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[2]. Now That's Just Wrong!

And in the case of Goodman's Societal Crimes: Genocide, Politically Induced Famine, Germ Warfare and Slavery, these are crimes that are truly considerable as wrong on the strength of the scale as well as the intent of the crimes themselves. We're talking about eliminating and/or objectifying people on mass scales here. Anyone who disagrees with the classification of any of these crimes as heinous, atrocious or just plain wrong must be considering the use of one of these acts on some level, i.e. if they can think of any reason why any one of these acts could be viable as a worthwhile endeavor then they must have reason to believe they would perpetrate such acts themselves. Only a criminal mind would agree that the extermination of an entire people, other human beings, to be a conscionable act under any circumstances. Any government that is guilty of starving its own people for whatever reason is universally frowned upon, even if no one really does anything overt about the situation. Governments around the world have long since signed agreements that the uses of germ, biological and even nuclear warfare are crimes against humanity. Very few countries openly allow slavery of any form.

All of these crimes, Individual or Societal, are (or should be) rightfully considered categorically wrong on the strength of the fact there is always the cross of Human Rights to be born. In that case, if there are human rights to be considered then there must be human wrongs against which said rights must be balanced. These wrongs have to be quantified if we, as human beings, are to come to any clear definition as to what standards we all should and will be held to. We live in a world where women are raped and mutilated every day. Children are given guns, strapped to bombs, doped out of their minds on drugs and thrown into live combat like tin soldiers. Diseased packages are dropped into civilian populated areas in order to weaken already war ridden resistances. Families, communities and entire nations are brutally starved so that totalitarian governments can stay in power, enforcing unfair politics and vicious, self serving propaganda. We live in a world where the constant haranguing of one societies ethical values and mores over another has resulted in a near constant stalemate of finger-pointing, rhetorical vitriol and endlessly useless bickering over who is right and who is in error. Nothing is getting done to stop the constant trampling of the human rights that everyone agrees we all should have and hold as one human race...

...and that's just wrong!

Works Cited

Goodman, L. (2010). Some Moral Minima. The Good Society , p. 8.

Mosser, K. (2010). Ethics & Social Responsibility. (S. Wainwright, Ed.) San Diego, California, 92128., United States: Bridgepoint Education.

((Q,O~

[1]. Hyper Realism: Sociological Perspectives of Media in Modern Society

Mass Media is a vast social tool by which society communicates through a huge array of mediums, especially in today's technologically driven social environment. There are a number of opinions by which social scientists can study Mass Media in efforts to understand the vast impact the institution has and is having on our world in modern times. Each sociological perspective, while approaching the matter from a variety of standpoints, is ultimately studying a common effect that Mass Media is having on the social world abroad, the effects of Hyper-Realism. The French philosopher and social theorist, Jean Baudillard (1929-2007) first described hyper-reality as a state of Mass Consciousness "...in which entertainment, information, and communication technologies provide experiences more intense and involving than the scenes of banal everyday life, as well as the codes and models that structure everyday life. The realm of the hyper-real (e.g., media simulations of reality, Disneyland and amusement parks, malls and consumer fantasylands, TV sports, and other excursions into ideal worlds) is more real than real, whereby the models, images, and codes of the hyper-real come to control thought and behavior." (Kellner, Apr. 22, 2005; revised Mar. 7, 2007). It is this state of ultimate social consciousness that all sociological perspectives refer to in their ultimate yet diverse postulations. That Mass Media dictates much of what society sees and hears of the world at large is heavily influenced by the hyper-real aspect that is inevitably conveyed through every available medium of communication. From comic books to radio, television to the internet, big budget movies, video billboards, colorful advertisements on the paintjobs of flashy vehicles and even the cell phones that are carried in the pockets of many, the hyper-reality proliferated by Mass Media inundates nearly every aspect of our lives. The focus of this paper is geared towards three sociological perspectives (Functionalism, Conflict Theory and Interactionism) and their differing viewpoints of how Mass Media impacts society overall and including their ultimate examination of the hyperrealism that all Mass Media projects.