Assignment 1 : Chicago.

  All of a sudden, I found myself thinking sociologically when I was in lunch earlier this week. I was remembering a time over the summer when I went to Chicago. When I was there I saw many homeless people everywhere. When I go to Chicago and see people asking for money, or donations I can’t help but feel empathy. I try to put myself in their shoes and see things from their point of view. It is hard for me to do this because I myself haven’t been homeless, so I can only imagine what it’s like. It also made me think of  how strong of a person they are ,is being homeless a consequence of their actions? What I mean by this is Did they do something to get themselves there? I don’t really think most of them did anything “bad” for them to be homeless, but it really makes me think what their life was like before being homeless....or where they always homeless? All of this intrigued me, because I saw the way people passing by would look at them. Some would help, others would ignore . Society for the most part sees the homeless at the bottom of the chain,so seeing everyone’s reaction only supported this idea. 

  Just as I finished writing the first paragraph it amazed me how I automatically referred to the homeless as “them” ,“they” which are grouping words. Although this exact words fit to get my point across it defines them as a group, where as they perhaps all see themselves differently. Anyhow this week we learned about sociologist and in that short experience I can connect to a few of their ideas. When I was putting myself in a homeless person’s place I was using Max Weber’s idea, he actually came up with “seeing from other people’s point of view” . For the Facebook project I researched Herbert Spencer and he would have said that the homeless deserve to be homeless, because they keep society moving. Like the human body society keeps us moving, so the homeless keep the rest moving, because in a sense that is their place. Although I believe the opposite I don’t think the poor should be poor , however I do see his point in some way. We can’t all be rich because then who’s going to keep working. This may be a far off expansion of his idea but it’s somewhat reasonable. Also with people giving money to the homeless Spencer wouldn’t have liked that at all.He didn’t like the interfering of the government.The last sociologist that I can connect this too is Karl Marx. He believed in changing the world , rather than to study it. He wanted no social classes and even predicted that class conflicts would be gone. This is the opposite of what I saw in Chicago. Most people that I saw walked by had a sent of being better, in  the social hierarchy. It would be nice if everyone was seen as equal but society/humanity has a long way there.