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Sociological thinking vs commonsense thinking

 

            My first thoughts from the title of the essay are, that commonsense knowledge is not as reliable as I first thought, and that commonsense "theories" that I had taken for granted to be factual in the past were now about to challenged by my own research to complete this essay.
             Within this essay I will discuss what sociological and commonsense knowledge is and why we use this knowledge in everyday life. I will compare obvious commonsense theories with sociological evidence, and show why sociology challenges commonsense theories. I will also give examples of different situations that are constantly enforced upon society and why these situations are accepted. Finally I will discuss why sociology is a better way of understanding society in comparison to commonsense explanations. .
             "Commonsense" is a knowledge that is acquired from "society". This knowledge is shared with all members of society to enable humans to communicate, understand and live together appropriately. Alfred Schutz (1972) believed that commonsense knowledge is essential to accomplish practical tasks in everyday life. However, society assumes that commonsense knowledge is factual based and in certain instances, "scientific". This in-fact, is not the case. Commonsense knowledge has no real evidence based proof. This does not necessarily mean that commonsense knowledge is invalid but more-so that it holds no real significance sociologically. .
             For example, commonsense knowledge leads humans to believe that men are naturally more aggressive than women. This is true occasionally in nurturing females at a young age, they tend to be more submissive and prefer to avoid situations that induce aggression. Looking deeper, there are signs of sexual inequality; aggression is more socially acceptable in men and often encouraged by their peers, this could be due to the freedom men have in society compared with women.


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