Who Stays & Who Goes?

In class we did an activity in which people were assigned roles such as sailors, doctors, poets, athletes, etc. each role was very specific as to describing the character, their assets, and their limits. Then we were told that our characters were on a ocean liner which was struck by a left over mine from World War 2. We are on an overcrowded lifeboat designed to hold 9 but there are 16 people aboard. Now we have to decide who will be thrown overboard so we can survive and not sink in an oncoming storm.

After we had made the decisions we had to analyze why we chose to throw who we did over. This led into a discussion of macro vs. microsociology. As far as the Macrosociology perspective goes; as an American culture we seem to value health, youth, and usefulness. The people who were thrown off of the boat tended to be injured, old, or not have anything to offer or a combonation of the previously mentioned. If you thought about how this activity would have occured differently in another country such as certain asian cultures value their elders more then their youth. Micro focuses more on the ongoings of smaller areas like the classroom or the school. Were certain people volunteering to leave because there friends had left? probably!

It was so interesting to look at why we made our decisions and see how we are affected on both a large and small scale by the stuff happening around us. Additionally, it was interesting to think about how this experiment was soooo consistent in the results of who was voted off year after year.