CHAPTER 5-POWER

Power has always been something that has been thoroughly apart of our lives. Whether it be your mother or father having power over you, a teacher, or even a political figure it shows us that power has been instilled in us since a very young age. You were taught to obey or listen to the person who had power over you. Chapter 5 speaks about different forms of power where one form of power is the "power to" approach this is basically what empowerment is all about. Not only to people have power over you but you have power over yourself and control your own actions. By empowering yourself an example of that would be motivating yourself to finish a race. There are many other ways of empowerment such as education, organization and networking.

Tyrants, dictators, political leaders, bosses, teachers, and mothers those are examples of people who have or have had power over you. As Robert Dahl said in chapter 5 "A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something B would not otherwise do". In the Milgram Experiment video you see how certain people proceeded with the experiment despite the fact that they were inflicting extreme amounts of pain on someone just because they were being persuaded by a "scientist" who was telling them it was a must that they complete the study therefore some continued. The results of the study were shown that 65% of people continue because they believe that they must continue because they are following an order.

In the reading The 5 Faces of Opression  it basically speaks about the 5 ways that people can make others feel like they are less then them or make them feel less human by possibly treating them in a dehumanizing way. The 5 faces of opression are exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, culture of silence, and violence. In the Milgram Experiment as well as the Stanford Experiment the form of opression used was powerlessness and oppression. In the Milgram experiment powerlessness was used because the participants felt they had to follow the order of the scientist and that was that and as far as the Stanford experiment exploitation was used because the guard treated the prisoners as if they were not human and they were less than them.

Chapter 4 Social Structure

Everyday we wake up in the morning brush our teeth, and get ready for wherever we have to go whether it be school, work, anywhere. We do things day by day in a routine because that is what we have learned and grew up knowing.  Those are just the social norms we know and continue to live by.  The world works in an orderly fashion for the most part and we live and are surrounded by "Social Structures".  Basically meaning we do things almost by default. An example chapter 4 used was how we knew what to do on the first day of class because we are familiar with the social structure of the classroom which is true. Everyday I walk into class take out my book and pen and wait for class to begin its just something I am accustomed to.

If someone were to do something that was not apart of the social norms and decided to come into class and start singing loudly or walk into class backwards while moonwalking that would be looked at as abnormal. I would personally think there was something wrong with the person if they would walk into class moonwalking. One way that society keeps everything together is by using SOCIAL CONTROL .  Social Control is a way to input fear into people because if they don't do whats expected or what is normal they they will get fear of being shunned from society as Peter Berger mentioned in "The Meaning of Social Control" he basically spoke about different ways of social control as well as social structure and social institutions. An example I can think of for social control would be a student not cheating on a test with fear they would caught by their teacher and be looked down upon a teacher doesn't have to tell you dont cheat on this test or I will punish you for it, you already know in your mind there will be a negative outcome from cheating. Another form of social control is through violence. For Example a parent may reprimand their child for doing something bad and smack them for it, that it a form of violence to keep social structures normal and balanced.