Sumblog 5

Harriet Martineau, one of the most noteworthy women theorist in sociology. Martineau was a theorists that overcame many obstacles in her life, and turned out to be a very famous writer and theories in the time of the 1900's. Society very rarely recognizes famous women as theorists, we generally study more men, but Martineau proves over and over that her theories are more than worthy of studying. Martineau mostly studied sociology, and made it her social duty to inform the general public of the study of sociology. She theoriezes about a 'law' of social life, which is a general law that dictates all of society. This 'law' of social life is human happiness. As a society we all strive for happiness, and our society somewhat runs on that according to Martineau. The difficulty in this being identifying exactly what happiness is, and if that is even something we can measure in society; or if it goes by a case by case basis.
Something that I personally found very interesting was Martineau's thoughts on morals & manners. Martineau defines morals as shared norms ( culture) and defines manners as actions based on norms. So, as I sit in Starbucks  sipping my pumpkin spice lattee, I think about how applicable this concept is in today's society. As an American, we all have this concept of personal space and awareness of that fact. I walked into Starbucks and there were many tables open, and two tables with one person at each. Now, If i would have gone and sat at one of the tables with a single person, this would have been a personal violation of space. It simply would not be acceptable. My action of choosing to sit at a table that was empty was a manner based on a moral that we have as American's. Kind of interesting isn't it. A good friend of mine a summer awhile back over sea's and I remember her mentioning how normal it was for people in a coffee shop to sit down next to be that they did not know at all, and even start a conversation with that person. It is really disappointing to me that America is not more like that. On the other hand though, I would not be the first person to volunteer to sit down next to a stranger in a nearly empty Starbucks and start a conversation.

Here is a photo of people on a plane, yes somewhat irrelevant to the coffe shop example I gave. This situation is the nearly the same though. On a plane we are at times, forced to sit next to a complete stranger, and instead of having great conversations with that person we have maybe some small talk, pop in our headphones and ignore the person, which is a complete moral, manner situation in America.