Chapter 6- PPD

In this chapter, the author's thesis is that people rarely openly discuss differences or problems because it is uncomfortable, or it fallows the path of least resistance. The author, Allen Johnson, discusses the difference between Individualism and systems in a society. Johnson talks about how the individualistic model in his opinion is wrong, and that society consist of more than just individuals. He mentions social systems, which is something larger than the individual people. The example Johnson gives is a University, a University is not the people, and the people are not the University. However, you have to look at the individual people, and how they participate in it. When Johnson talks about the path of least resistance, he is talking about the choices people make that will cause the least amount of reaction. For example, if someone tells an offensive joke, and everyone is laughing but one person, that person will not say anything for the sole purpose of not hurting his friends' feelings. This is the path of least resistance. As people grow up, and become socialized, you notice one thing, that straight white men are the most important and successful people on the planet. (79) The example Johnson uses (which is an excellent one) is the on about the show "Everybody Loves Raymond". In the show Ray Barone constantly behaves sexists, rude, and insensitive towards his wife. However at the end of each episode you find out why she puts up with his antics, because she loves him. Johnson says "this sends the message that it's reasonable for a heterosexual man to expect to "have" an intelligent and beautiful women who will love him and stay with him in spite of his behaving badly toward her a great deal of the time." (79) In the end, people adopt the dominant version of reality and act as if it were the only one that exists. (80) The path of least resistance, is shaped by individuals. In any given social situation there are millions of ways a person could act, or things they could do. The example Johnson gives is sitting in a movie theater, a person could laugh or talk really loud, they could sing, they could jump up in down, they could sleep or dribble a basketball. However people would react strongly about that, and make it a very uncomfortable feeling. So when sitting in a movie theater people just sit there and enjoy the movie, maybe laughing when other people laugh. This relates to how people do not openly discuss problems, or racial differences, or other issues along those lines. Following societal norms is taking the path of least resistance, because they fear for what will happen if they deviate from those norms. The one other thing Johnson talks about is the fact that individuals make up the social systems, and make them happen. Along the lines of the University example, is does not exist without the students and faculty performing their roles in relation to one another. (82) Johnson admits to participating in the systems that trouble comes out of, thus involving him in the trouble itself. An example of the way he participates in this is by the clothes he purchases. If a person looks at the label of a piece of clothing, they will most likely see a foreign country next to the words "Made In...". Workers making those items chances are they are women, and they are getting treated similar to how the slaves were treated, and get paid only pennies a day.

Johnson mentions that just because a person participates in something that is creating a problem in society, couldn't that person also participate in the solution to that problem? The answer is yes. A person might think that they can't make a difference in the problem, they are just one person. However Johnson argues differently. If one person joins a group of a bunch of people coming together, than that one person has helped make a difference in the problem. Allen Johnson gives a perfect example of this in his article, he uses the floods of 1993 along the Mississippi and Missouri River, in a community hundreds of people came together and put sandbags down to barricade the water, to keep if from doing further damage to the town. Each sandbag a person placed down was just a fraction of the total number of sandbags, however they did not have to make a huge difference to feel like they helped. He states "It works that way with good things that come out of people pulling together in all the systems that make up social life." (88)

I did not enjoy reading this chapter as i did the first two we read. I did not feel like i got as much out of it as i did the other articles. There were only a few points made that sparked my attention, one was the clothing example, and the other was the "Everybody Loves Raymond" example. I felt the article did not go into explaining, different subjects, he only came up with what seemed like a thousand examples. It is nice to have a few examples here and there to help the reader understand a topic, but to have 3 examples for one topic gets a little repetitive. Overall i just did not enjoy reading this particular chapter.