Therapist roles and clinical practice

Sociology Theorist

From what I have studied in sociology up to this point, it is interesting to note how relevant Karl Marx's writings are when investigating current social scenarios. This marks a change for me, because before I began this class, I would not have anticipated finding Marx's writings to be either persuasive or relevant. However, given the very divisive nature of modern American politics, and the issues that are considered to be of critical importance by people who are in power, I cannot help but feel that conflict theory is relevant in modern society. It does seem as if people are fighting over limited resources like dogs fight over bones, and that there is some idea that improving circumstances for one group leads to negative consequences for another group. Therefore, the idea that society is driven by underlying conflict appears applicable.

The first reason that I chose Marx was that the apparently increasing amount of tension between different political groups seems excessive given that most people self-identify somewhere in the moderate range. To me, the seeming disconnect between people who actually have power in modern political parties and the people who support those parties has been difficult to explain. After all, the vast majority of Americans are middle-class or lower, but the composition of the government is primarily upper class. This aligns interestingly with what Marx suggested would occur if the workers (proletariats) ever were in a position to threaten the established government; those in power would go to great extremes to be sure this should not happen. "The bourgeoisie would use propaganda, limit access to information (since information can be transformed into power that could be used against them), hire only people who would support what they thought and wanted, and fire those people who dared to challenge them" (Vissing, 2011). Given the pitiful state of education in modern America and the tremendous use of political propaganda by people in both major political parties, these concerns seem valid.

The second reason that I chose Marx was because of his idea that "institutions and interactions within society foster inequality and competition, and when they are challenged, then beneficial social change can result" (Vissing, 2011). I find this particularly salient when looking at the modern prison system and how modern theorists have expanded upon conflict theory to help describe why law enforcement has an apparent racial bias. Racial minorities, by lacking the same numbers as majority voters, do not have the same amount of input into what social norm violations should constitute criminal actions. Therefore, one should anticipate racially biased laws, even if they are facially neutral. Drug laws that penalized rock cocaine, which was a "ghetto" drug and more likely to be used by minorities, particularly African-Americans, at greater rates than powder cocaine, despite a total lack of scientific evidence that there was any real difference in impact from the drugs, demonstrated this bias. Is there an intentional effort to use prisons and the criminal justice system to keep African-Americans in a subservient position? This assertion would seem ludicrous if one mentioned it without a historical understanding of how both civil and criminal laws have been used to perpetuate racial exploitation in the United States. It might also seem ridiculous if one did not understand what a significant portion of African-Americans are either imprisoned or former convicts who, as a result of those convictions, often lose important rights, such as the right to vote, and oftentimes the ability to find gainful employment, which keep them from being able to fully participate in mainstream society.

The third reason that I chose Marx is the apparently cyclical nature of change and restriction. The last century has seen some tremendous social changes. The 1960s Civil Rights Movement and the Sexual Revolution changed the face of modern America. However, there seems to have been a pendulum swing back to more restrictive behavior. It is now considered more appropriate to be openly sexist and racist than it was in the 1980s. In fact, propaganda has promoted the idea of the white, middle-class, Christian male as being the target of discrimination, even though this group still maintains almost all of the status-related privilege that it had prior to either of those movements, still getting more opportunities and greater benefits, as a group, than racial minorities, women, or religious minorities. One example of this is a chain e-mail I received that said something along the lines of "Dear God, why is there violence in schools?" God's reply was, "Don't ask me, I'm not allowed in schools." Emails like this perpetuate the myth that there has been an attack on religious freedom, despite the fact that there has never been any federal judgment outlawing any type of individual prayer in schools; on the contrary, judgments have prohibited group prayer that would infringe upon religious freedom. The attitude seems to be that any behavior that inhibits the right of the majority group to set standards and mores for the entire society is somehow discrimination. This pendulum swing seems to occur after ever civil rights advance.