SOC102H1 Lecture Notes - Victim Blaming, Social Inequality, Imagined Communities
Document Summary
Life is a gamble everybody knows that. In that sense, this course is also about heavy odds the chances against most people winning. People who start life rich, powerful or famous are more likely to finish life that way. Life is a poker game a game of skill and cunning -- played with a stacked deck. The dictionary defines inequality as the quality of being unequal or uneven. Inequality is about hierarchical (i. e. , better-worse) differences between any two people (or things), a and b. Sociology is dedicated to explaining how this inequality game works and the reasons most people face heavy odds. It also means showing social inequality leads to crime, sickness, addiction, violence and sometimes-even war for society as a whole. Our personal experience tells us there are many natural inequalities between people. We know that simply by looking around us and talking to other people. Finally, sociologists are interested in how people invent or construct (unnatural) inequalities.
