24 February 2010

Reverse Sociological Imagination...


Putting reality aside for a minute and believing that someone could actually age in reverse like Benjamin Button...do you think a person's Sociological Imagination would develop better or worse. Explain...

31 comments:

Mithun said...

I believe a person's sociological imagination would develop better than someone who would age normally. This is because, as a young person, Mr, Button would be able to more easily associate himself with older people because he look like them. As a result, as a young person he would be exposed a world an older person would experience, and as an older person vice versa. Thus, he will be able to form unbiased views on both groups later because although he can gain access to them, he isn't in those groups, (although he looks old, he isn't old).

MCastagna said...

I don't think that Benjamin's sociological imagination would form any differently. He is only old on the outside, and still has the mind of a young child. I think that this would make it so he would not be able to understand some of the things that the older people he lived with went through. I think that if the sociological imagination is based off life experience, he will still develop his sociological imagination at the same speed, just his experiences would be different.

yelda17 said...

I believe a person sociological imagination would develop the same way as a normal person because he's developing from old to yung and just because of his outer appearance it doesnt mean that he is as old as he looks,For instance he tells daisy that he's 10 but he looks a lot older. I think that he is interacting as the age he is and he will do so throughout the movie. He will adjust to the society in a way that the age he is should act. His sociological imagination will not be much different from anyone else's just because he's getting younger day by day and were getting older.

ebrummett said...

I don't think that he would be different becuase he might look older and different on the outside but inside and what he thinks is still a young child. Who you are as a person isn't changed by the way you look, he can't act and think like a 70 year old man becuase he is still only a young boy. he can only act and think by the age he is, it's not like he's lived 7- years and knows the up's and down's about things his life has just begun.So don't think it would be better nor different.

e kiniry said...

Personally believe that a person's sociological imagination would develop rather than regress. I think that sociological imagination comes from experience whether that be through the environment or interactions with other people. As anyone goes through their life journey, they learn and grow from what they've experience and who they've encountered. They learn to understand right from wrong and they appreciate the little things more. it does not make a difference if you are getting older or younger but it is how you live your life and spend your time here that helps your sociological imagination to grow and develop.

vithier04 said...

In my opinion I believe a person's sociological imagination would expand some what identical to a normal person all he is doing is developing in reverse. Instead of being born as a baby and gradually getting older, he is born as an old man is progressively getting younger. Therefore his external appearance has nothing to do with how he is acting withing his society. He states that he is ten in the movie to daisy and in the inside he really is ten. He might not look it on the onside though. What I am trying to say is that he will regulate the way that he acts in his society as he gets younger. It won’t mater whether he’s getting younger and the other people are getting older because at the end they will most likely be equal

chrisjensen said...

what i believe about a persons sociological imagination would develop if you were born old or born young. you will be living in the same life but in a different world then you would of normally have, such as Benjamen Button even though he was made up for a movie but the sociological imagination is shown during the movie as if someone was born old. they will live there life getting younger and younger as we would be getting older and older. like Mithun had said at the end of his point i agree of what he says he may look old but hes not old, but when he looks young hes not young.

jake said...

His sociological imagination would develop better for two reasons. Because he ages in reverse, he sees everyone and everything differently than everyone else. Therefore he already has a different perception of the world. But his interaction with people, which is constant, shows and teaches him the 'regular' view of the world. With two different viewpoints, his imagination is much more advanced.
Also, if by getting younger he acquires a child's view of the world(which hasn't yet been addressed in the film), then his growing openness increases his ability to imagine different effects society could have on the individual etc.

jtinti said...
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jtinti said...

I agree with MCastagna. I don't think that Benjamin's sociological imagination would be affected. He still is the person but his apperance is different to others. He still experiences the struggles of being old and learning how to walk. Also, he faces difficulties with love with Daisy. When she was dating another man he seemed jealous but he however wanted to see her happy. Benjamin still experinced life to the fullest despite his circumstances. Benjamins sociological imagination however, would be opposite to the people his same age.

Jenna Tinti
Period 7

Jenna Tinti
Period 7

R Amorim said...

