Hi, I’m here to spread a little sociological love:
Sociology is such an interesting and mind-opening subject, and many of the topics people post about on Steemit are inherently sociological, and even though I’ve only spent a few hours browsing around, I feel quite at home here already.
This is possibly because, as a new economic and informational structure, the whole Steemit project and everyone weaving its web, lends itself to sociological analysis and questioning, all of which I’ll be posting more about as I go.
My sort of sociology involves asking three basic questions:
What is this thing we call society? What are its structures, what kinds of ways of being does mainstream society call upon us to act out?
What sort of world views and habits ‘lock people’ into mainstream society?
What are the alternatives to mainstream society? How viable are these alternatives?
To provide what are hopefully very brief answers to these questions (all of which I'll be expanding on at great length in hundreds of posts to come in the coming years):
(1) I think we live in a global neoliberal order, in which Transnational Corporations (mainly oil, pharma, and tech) companies wield increasing power through supra-national institutions while nation state bureaucracies still wield significant, but declining power. Together these have encouraged a highly materialistic, consumerist way of being in the world which has resulted in an unequal, chaotic, and climatically challenged world.
This ‘bigger picture’ cannot be ignored if we are to truly understand ourselves.
(2) I believe there are several norms and values which ‘lock people’ into the above system and perpetuate it – including, but not limited to (a) shallow materialism and consumerism, (b) our obsession with self-construction and expression, especially the ‘myth of the individual self’, (c) the fact that we embrace ‘busy-hurried lives’ almost as a badge of honour and (d) fear and anxiety – which result in us living in safe social media bubbles and not exploring alternatives.
(3) Finally, there are lots of alternatives out there: from the revolutionary to the eco-communities, from the consciously disconnected offline and face to face to block chain based alternatives such as this. I’m especially interested in Zen Buddhism, Permaculture and peer to peer networks as alternatives.
Forthcoming posts on Steemit:
I'm going to try and stick to a weekly structure - so I'll aim to post on the following topics on the following days:
Saturdays: sociological theories of society, system and the self: in which I'll summarize and comment on a range of theories from Marxism to Postmodernism;
Sundays: posts on the 'lock in': reflections on how norms and values (such as consumerism) lock us into sub-optimal ways of being..
Mondays: exploring alternatives, including my reflections on Steemit.
Tuesdays - Fridays - I'll be sharing comments on just 'stuff going' on - what I read in the news, watch on T.V. and I'll also share some of my favourite data visualisations.
NB I’m here to discuss as much as post on these topics!
Ulterior motive: can Steemit help me quit my job?
My main workaday job is teaching which I’ve been doing for 15 years now and TBH I am getting a little bit sick of it - I feel increasingly trapped, limited, and hemmed in by the performative demands made of me by the marketised UK education system, and by the fact that it’s a place-based job, which just seems so utterly unnecessary in an online age.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing against the kids I teach, nothing against the people I work with, it’s just the damn system man, there is no escape from it, it is no longer possible to just ‘close the door and teach’ in mainstream education and it’s bringing me down!
Hence an ‘ulterior motive for I’ve joined Steemit – it’s part of my strategy to transition out of my normal workaday job and start earning by posting about the kind of sociology that interests me – outlined above.