Why we should study how societies function?

To commence sociology is defined as: “the study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behaviour” (American Sociological Association). We should study this because they are what we are; our past, present, and future. We can observe ourselves and take notice of our previous mistakes, fix them and see which way we are moving in.

Studying other ancient societies such as ancient Rome, the Mayans, the Greeks, etc. could help us by seeing their downfalls and taking note on them and hopefully learn from them. From the prologue of “A Tale of Two Farms”, Jared Diamond says that: “past collapses tended to follow somewhat similar courses constituting variations on a theme” (p. 6). If we apply what he has said here, we should be able to collect data about past collapses of other societies and use them to help us protect our own society to prevent past mistakes. He also takes examples of other societies that have collapsed (ex: Easter Island, Mangareva and Norse Greenland) and others that have flourished (Highland New Guinea, Japan, Tikopia and Tonga) who have taken action to their problems or did nothing about it. This basic concept proves that Diamond believes that we should study our society to learn from our history and apply it to today’s problems.

In an Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore discusses how climate change is forever changing our world and what we should be doing to stop it. He collects data about our population, the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere, the average temperatures around the world, etc; this data shows us how our society is functioning and how it is causing bad effects on our environment. He studied the way our society is functioning and applies it to the problem of global warming (or gwobal waffle, in the terms of a little girl whose only concern is her ice cream). He believes that if we continue to be a society that pollutes and emits harmful things into our planet, we will suffer the consequences through nature’s “fury”. Gore demonstrates how we can apply our knowledge of today’s society and attribute it to our future.

In conclusion, we should study sociology for the reasons that Jared Diamond and Al Gore have mentioned in their works, we learn from our mistakes, apply them to our future and get an idea as to where our society is going.

A comparison between the Leakey family and Franz Boas

Franz Boas and the Leakey family both promoted and advanced the social science of anthropology. Although they studied in the same field, their studies were very different from each other’s work. For this analysis we will need to define anthropology, which is:”the study of comparative cultures and the origin of humans.” We can clearly associate the Leakey family with the study of human origin and Franz Boas with the study of comparative cultures.

The Leakey family is a family that mainly worked on the human origins part of anthropology. But it is worth noting that Louis Leakey did learn much from the Kikuyu tribe of East Africa including their language, culture and ceremonies. Louis Leakey started his life long passion when he found old arrowheads and tools. Three generations later, along with many major anthropological discoveries, his legacy lives on through his family. Their family has been very passionate about this topic. They major discoveries that they made, while in Africa, were: the Proconsul Africanus, Australiopithicus Boisei and Homo Habilis. These discoveries proved that our ancient ancestors came from Africa and that we are a species that evolved many times leading from monkeys. The idea that we came from Africa revolutionized the study of human origin as people in that era believed we originated from Asia. The Leakey family influenced many people, making them more aware of our human origins.

Franz Boas was a man who studied much about culture. He was described as being the “father of Anthropology.” Boas believed that differences among races were a result of particular events in their history. One of his major contributions would be his theory of cultural relativism which states that: “all surviving human groups have evolved equally but in different ways.” Other contributions he made to anthropology would be that culture is learned, he developed the department of anthropology in the United States and that the best way to study a culture is to not observe but participate for themselves. Like the Leakey family he has influenced a number of famous modern anthropologists and has increased the interest of American Indian cultures.

The main similarities between the two anthropologists are that they contributed so much toward anthropology. They both revolutionized their study and set a foundation for future generations of anthropologists to come. The Leakey family and Franz Boas have given the main theories that anthropology rests upon.

In conclusion, the Leakey family studied one side of anthropology and Franz Boas the other but they both made major breakthroughs in their field making them the most recognizable anthropologists of all time.