In Class Essay #1 : Uniqueness

          In this universe, nobody is same. Obviously, every single person on earth has differences in physical appearances compare with other people and so do their personalities. When people where born into this world, they inherit genes that come from their parents in which make up their identity. The identity is what they are known for. In the articles “The Self and The Organism” wrote by George Herbert Mead, “Socialization: The Internalization of Society” by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, “Socialization, the Life Course, and Aging” in a book Essentials of Sociology, and “Sociological Imagination” by C. Wright Mills elaborate that the social life that each individual experience contributes how identity of one’s self is determined or developed. After reading all of those articles, it brings me up to the thought that things outside of us have major contribution in shaping on our identity. 

          The activities that we are doing determine how our identity will be looked like. In the Essentials of Sociology it is written, “multiple social identities reflect the many dimensions of people’s life.” We can examine the interplay between society and our identity. The book explains a person could be a mother, an engineer, a Muslim and a council member. But, public will identify a man who is an engineer, a Muslim and a city council member differently compare with the woman that had explained in the book. The social environments have big influences on how people recognize us. Our identity is judged by our performance in public. 

         Another factor that affect our identity is the gap in social classes and status between our surrounding and us. Mead states,“ we are on thing to one man and another thing to another.” He notes that there are circumstances where people can have different selves. I can relate his point into my personal experience. Whenever I have a conversation with a teacher, I would remain calm and be polite instead of go wild and crazy. Teacher has higher status in school and students shall show their respect. Another illustration is a man with his domestic. The mate may give her patience to her master but she can get angry easily with her child. In man’s eye the mate is a servant but her child sees her as a mother. Although the body is one, when we show with different personalities, people will identify us as another person. Ourselves are changing depend on with whom we are dealing with. 

          Furthermore, family also takes a part in construct one’s identity. Berger and Luckmann say “primary socialization creates in the child’s consciousness a progressive abstraction from the roles and attitudes of specific others to roles’ and attitudes in general.” Parents are the first place for the child to learn about this life. This is the moment where the child becomes a member of his or her society. During this development stage, how our parents raise we up is really important to the development of ourselves. There is a wise phrase in Indonesia’s culture that states, “The fruit does not fall far away from its tree.” It means if we grow up in good family with good cares and treatments, eventually we, the fruit of the tree, will turn into a good person and vice versa. 

          Rational thought is one of the things that we learn from society and it forms our identity. People do not realize that their environment affects their life’s ups and downs. Mills claims that, “ [t]he sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the reaction between the two within society.” He urges us to see the social world through wider point of view by flashback the history of it. Since the problems that happen on each individual are linked to public issues, we need to discover what were happened back in the past. Sociological imagination skill develops our mind to think based on the facts and reality. Within this ability, we might possess a better frame of mind. Life is matter of choice and the path that we had taken will establish how society views us. 

          Our uniqueness is formed through the society. How people identify us either as a bad or good person is depend on what they have grasped from us. Besides, the testimonials from other people to another also contribute in forming our identity. Public will judge every thing that we do and it is their references in classifying people’s identity. Thus, our social environment has big influences in forming our identity.