SOCI 202 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Social Forces, Medicalization, Dysfunctional Family
Document Summary
Humanitarian themes: appeal to human desire to make the world a better place, to help those in need, to stop pain and suffering. When we think about social problems villains, we can be motivated by feelings such as hatred, revulsion, hostility, or loathing, we can feel the need to seek revenge for the harm they created. Victims are often constructed as people: can be futuristic. We only categorize someone as a victim when we believe the person deserves sympathy. We offer help to those people we evaluate as worth of sympathy. Constructing victims as suffering horribly: successful claims about grounds often construct horrifying conditions, it follows that victims are constructed as suffering horribly. Constructing potential victims as anyone: claims that make everyone a potential victim sets up an equal opportunity for anyone to be caused harm because we cannot predict the next victim.