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9 Works 353 Membros 2 Críticas

About the Author

Claude Fischer is a French-born American sociologist. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and currently teaches sociology at the University of California, at Berkeley. Most of Fischer's work focuses on urban society. He has written extensively on structural changes in modern society and mostrar mais has researched social networks and the displacement of traditional territorially based communities by new communities of human association. Fischer is also interested in the impact of technology on social relations and social institutions; most recently, he has investigated the social history of the telephone. (Bowker Author Biography) mostrar menos

Obras por Claude S. Fischer

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Data de nascimento
20th century
Sexo
male
Nacionalidade
USA

Membros

Críticas

This is kinda a strange book. On the one hand, it doubts the common “growing apart/becoming lonelier in modern life” thesis, but it is does so largely on technical grounds, by doubting, and without telling another story, and so it’s largely a thing as marked by doubt as (muted) optimism. It’s also unusual because it’s /both/ (a) modestly patriotic or whatever, and not protesting or reformist, AND (b) social and not military/political. It was looking for something that would be kinda general American social history to see if it’s a thing, and I can see it kinda isn’t. I guess it could be if it was about money’s history, you know. That, or a decent novel….

…. It is a social history that is very similar to sociology or classic “social science”, although I guess (not that it matters as to quality necessarily) documenting change over time and not the abstract features of a society put it over towards being social history and not general sociology.

It is rather boring and bloodless. At least it’s not paranoid, of course. But I think something should have been said about the /quality/ of relationships, you know. Just to knuckle down and pretend that you’re a bear fighter like you’re father through “family dinner” so that we can pretend to be characters in a Victorian musical or something, I don’t know. 😸

…. Incidentally, to answer the survey questions he mentions at one point, the two mentioned and one I’m inventing: I think that children /should/ love and respect their parents even if their parents are basket-cases, ~but the parents shouldn’t try to force their ideas on adult children, and should use caution in instructing non-adult children~, and also, the parent /does not/ have to sacrifice their own well-being for their child, (thus modeling that the kid has to do that, lol). The way he presents it, I’m crossing the wires between Egypt and Sweden, you know: parents should be respected always/parents should sacrifice; vs parents should be respected sometimes/they need not sacrifice.

…. I also believe (him when he says) that people today are more likely to ask friends and family or a social worker or whatever for help during a mental health crisis; before, people were just like, I’ll rely on Doctor Teutonicus! How could he not Know!

…. For general American social history, it would probably be better to look for the better local history books, you know, although some of them probably aren’t really better than this, basically. “Brinson Avenue is named after John Brinson. John Brinson was a man.” “In 1982, the average American had 3.2 friends. One of them was very short, like a short, short…. Hobbit, basically.”

…. Incidentally I thought this was my first general American social history book, but I guess it’s my second: I didn’t originally recognize the “Mind of the South” as being local & regional American history/general American social history, you know; couldn’t catch the obvious. (snaps fingers)

Incidentally Claude doesn’t get creative and guess, you know. One example, although there should have been two—he reports the evidence from the (not in so many words) question, “Are you codependent?”, but not the obvious masculine equivalent to that feminine dis-ease, “Are you avoidant?”, right. (He doesn’t catch the obvious gendered thing going on, in part because he probably embodies it so well.) So Americans became less codependent officially, because women became markedly less codependent in their ideals, and probably also at least marginally less codependent in actual lived fact. Of course, that’s not something you can measure with multiple-choice tests, you know; probably the person herself couldn’t know the truth to tell it to you, half the time.

But anthropology is for the primitives. 😸

…. I guess I should give him a point or two for not being alarmist, you know, (“Those vegans are WORSE than the terrorists, you know! I don’t see no dem terror man come in here in me house telling me not to eat the legs of dead animals!”), even if he was kinda boring, not unlike white meat to a vegetarian, right.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
goosecap | Jun 13, 2023 |
There is a distinct parallel between the history of the adoption of the telephone and the history of the growth of the Internet. Fischer's book shows how the telephone began as a broadcast system but soon became a vital communication system for businesses and professionals. Early telephone companies were horrified to find that people were using the phone for personal communication (inviting friends over, etc.). The companies insisted that it was only to be used for business. In the end, the social aspect won out. Although phone companies grew up in urban areas, rural communities often had to cobble together their own rudimentary phone systems. (Remember BBS's?) These eventually became swallowed up by telephone companies, until we arrived at the monopoly situation of the mid-20th century.… (mais)
 
Assinalado
lamona | Nov 1, 2006 |

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Estatísticas

Obras
9
Membros
353
Popularidade
#67,814
Avaliação
3.9
Críticas
2
ISBN
23
Línguas
2

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