Sociology of Human Behavior - Essay Example

In other words, societies that call themselves “developed” claim to support their citizens in their movement from the lowest to the highest levels of the social hierarchy. Cases when the poor became the rich are not uncommon; unfortunately, the social reality in the developed society is worse than it seems. In reality, individuals are faced with numerous barriers in their way to the social highs. In this course I have learned that fairness and hard work on paper are entirely different from the fairness and hard work in the stratified realities.

This being said, we need to remember the tragic lessons taught to us by our lives and the lives of others and remain politically active, with the goal of achieving more efficient reallocation of social and educational resources across all communities. Fairness and hard work have always been my most important values. I believed that the quality of personal achievements was directly associated with the amount of effort invested in those achievements. I was convinced that perseverance and persistence were the foundational ingredients of individual success.

An ISTJ type of personality, I thought that being dependable, loyal to the organization, and trustworthy could bring any person to the top of the social hierarchy (Personality Pathways). The course has not changed my values; I am still committed to hard work and fairness. However, through the prism of the course materials I have come to review and redefine the meaning of both. The realities described by Liliana Heker and Barbara Ehrenreich, as well as the information provided in 30 Days on Minimum Wage, have changed my attitudes toward fairness and hard work.

Now I think that fairness is not about giving everyone according to the complexity of their functions but according to the contribution they make to the common good. Fairness is about letting everyone, even in the simplest jobs, earn enough to meet their ends and have all their basic needs met. Hard work is feasible and justified, when its relationship to the product and salary that result is adequate. I am still committed to hard work and fairness, but I also realize that without fairness, no hard work is ever justified.

In this course, I have learned that fairness is not what we used to think about it. Fairness is not about distributing incomes according to the complexity of knowledge and skills invested in the workplace effort. I cannot but agree to Barbara Ehrenreich in that there are no unskilled jobs; as a result, everyone deserves to earn as much as he (she) needs to survive in the realities of the recessed world. I have learned that our behaviors are not always defined by our wishes and desires; more often than not, we are conditions to act in ways that possible in any given situation.

Social inequality imposes severe boundaries of individual self-development and growth: those who live on a minimal wage face challenging social conditions and cannot move beyond the tragedy of their social status (30 Days on Minimum Wage). Eventually, I have learned that even the most outstanding talent cannot help individuals to move outside and leave their low social status toward better goals. Looking at Rosaura in Lilian Heker’s The Stolen Party I faced the pains of realizing that individual characteristics cannot break the boundaries of one’s social status.

These people, better than anybody else, realize what it really takes to be fair. Unfortunately, these people are