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We are society.
By Unwritten — Written on Jan 21, 2023
By Allie Braun
Our society is made up of greed. Our society is defined by hookup culture. Our society is going to end the world.
Our society is the reason women get raped. Our society is the reason racial biases still exist. Our society is corrupt. Our society [fill in the blank with the latest stereotype].
People say a lot of negative things about our current society, mainly through Facebook rants, but still it seems like everywhere we turn there is another person blaming society as a whole for whatever problem they are talking about.
And I get that. I’ve done that even.
It’s easier than trying to figure out exactly who is at fault for what is happening in the world. It’s easier to go broad than it is to speak in detail so society ends up getting blamed.
Now, before the sociology majors reading this and go get pissed or blow me off, you should know that I do in fact understand that our society runs our lives through strictly inherent societal norms. I know that most of the things we do are a creation of the world we grew up in and specifically how we were taught to deal with said world.
I get all of that and I’m saying that people still need to think twice before they blame society as a whole for every little thing that is wrong with the world. And I am saying that for one simple reason.
We are society. In the simplest way, we are society because we are in society.
Think about the “you are what you eat” saying. We consume what society puts out so we are society. We also tell society what we want them to put out.
Meaning we are society because we consume what society puts out, but we also tell society what we want put out into the world meaning we control what we consume.
We do this, of course, in a more complicated way.
It’s not like society sends out a poll to each of us and asks questions like do you think we should talk about racism this week? No, we tell society what we want by giving attention to elements of it.
The headlines that are in the Facebook trending section are there because enough people decided to talk about that particular topic.
We feed into all the headlines. We tell the media outlets that we will pay attention to that kind of thing so they keep putting that kind of thing out into the world.
We are telling them that’s what we want put out. So we are society, meaning we have control over society. What it is, what it represents, and what it puts out into the world is all under our control.
So if you don’t like what our current society stands for, stand up. Change it. Start a movement and create the world you want to live in.
Don’t just sit back and hide behind your closed door and complain about how terrible the world is if you aren’t doing anything to change it. You can’t blame society for the situation you are in if you aren’t fighting to change it.
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Allie Braun is a writer attending Furman University pursuing a degree in Sustainability Science. Her work focuses primarily on relationships, current events, and lifestyle topics.
This article was originally published at Unwritten. Reprinted with permission from the author.