I think that a person who aged in reverse would develop a better sociological imagination. Like Benjamin Button, they would be surrounded by other older people from a young age and would learn a lot from them including concepts like life and death that children do not usually confront at a young age. They would see the world from a completly different perspective and understand much more. It would help their sociological imagination.

Kelsey Cronin said...

I believe that Benjamin's sociological imagination would develop better then someone who would age normally. I say this, because I feel that Benjamin’s sociological imagination would have to be bigger, because not every one age’s backwards and someone old or young would have a hard time believing that. Ben is the one experiencing it and he sees how he is changing. He understands what is happening to him but some people can’t seem to grasp the idea.

Kelsey Cronin said...
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Nova77 said...

I dont think Benjamin's sociological imagination would really change of that much difference. Granted he is born old but he still has the mind of a child just like anybody born into this world. But, I do think that he will develop his social imagination faster and it would be more open because he grew up with elderly people that have expierenced the world for what it is worth. Also it would develop faster because he would grow up being a child at mind but learning everything beacause of his age he was able to do anything an adult could do.

RJ,period 7

Andre M said...

I think if a person were to age backwards, like Benjamin Button, his or her sociological imagination would develop worse than someone who was born normally. I say this because I think that this person would not fit into society, so they would have more difficulty understanding things the way they are. Furthermore, I think that a person who develops in a normal way, from child to adult, learns things as he or she progresses through life in a helpful way. Aging in reverse would also mean that a person would change psychologically, so what they would know as an adult they might not know when they become a young child again. Hence, I think aging in reverse could actually impair a person's sociological imagination.

Andre M said...
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emily76 said...

i think that a persons sociological imagination could develope better becasue when you go through experiances i think it tends to take a toll on what you believe in or the way ones mind works. benjamin saw people he loved died, he listened to their stories and he kind of experiances their lives and i think his veiws on life changed his sociological imagination became greater. he first saw himself as he was no different then others but as he went along he kind of excepted he was different and made the best life changes he could and that i think explained alot how his sociological imagination developed better.

rflattery said...

I think that if someone was to actually age in reverse like benjamin button then there sociological imagination would probably devolope much quicker and probably better. it would develope quicker because since you are starting out old, you get automatically put into these situations where everyone may think your much much older than you really are, and therefore you must think more critically, have an open mind, and actually even become more educated than someone your age, becase you are placed into a whole different generation, than you really are. and you have to think more like them, and make more decisions for yourself, instead of being a child where everything is decided for you, and nobody really cares what you think.

Octaviaaa said...

I think a person's sociological imagination would develope the same as some one who were developing normally. In bejamins case he would have the same imagination as a young boy at his age. For example when he and daisy were talking he said that he was ten but looked alot older. That means if any other young boy and bejamin were compared their sociological imagination should be the same. because they were both alive around the same age and both have had an equal amount of life experience. It doesnt matter what you look on the outside.

michellepatnode said...

I think a person's social imagination would change from being born old to young. When Benjamin was born, he looked old but acted young. I think that maybe as he gets younger, he'll still act young, because he didn't really know what it was like to grow old. He is experiencing life from a different perspective than others, so his social imagination I think would change.

Gfreethy31 said...

I dont believe a person's sociological imagination would develop any better than someone who would age normally. He is old on the outside, but has the mind of a young child. I believe that there sociological imagination will developed more and more when that person experiences different things.

kamil k said...

I think that Benjumin Buttons sociological imagination is better developed because when he was born, he was old and he had to live with several olf people. He could easily relate to them because of his apperance. When he ages in reverse he sees how everyone changes, and he changes to how he remembered how those people changed.

brett m said...

I do not think that a person's sociological imagination would develop better if someone was to age in reverse. He has the mind of a youth, and he hasn't lived the experiences that a person of an older age has lived. I think that in order to gain a better sociological imagination, you need to learn throughout life. Even though he is born old, he still has not lived to become old.

amy g said...

