>didn't marcuse say that folks can't attribute every problem they have with
>their partner to the capitalist mode of production (although hm probably
>referred to a guy and his girfriend)... mh
Oh man. I used to try to do that with my students, when teaching the family. I'd tell them that if they were in class to learn how to "do families" better or something (learn relationship skills) then they wouldn't find it in this class. Sociology, I'd say doesn't teach them how to do society better. It can, though, teach you how to use it to understand your life and that of those you care about. And then I'd try to explain how you could look at my own divorce to understand the wasband's actions in terms of, to put it too simply, the capitalist mode of production, gender oppression, social strata, etc.
It's not an easy thing to get across to people. They are so geared to understanding it in terms of some personal quirk.
As my friend K said one day, she'd been sexually abused by the deacon at her church as a kid. For years, she was told that she had problems finding the right man b/c of that. Then, one day, she took a sociology class and realized it might not just be because she was fucked up, irredeemably in spite of therapy. maybe it was because of the way our society's organized, etc. etc. She left the therapeutic-based groups she'd been travelling in and felt liberated by a whole new perspective on why things are the way they are.
Look, if you think you're gonna get back in my panties, forget it. There's one asshole in there already. - Kathleen Turner, Crimes of Passion
http://blog.pulpculture.org http://www.pulpculture.org