Cleveland, The Living Being: Introduction

Ah, the joys of Introduction to Sociology. My textbook is large yet manageable, printed in clean post-modernism style with colorful photography, maps and charts depicting the whole planet’s worth of sociological context. Yet I can’t help but muse how awesome these basic concepts would be in learning more about my beloved Cleveland.

I added sociology as my second major when I realized that urban planners did not always know what they were talking about. It was a surprising realization to be sure, but I did not waiver. Sims City has been my friend and ally in entertainment since middle school, so I am sure that urban planning is an aspect of my True Calling.

However, I want to have a clear understanding of how society grows and repairs itself, so that I can think realistically how Cleveland can grow and repair itself. The one thing I learned from Alan Axelrod’s Everything I Learned about Business I Learned from Monopoly is that the rules mean everything you can’t do; everything else in the world is what you can do. So be creative.

The crux of my perspective on Cleveland comes from Emile Durkheim’s theories of functionalism and organic solidarity. Society compares to an organic creature, capable of both repairing itself and eating itself alive. (Not at the same time, mind you, but I think that happened on House once.) When this paradigm is coupled with the “you can do anything” attitude that our country naturally possesses, it brings tears to my eyes, really.

If the human body is made of systems, which are gestalts of organs, which have many types of tissues, which employ that great building block of life, the cell, society can also be broken down into systems, which are gestalts of institutions, which have many types of groups, which employ that great building block of nations, the person. In addition, both societies and humans become ill. Not counting injury, the four basic ways are when the body attacks itself, when some creature invades us, when non-living things poison us or when something within us deteriorates with time. It is important to note that doctors address each of these problems differently and when misdiagnosed a solution can actually make a problem worse.

Which is why doctors know what every system to cell does, why it does it, what it looks like when it is wrong and what every invader is and what is does to the body. They spend 8 years in school and 3 years in internship to know this, yet American culture will take anyone loud enough seriously to solve society’s woes and treats sociologists like “educated fools spouting common sense”.

Well then, I guess this makes me a Dr. House in training. Let us study social facts as things and start this great metaphor with Systems.

Does anyone want to be my Dr. Wilson?