I think a person's Sociological Imagination would develop better if they aged normally. If you were born old you wouldn't be able to experience certain things you would as a being born young that help you develop yourself and perspective of the world. You need to experience certain things yourself to completely understand them, and if you were born old, some things are physically impossible to do. Children need to do many things by themselves like, learning what things are, how they work, what they do and if you were old you wouldn't be able to do. For your Sociological Imagination to develop early you need to go through experience yourself and be around people the same age to learn together. If you were born old this would be very difficult to do.

mariaht said...

I don't believe a person's sociological imagination would develop any differently if they aged normally. This is because while the person is aging in reverse, they still have the mindframe that they'd have if they were aging like those around them. For example, Benjamin knows what his real age is and acts like it, even when it is not visibly obvious to those around him. Such as the time when he and Daisy snuck downstairs and played under the fort. He could still relate to Daisy, even though it didn't look like it. Benjamin was able to observe what was happening around him and apply it to his sociological imagination although he couldn't experience it at the smae time as everyone else.

Brett B said...

I think that a person's sociological imagination would progress the same if not a little bit faster than that of a normal person. Just like a person that would be born normally, Ben still had to learn how to walk, eat and speak just like a baby would have to. The movie described a scene perfectly in which Ben explains the similar scenario in which a person of his age (just not his physical features) would develop hair, gain a deeper voice and so on. Ben's sociological imagination was that of any other person his age, the only bad thing was that his body did not match of a person of his age. Even though Ben was in his teens, he was still allowed to go to a bar and a brothel because of his appearance. This can be seen in our lives also because people who developed at a younger age. Even though their appearance is that of an older person, their mental state is that of a person younger than what they appear. Regardless, people would still interact with other people, their perspective would change with events, and it would be similar to if they aged like normal humans, instead of in reverse.

Shaw said...

I believe his sociological imagination would develop better then most because at a mentally young age he has to deal and try to understand situations that we do not when we are mentally at the same age as he was. He had to deal with death at a young age and had to try to grasp the idea where as when we are younger death is in a way hidden from us. We know it is there but do not have to grasp the idea. So going through those experiences at a mentally young age while being old in body will help his sociological imagination because as he grows up mentally and regresses physically he will has a better concept of what is going on around that we do not have as kids.

drawolle said...

Aging in reverse as Benjamin did would absolutely have an effect on his sociological imagination and his life as a whole. His upbringing was entirely changed, he was treated as an old person, he didn't go to school(could be unassociated with his reverse aging, but it would make sense if it were to shelter him; his "mother" always seemed to want to protect him because he was "different"), he grew up WITH old people, thinking like an old person. I'd imagine this to be a mind opening experience-most older people do less than your average person, which would give him much less to do as a child. He would have had more time to just observe things and be forced to come to conclusions on his own. It would broaden his sociological imagination. Also, for the whole "he's just old on the outside" theory, he had aches and pains as a child, just as an old person would. This would undoubtedly effect his life. But with that set aside, I truly believe your physical characteristics can effect you, people are treated differently based off of appearances every day, old people are no exception. He also had to suppress desires to do certain things that would be normal for any other child to do(example: when he's caught with Daisy in the middle of the night). Benjamin's "disease" definitely altered his point of view.

Shayne said...

sociological imagination differs between peoples environment cultural background and overall upbringing as well as many other factors so pinpointing whether aging in reverse can have a negative or positive effect is difficult call. Looking at it from Benjamin's prospective it taught him a lessons about the world that made him see things differently from everyone else and through that he matured quickly and held things more precious to him that most of us take for granted. With that said I would lean more toward it having a positive effect and and with different experiences comes different wisdom and Benjamin Button is a perfect example.

Angela Messina said...

I think that Benjamin Button's Sociological Imagination would develop better aging from old to young because he is looked at differently than everyone else is. The way he goes through stages and the way that he handles situations, to me, is more mature than an average persons' would. I feel as though Benjamin has more experience with life and knows how to feels to be older and unable to do things that everyone else can. In the end i have to disagree with his Sociological Imagination being the same everyone elses'.

michellepatnode said...
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