I am taking this Sociology class this semester, Soc 310, which is Social Theory class. Its a pretty difficult class, and the reading so far seems pretty daunting. So, the professor makes us have study groups so that we can help each other understand the material. On Wednesday, we met as a study group and discussed what we had talked about in the previous lecture. One of the things that we were discussing was this article talking about gift relations. It sounded pretty boring to me, but then in the study group we were going through our notes together and discussing some ideas that we had. I found out that I really need to take better notes on the readings so that I can get more out of the class. But the really interesting thing that it talks about it love relations. Love? It was one of the last things that I would expect.
In this article, the author (who is a sociologist) is arguing that there are no true gifts, that everything is basically an exchange. We must get something out of giving this gift to someone else. Then, somehow, this sociologist ties in love relations, discussing how we seek for love in order to help us 'validate' our sense of personal identity, because we live in such a impersonal world. In this impersonal world, we have to trust in other people, for example we must trust that pilots are adequately trained to fly the plane that will take us safely from one place to another. We cannot take the time to individually interview the pilots and co-pilots and the traffic controllers so we must have this trust in society.
Then, from this impersonal world that we live in, we seek to create more personal relations with people, and search for a self identity. This world we live in gives us many identities, me as a student at a particular university, me as a sister, daughter, me as a passenger on a bus, me as a patient, me as an employee. The argument then goes on to say that this search for self-identity leads to our desire to be loved for who you are, for validation of the self that we have become. Now, i think that this is a true point. In my experience, when we enter into a romantic relationship with another, it can help us feel better about ourselves, that we are able to feel that someone else cares about us for who we are, and not who we pretend to be. This also happens in a family, parents often can still love their children even though they may have made some wrong decisions and chose different paths in life. They love us despite all the things we may fail at, and the decisions that we make. I think this is the truest form of love, and it is very hard for people to reach.
From an LDS perspective, Christ is the perfect example of loving others even though we may make mistakes and may not fully realize how he atoned for all our sins that we may have the chance to return to live with him and our Heavenly Father again. Christ's and God's love is the perfect love. "For God so loved the world that he gave his Only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him, should not perish, but have everlasting life."- John 3:16. But, the sociological view is that sometimes we have to disaffirm or sacrifice ourselves in order to one to have the affirmation. I don't think this is a valid argument, if you love someone truly, then it won't seem like a sacrifice to you. But what about in the case of the Atonement? That required the ultimate sacrifice for us, so it required the perfect love for us. I also think that with the knowledge that we have of the gospel, we know that we are children of God, no matter what happens in our lives, we know that we have a loving Heavenly Father
and we have a divine nature.
From an LDS perspective, Christ is the perfect example of loving others even though we may make mistakes and may not fully realize how he atoned for all our sins that we may have the chance to return to live with him and our Heavenly Father again. Christ's and God's love is the perfect love. "For God so loved the world that he gave his Only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him, should not perish, but have everlasting life."- John 3:16. But, the sociological view is that sometimes we have to disaffirm or sacrifice ourselves in order to one to have the affirmation. I don't think this is a valid argument, if you love someone truly, then it won't seem like a sacrifice to you. But what about in the case of the Atonement? That required the ultimate sacrifice for us, so it required the perfect love for us. I also think that with the knowledge that we have of the gospel, we know that we are children of God, no matter what happens in our lives, we know that we have a loving Heavenly Father
and we have a divine nature. One other interesting argument that is made in this article is how you cannot completely bear your soul to someone else, because it will be too much for the other person to bear. They have their own problems and they are unable to provide what the other wants. I can see how this is true in relationships, I can see how someone else would not want to hear about every little detail of your life. But, if we look at how Christ suffered for all of our sins, we can see that we can bear our entire souls to him since he has experienced it all for us. He knows everything that we are going through and wants to help us in a way that no other human can. We know that we can rely on him for help on anything that we are going through.
Well, I don't pretend to know everything about this subject, and I especially don't know everything about the gospel. These philosophers did a pretty good job of figuring things out with what knowledge they had. I am hoping that this class will go better than the last philosophy class I took last semester. Go figure that stuff you learn in school can actually apply to real life. Anyway, thats all for now, take it as you will.
