The Sociological Cinema

"If you're not an expert but you think you've destroyed the entire foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you could be wrong."

~ @GidMK

"800 to 900 yards from the place where the ovens were, the prisoners were squeezed into little cars that ran on rails. In Auschwitz these cars had various dimensions and could hold up to 15 people. As soon as a car was loaded, it would be set in motion on an inclined plane that traveled at full speed down a corridor. At the end of the corridor there was a wall, and in the wall was the door to the oven. As soon as the car hit the wall, the door opened automatically, and the car would dip forward and pitch its cargo of living people into the oven. Right behind it came another car with another load, and so on." Source: Inside the Concentration Camps

Where are Americans born? Source: Steven Ruggles, Sarah Flood, Sophia Foster, Ronald Goeken, Jose Pacas, Megan Schouweiler, and Matthew Sobek. IPUMS USA: Version 11.0 [dataset]. Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS. 2021/

I was just talking about disinformation tactics such as strategically sharing only part of the story, and here's a great example: Breitbart headline says 15 border agents died in the line of duty in 2021, but doesn't say that 13 of them died of COVID b/c they weren't vaccinated. ~ Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D

St. Charles movie theater, East 12th in the Village, New York City, c. 1962.

Photo credit: Jonas Mekas

People are out there hoarding hand sanitizer. They're driving the prices up because they're buying all of it. Now they're reselling it for higher and higher prices and making huge profits. Some of them are charging ridiculous prices just to let other people use it. So now there are people who can't afford it even if some is available, because it costs so much. People are getting sick and dying because they don't have any! Oh wait. Did I say hand sanitizer? Housing. I meant housing. Damn autocorrect. Photo credit: Does anyone know where this image was taken or who took it?

African Energy Use Per Person vs. a Typical American Refrigerator - Annual kilowatt-hours of electricity consumed per capita, 2017 Source: International Energy Agency and Energy for Growth Hub

Capitalism began in England around the 16th century. They immediately went on to colonize half the planet in search of new markets, committed multiple genocides, traded slaves, and engaged in constant war.

In school we learn about how communism is evil because of a famine.

~ @existentialcoms

A year ago today, #AmandaGorman's #spokenword poem captivated the world. In her new book #SpeakingTruths, sociologist (and TSC founder) Valerie Chepp shows how #youth use spoken word #poetry & the power of their own biographies to incite #justice https://tinyurl.com/34n8cyxj https://tinyurl.com/u3tsanac #activism @RutgersUPress

Marx always made the point that work--labour--is good, it's fulfilling, it has been a natural drive of humanity forever. What's degrading about work today is the social relations that sustain it (wage labour and the extraction of surplus value). Labour itself is not degrading.

~ @JoshuaYJackson

Status anxiety is higher at all levels of income in more unequal countries.

Source: Redrawn from Layte and Whelan (2014), data kindly provided by Richard Layte