I listen to a lot of NPR shows, but one of the shows that I can’t stand is Shankar Vedantam’s Hidden Brain. Advertisements for the show go like this: Some people choose to look at the world through rose-colored glasses. I prefer the lens of a social scientist. Great! I’m a social scientist too! So, …
Author Archives: maxcole
Individualism and Collectivism in Response to Social Breakdown
(crossposted at IU Sociology Quarantine Project) On Friday’s episode of the PBS News Hour, David Brooks recalled the 1918 influenza epidemic and why it failed to leave a mark on the American public . According to Brooks, people were simply ashamed. The death toll in the United States alone topped 600,000, and Americans were embarrassed …
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Parasite: A Sociology
Much has been made of the Korean film Parasite, and rightly so: its trenchant social critique seems to perfectly capture this moment in history. Massive income inequality and the seeming callousness of elites—who, to quote the sociologist Rachel Sherman, have their own “anxieties of affluence” to deal with—have become dominant issues not only in Korea …