1. I have to choose the order paradigm.

2. (a) It communicates what America stands for. "All for one and one for all." In families we see this same attribute We all try to fit into the scheme of things in a place where it is suited to our talents, and in a place that is supportive of those we care about. All human being have this need and this desire to fit in, to be a significant part of the big picture. (b) The lack of this seemed to be the reason for the teen suicides in "Teenage Wastelands" Without order life would be chaotic and futile. Without a meaningful purpose in life and good solid rules/laws to secure our interests... I don't even like to consider that possibility. Underlying all of the conflict in life we need order to carry on. We need to know that our goals are attainable and it's not just a dog-eat-dog world. People do care about people.

Just as children need discipline, so we need values and laws.


I see this "Order or Conflict" question written all over the place every day. I'm currently reading a novel, a legal thriller, it's "The Laws of our Fathers" by Scott Turow. I haven't read into the third chapter yet and already I am finding it a Sociological peace of art. Before the first chapter Turow quotes Michael Frain from "The Survivor's guide" (Sept. 7 1995)
"Those Of Us Born In Years Of Bounty After World War II knew we had a different outlook than earlier generations of Americans. Blinkered by need, they had come of age with narrower commitments -- to the glory of God, the glee of acquisition, or the mean little business of survival. But we tool seriously the promise of the Declaration of Independence that the birthright of America was not merely life or liberty, but the pursuit of happiness. Personally, as a child, I always assumed that was the point of growing up. So I'd feel better than I did then.
Which leaves us with the awful doomed inquiry of our middle years, the harpy's voice that whispers in dreams, at sunrise, at those unforeseen instants of drilling isolation: Is this as happy as I will ever be? Do I have the right to just a little more? Or is there nothing better I should hope for?"

My answer is: YES! Yes, there is always something better to hope for. I have to believe there is a good future for everyone. The only thing that remains the same, is change. This is an encouraging thought if people find hope. In an ordered society there is hope for happiness. We only need to help those in conflict to find this order, this hope. In the conflict paradigm it would seem that fate would have us all with nothing better to hope for.

One of Turow's characters in this book Ordell, called Hardcore, is a drug-dealing, gang-banging war lord. He runs a society unto itself in the "projects" His society is that of conflict, but underlying the conflict they have this need to maintain the order. To fit in where they fit in. For instance, he has three sons. Even though their mothers do their best to keep them from the gang life, Hardcore teaches them his values. "In his time Ordell gave them his answer: 'You got to be somebody. They's bad shit here. With them bad coppers -- bad (#@bleeps%&*) everywhere here. But, man,' he said 'man, this here what you-all's -- you with the people here, you giving them what these poor niggers need, some nickel's worth of happiness white folks and all don't want them havin'.' " (Just in case anyone reading this is unfamiliar with black slang; they speak of each other as "nigger" in terms of endearment. It is a black right that cannot be exercised by anyone else.)

Even though a lot of people have lives of conflict they have a hard time stepping out of the normal order in their lives to change things for the better. It took a lot of courage for me to step out of my happy home life and go to college. My motivation was the lack of funds we have in which to pursue happiness. (I wanted a good paying job) But my main motivation was that I want to fit into the bigger scheme of things and make a difference in a bigger way. I want to experience socializing with colleagues and helping to build my society into a better place for my family and other families as well. My main goal is to do this without changing my happy home life or the harmonious order of our family. Maybe this sounds grandiose, but I am not content to sit and bewail the woes of society without doing something good to contribute to the cause. But competition is not my motivation. Competition is an inevitable entity that invades the order of things when two sets of values don't intermingle. When there is no room for compromise.



3. (a) I believe conflict theorists are encouraged to flaunt their belief systems to the extreme of dragging a good percentage of the USA down with them. (b) For instance: I believe that in the fifties and sixties, Hollywood (however inadvertently this may have been) promoted the social order of things. They taught values that promoted family togetherness and morals and "Love God and your County -- and don't forget to love your parents, too. "Now Hollywood brings things into our living rooms that no decent human being would want their children to model. I have observed Hollywood stars who have children and I see a lot of protection going on. I don't believe they let as much of this trash into their homes as we do. But we do nevertheless and we see and are impressioned by stuff that we'd be better off without. We no longer feel repulsed by things we see on television that would make us vomit in real life. It makes the sins of television a little easier to stomach in real life, too.

Pardon me if I am being naive about this. But when I think of big business and how it is just a matter of course to not trust them, and when I think of people who go around blaming society for their every problem in life, it seems to me that society in the conflict paradigm is playing the role of VICTIM. I see this "preached" a lot through mass media. Everyone is victim to something or someone. It is degrading and soul retching and conspiratorial and condemning and desolating and thinking with this mentality makes one feel wretched! It's a lose lose situation: The oppressors and the oppressed; the haves and the have-nots; the producers and those who work for them, each hating the other. Oppressors cannot be content with oppressing, they are driven to bigger and badder oppression. They get a taste of power and become greedy for more. Those who have may think of the have-nots as baleful idiots, but I am living proof that this is false, and even though I have not, I do have what really counts. The haves (or those with that mentality) are the ones who have-not what counts.

4. I've probably illustrated way too many points here already so I'll quite.

Pamela
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