How an Understaning of Sociology Provides Value to My Life :: Sociology Essays

First I would like to discuss the online encyclopedia â€Å"Wikipedia†. The value of knowledge that it offers is unlimited since the articles can be edited by anyone with their interpretation. As a result â€Å"Wikipedia† is a storage place of knowledge for anyone who wishes to contribute. I added this site to my favorites and now when I have questions about certain concepts I check the encyclopedia along with my other references. When I look up one word I end up searching through the encyclopedia for some time because of the many related links that â€Å"Wikapedia† provides that take you to so many interesting places. As of yet I have not found an article that I would like to contribute to but I am sure I will in the near future. Secondly I will take with me the principle of the power of public opinion. In class we discussed how individuals fail to realize the power that citizens collectively have over the government. The majority of the time we are persuaded to look at ourselves as individuals or small groups who have little power because we have to answer to our dictator (a.k.a boss). Masterminds such as Isama Bin Laden, Hitler and Bush for that matter realized this power of public opinion and used it to there advantage to persuade a whole nation of individuals to act in the way they wanted them to act. I will not use this knowledge for such practices but I will apply it to the workforce where I am a manager over older white women and men in the IT field who find it hard to accept duties from a 22 year old minority female. I am working on obtaining the majority public opinion that I am a great manager from not only my immediate peers but also those that are higher than and lower than me. Third the idea of â€Å"false consciousness† from Mannheim’s book â€Å"Ideology and Utopia.† We were discussing in class the different perspectives individuals have on the world based on their economic and social position in society. What really stuck out to me is the fact that people have a particular view of their own group’s best interest that is really in the best interest of the other group. This is called â€Å"false consciousness.† For example, the people who live in poverty think that the harder they work the higher up in society they will move, but in all actuality all they are doing is making the rich richer.