Israelis and Jews, and Palestinians and Muslims, which is fine. There's also been a huge rise in hate speech directed at people on both sides, which is not. Some of this is taking place on college campuses--and college administrations have been doing little if anything to stop i...

  Look, I say this as a dad. As fathers go, I have sacrificed more than many--I'm a gestational father, who carried and delivered my kid like seahorse fathers do. I've dealt with the gauntlet of gender transition so that I can be recognized as a father, so that my kid can roll her eyes at me and say "Daa-aaaad!" when I tell a punny joke. Being recognized as a primary-parent father is important to me. But Father's Day is still an annoying holiday. Mother's Day has a grand political history. It was founded by Victorian feminist pacifists during the Civil War to demand recognition of the unpaid labor of love and care performed by women. It took hold in the imaginations of women of the time, who performed all sorts of labor as charity without pay in the 1800s and early 1900s, and wanted recognition of the vital work they did to save the lives of impoverished children, serving as an unpaid social safety net. It was a feminist holiday at root. Then it got commercial...

A Portrait of Zooey Zephyr Wow, rightwing social media bloviators are really going all in on the line that “America isn’t a Democracy! It is a Republic!” Have you seen this? I try to avoid Twitter as much as possible nowadays. Whole swaths of it used to be pretty dystopian, barely held in check by moderators. There were just some minimal rules—no hate speech, no misgendering trans people, no telling people exactly how you’d like to see them die horribly. Then Elon “I spent billions to be able to misgender my own children online!” Musk bought the place. According to him, banning hate speech is discriminating against Republicans. Evil leftists want to censor and cancel and muzzle people, but the noble right wing understands the incalculable value of there being no rules of civility! The right champions pure free speech! Tell that to Zooey Zephyr. (I collaborated with AI to make this portrait of her.) This week, Representative Zephyr was banned from the floor of the state legislature of ...

Last Thursday in Kansas City, Ralph Yarl, a Black kid of 16 who was a Science Olympiad competitor and talented marching band participant, went to pick up his little brothers. He wound up a block away from the correct address, rang the doorbell, and waited for some time. Finally an old white man, Andrew Lester, opened the main door--and immediately shot him through the glass storm door. Lester shouted, "Don't come around here no more," as Ralph staggered away with bullets in his skull and arm. Then on Saturday in Hebron NY, friends in a group of two cars and a motorcycle were driving to a party when they went up the wrong driveway. They recognized the mistake, but as they were leaving, Kevin Monahan, 65, emerged from the house and shot at the vehicles, killing a passenger in one of the cars, 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis. Reporting has focused on how Ralph and Kaylin were "good kids" who wound up at the wrong house in the sort of minor mistake we all make regul...