Secularization

Over time the world has gradually grown more and more secular. More and more new belief systems that have nothing to do with a religious deity are being developed and more and more people are not going to church. However, just because the world is growing more secular, doesn’t mean religion is fading away. In times of crisis, people gather at church and call upon their religious beliefs to help them make it through a rough time.

I do believe the Church is having fewer roles in countries as a whole. Middle Eastern countries are still highly influenced by religion due to the strict rules of Islam other religions in the region. In the United States, there hasn’t really been one single dominating religion, which I believe is great. It’s one thing to have a belief in a higher power, and it’s amazing that the United States allows freedom of religion. Secularization enhances this because our Government and laws we have in the country don’t try to press beliefs on people and allows us to freely choose what we want to believe in. Overall, the world is becoming more and more secular. New belief systems are constantly being developed and it can only help our understanding of ourselves and our purpose on earth.

Racial Inequality

The website “Tale of Two Families” shows what I feel is the typical lifetime of an African American family looking to make its life better in America, and a typical American family of the time. I believe the Green family is an inspiring family for the modern Black family. You hear stories of people living off welfare in dilapidated housing in the inner-city, yet this family moved out and had their son go to an Ivy League school. He’s a minority in his own culture, yet should be used as inspiration for hope to the African-American culture. When the Civil Rights movement ended and African-Americans gained their rights they were given full equality in America. I believe people like Byron recognized this and took advantage of it and worked for what he has now. Others, however, expected things to just be given to them and don’t work for what they want. The goal of every parent is to give their children a better life than the one they had, both Byron and Max’s parents have succeeded. I think more people need to read stories like this and realize that you have to work for things in life and not everything is just going to be given to you. Until more people think and live this way, the “wealth gap” will never be closed between whites and non-whites.

Gender Socialization

Gender Socialization is a vital part of the human growth process. Two of our major sources for learning how to act like a man or woman are our immediate family and the media. I went to an all-boys school for 10 years which had a clear cut interpretation of what makes a man, a man. My Father went to the same school, 30 years before me, and said that over time the school’s not as rigid as it once was on how a man is supposed to act. I agree with the book, that there are set roles for men, anything other than the norm is considered abnormal, or “irregular socialization”. The book also goes on to say that sometimes different agents of socialization can conflict. For example, my old school would try to teach us one way to act, but my parents wouldn’t back it up at home or would have a different theory. This can hurt a person’s development, but it’s important for us to have room to make adjustments in how we socialize our children based on sex and gender. I agree with the book in that it claims, “Once a gender is assigned, society expects individuals to act like ‘females’ and ‘males’.” I think boys need to be treated differently than girls both growing up and in adulthood. This may seem unfair to some people, but it’s how our society functions. I know in some cases I’ve tried to treat girls like a guy, and it just doesn’t work. I know it’s the same for girls, the sexes act differently around one another. Girls behind closed doors are completely different beings until a man is introduced, from my experience. In conclusion, gender socialization is extremely vital. Breaking away from tradition can hurt a person’s growth, but it’s also beneficial to society as a whole.

Global Inequality

As businesses become more global, the separation between rich and poor will continue to grow. With the current state of the United States’ economy, I’d like to see us bring things home and cut back on the outsourcing for our manufactured goods. This isn’t going to happen because of cheap labor, our big companies do a great job of exploiting foreigners, and how efficient it is to outsource. I personally believe you can’t help other people without helping yourself. What I mean by this is, if our economy isn’t stable, how can we expect ourselves to help another county’s economy jumpstart? Sure, we can advise them and pay for their labor, but that’s just exploitation if we outsource manufacturing goods to foreign countries. I think America should worry about itself first and everyone else second. Once we stabilize, which isn’t any time soon, we can start worrying about the rest of the world. There’s always been a huge gap between the rich and the poor, it’s just now that the entire world’s officially connected, for the most part, that we start to realize how large this gap is. It’s an increasing problem, that isn’t going to be solved anytime soon. Citizens in other countries, and our own, expect free handouts. Much like our section on welfare, people need to do things for themselves sometimes, with assistance to a point.