so my "structure of self and society" class ended up being...well...very strange to say the least. the prof is a good guy, who probably knows his stuff like none other, but he decided to use this semester to develop his "new theory" of sociology. a new theory which i am still not convinced he even slightly understands himself, which made it difficult for him to teach to us. or at least get us to go along with.

for our final paper, we had to write about a conceept which i'm not really sure i buy.

it'd be easier to just type part of it out.

In this class we made the point that some things traditionally considered part of society or culture or ssocial structure, like language, have been shown to be in good part innate, or at least the syntactic component. We went on to suggest that if this is so, then it stands to reason that other aspects of culture might also have an innate component as a part of our mind/brain. One thing was art...
we discussed how the principles of style might be analogous to the principles of syntax.

What I want you to do is to imagine what might be the art equivalence of the 8 chapters of the book How Babies Talk. Each chapter of the book focuses upon some aspect of language development and I want you to think: hmmm, what might be the equivalent o fart development.

ok...so...i completely agree with the fact(yes, it is almost undisputed) that language is innate rather than learned. i find it to be pretty interesting, at that. but he never really proved his case about art in my eyes. we had to read an entire art history book, about the different styles of art and such(linear vs painterly, closed vs open, recessional vs plane), but when it came down to writing this paper i had no clue what the fuck i was going to do. while art is similar to language in that...it is an outward expression...it is something that seperates us from other animals...and so on, i'm not quite sure that i buy into the concept of an "art faculty" in our brains.

so i proceeded to go through and take intricate notes of every damned chapter in the babies book...and then try and push it together with components of the art book and notes i took in class. this took me about 8 hours(not solid hours, mind you. i'm good at taking breaks). once i did it, though, the paper fell together soooo easily, and i'm so damned proud of it!

yeah, sociology is so my perfect field. there are no concrete answers for stuff like this. as long as you're a good bullshitter, you've got it made.

not to say i don't learn anything, because i really truly do. i'm just glad i can chart my own course with my assignments. for the most part.

then there's my race and ethnic relations take-home that is next on my agenda. not gonna be so easy. but i can honestly say i have learned a hell of a lot in that class. and i can no longer blame cultural hostilities on racism.

yeah, think about THAT one for a while.

MAKE MY THROAT and NECK and HEAD STOP HURTING PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!1