Functionalism

I think that when this country was built it was with the intent of laying out a Functionalist society. At a time when the nation's best minds planned for the future of the greater good. Where social institutions were developed to organize main concerns and activities of the people. But a boom in population, technology and knowledge (all in a relatively short time period) pushed us into a state of chronic revolution, where we experienced the effects of militarism, segregation, Vietnam... ; these are just a few issues that divided our country. We no longer shared the same values and ideals (anomie). Thus began the Era of Conflict Theory. Capitalism, discrimination, the continuous power struggle for control, us vs. Them. United we stand, divided we fall right? Well, in my opinion, the leaders today are not interested in closing the gap that was created over the past 70 years, this state of chaos is much more beneficial to them because they can portray the conflicts and constant chaos as a need for an even stronger means of controlling the people. They are creating the values they want us to have and constantly sending mixed messages which lead to more confusion, division and chaos, not to mention crime and violence. The media shows us individual stories from an interactionist perspective which makes it appear as though those are the norms of the day, but if the news would spend half as much time highlighting the positive stories; the students who rose up over insurmountable odds, random acts of kindness, charity, goodwill, praising intelligence instead of promoting the dumbing down of America, maybe things would be different... I think that Americans, in a general sense still believe we exist under the functionalist paradigm. They believe these institutions were set up to create order and stability and if there is a dysfunction occuring it is because of us, the individuals, not the institutions as a whole. They are conditioned to think that we just need to keep working, keep moving, get back on track if we want to believe that any improvement in the state of society is possible. It is much harder, I think, for people to accept chaos as the natural state of things because we all WANT order and direction, we don't want to have to make decisions; just tell us what to do so we don't screw it up!! This may have worked when our leaders were society's brightest and wisest, but now it is not about leadership ability and decision making skills, it is about money and popularity and control... Sad, I hope one day (soon) things shift in a more positive direction, otherwise there may be no turning back.