The Social Breakdown

Many people have heard the phrase, "take a walk in my shoes," but what does this really mean? Is it possible to understand what someone is going through without sharing the same experiences? The answers to these questions may seem obvious, but it's more complicated than you think! So this week, we're getting into the nitty-gritty of distinguishing empathy from sympathy, and defining the two. As the world is facing unprecedented times and world leaders are contracting COVID-19, perhaps a little bit of empathy is important... or is it not? Join us for another fun dip in social psychology and emotions!

This week we sat down with Dr. Mary Kate Blake, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology from Valparaiso University, for a rundown of sociology of education. What is the sociology of education? How is education a structural component of society? Why is it so important to the economy and the labor market? We discuss the impacts of high school counselors, the journey of going to college, and of course, what education is like during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Welcome to senior year! It's Fall 2020 and we are off to a great start with part 3 of our "You're all sociologists!" series. For this premiere episode, we catch up on what the gang has been up to after summer vacation and we discuss how to take sociology to the next level. What does being a sociologist mean during this time of social unrest and political turmoil? How can we use the sociological imagination to help us understand the current social issues? Grab your thinking hat and join us for a new semester of advanced sociology!

We have another throwback episode for you, and this time it's about crime! Sociologists are good at mythbusting-- social mythbusting that is! Our first topic to bust: Crime. Citizens of any society have preconceived notions of crime, and these ideas can tell us something about the dominant social order, morality, and normative behavior. So, let's discuss! Are we living in the most violent time? Trump wants to blame everything on "undocumented criminals," but are undocumented immigrants accountable for a large portion of crime? Oh-- and prison/jail, that's the same thing, right?

We have another rerelease for you this week! Love-- something we need more of nowadays-- is the topic of this week's episode! So let's explore what happens in our brains when we are struck with love, how sociologists like Charles Cooley and Theodore Kemper see love, and how love can be used as a tool of social control. To better understand this intense emotion, we also discuss Georg Simmel's important concept of the Dyad. Do you agree with sociology's view of love? Tune in to hear our discussion!

Since we're on summer vacay, we're releasing some of our favorite episodes. So, here's one of Ellen's faves: Looking back at its historical origins, the social breakdown crew talks about liberalism and its manifestations in our contemporary world. What is "new" about neoliberalism? John Locke--a British philosopher enshrined in American legal and political doctrine--talks a lot about freedom and liberty, but for whom? To what end? What can be said about conservatism and liberalism as it relates to our sense of self and political affiliations? Join our discussion on neoliberalism and its discontents--we're not too happy about it either.

Penn and Ellen are avid fans of Bon Appetit's YouTube channel. 'Gourmet Makes,' 'Back to Back Chef,' that one where Chris recreates dishes blind-folded-- WE LOVE THEM ALL. But at the start of June, shocking inequality at Bon Appetit was revealed: white chefs appearing in videos were being paid for their time, while chefs of color were not, and leadership was engaging in other racist practices. So, we had to get together and talk about this drama, and how the culinary industry is rife with inequality. Tune in here!

We're continuing our #BlackLivesMatter miniseries and exploring what it means when people demand that we defund the police. Annually the U.S. spends around $115 billion on police departments-- an amount that has tripled over the past 40 years. So supporters of #BLM are calling for divestment from police as one way to combat police violence and aggression. What does defunding look like? How would it happen? And wait, wait, wait, with less police won't crime go up?! Tune in here to learn more.

For our miniseries on #BlackLivesMatter we were planning on doing an episode on tools of resistance-- the ways organizers act to create social change. But then we were like, "Wait a minute! We already have an episode on that!" So, we are re-releasing our episode on resistance, where we ask, what exactly is resistance? What does it mean to resist and to struggle? How can we resist? What are some strategies or ways to resist? Many social issues are now at the forefront of the global conversation, especially with Trump's presidency, from racism to sexual harassment, to basic human decency. Resistance is a difficult and long-drawn out process – it's not for us, it's for our children. It's not for today, but for tomorrow. Change can't happen without resistance, so join us this week to learn more!

The #BlackLivesMatter social movement has been gaining momentum after the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota on May 25, and protests have been seen around the world and in every state in the U.S. We here at the Social Breakdown have been trying to figure out how we can do our part in the movement, and this miniseries is one of the results. So, the first episode of our #BlackLivesMatter miniseries is about the BLM movement itself. Who created it? How is it organized? What is BLM calling for? And why should you not say, "But, but, don't All Lives Matter??" Tune in here to learn more.