Social Dilemmas: Social Issues And Personal Troubles

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Prompt 3:
Before evaluating and categorizing social situations as “troubles” or “social issues”, we first must have a clear understanding of the two classifications. Troubles are personal. They are, “a result of something they did or did not do.” (Page 32). Social issues refer more to a problem within in a society that can affect individuals. Social issues are more of an outside perspective and influences. In order to evaluate situations, we have to use social imagination. Mills defined social imagination as, “the ability to look beyond what he called the personal troubles of individuals to see the public issues of social structure- that is, the social forces operating in the larger society.” (Page 30) Mills wasn’t saying that viewing individual
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I say this because our book gives a great example, “In a city of 100,000, only one man is unemployed, that is his personal trouble, and for its relief we properly look to the character of the man.” The example of social issue, “In a nation of 50 million employees, 15 million men are unemployed that is a social issue.” What the book is trying to illustrate for us is that if a man is lazy or his bad character gets him fired, that is how own personal trouble because he is responsible for what happened. However, if a major city’s unemployment rate reaches records and thousands of people can’t find jobs, the issue is far bigger than the individual. The economy, leaders, countries resources, and more would be influencing the job market. To conclude, unemployment is either a personal trouble or social issue. Maybe even a mixture of …show more content…
Manifest is the intended and obvious functions, whereas latent functions are unintended or hidden consequences. (Page 35) Online courses may have a manifest function of being easily accessible. Therefore, being beneficial for people who live far away from the campus. The latent function could be that it also saves the students money. There are many possibilities of manifest and latent functions. Another one that comes to my mind is the manifest function of online courses could be its easier access for hearing impaired and students with disabilities. The latent function may be that students aren’t able to have face to face interactions with classmates. Lastly, a manifest function could be that online courses make it easier for students to take classes while working. Latent consequences might be be the students can’t ask the teacher for clarification in person, but instead only through the internet. There are far more examples of intended and unintended consequences for this topic. One I have encountered is that although online courses are convenient, the teacher you desire may only teach on campus. Also, taking online classes could increase purchases of laptops and other computer accessories/devices among

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