One America

A summary into the effects sociology has and how it can

assist in changing the structure of our world

“An announced need for increased security will be seized

upon by those anxious to expand its means, to the very
limits of official censorship and concealment.”
- John F. Kennedy
I. Introduction
Sociological perspective is the way in which sociologists attempt to see and study human social
behavior. It insists that research be objective and that common assumptions are disregarded. Sociologists
who use it tend to think rationally, and work in accordance with the scientific method. Portions of this
process require consistency, but sub-perspectives allow a variety of ways in which sociological questions
can be viewed. The major sociological perspectives include the structural-functional, conflict, and
interactionist perspective.

Sub-perspectives examine people’s qualities and attributes by studying race, ethnicity, culture,
language, and religion. Then through trial and error, sociologists can determine if certain qualities have
the ability to induce specific behaviors. Social agents are also aspects of sociology that are used to
understand human behavior and interaction. Social agents include family, school, friends, mass media,
religion, employers, and the government, all of which can potentially influence the individual. A
combined study of personal qualities and social agents take into account the majority of variables that
exist in society, thus allowing studies to yield highly accurate results.

II. The Future of Sociology

Sociology has the potential to make an enormous impact in the near future. The world is
currently in search of solutions to a variety of problems, ranging from war to global warming. The
escalation of these problems will continue until humanity makes substantial reductions in the amount of
damage they’re causing to the planet, as well as to each other. The opportunity to do this on the
individual level has already passed, and humanity is now destined to face changes of large proportion.
Today, sociology is seeing these changes through their first phases regardless of whether or not they’re
visible. Through the science of sociology, immeasurable modifications will occur with little resistance.
These changes will continue until the construction of an extremely different social-political world has
been completed.

III. Social Order

The teachings within the conflict perspective provide a basic explanation of how and why social
changes occur. It states; the individuals and groups of the world are under constant pressure to increase
their status, which results in continuous social-political change. Conflict, whether violent or not, is
usually caused by the separation between social classes or the difference in ideologies of sovereign
nations. According to this conflict theory, the pyramid structure describes the way in which all
institutions and laws are set up to support the ruling class. Thus, allowing them to retain their power and
wealth throughout the various instances of change.

America is currently getting its first exposure to social-political change through an act called the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA will eventually lead to America’s membership
in The North American Union. Europe has already been transformed into the European Union, while
Africa, the Middle East, and Asia will rapidly become aware of the African and the Asian Unions. These
unions will eliminate the boundaries that smaller nations have created, and replace them with continental
bodies, operating under a common economic and political system. Sociology is vital in determining how
best to go about creating unity in these broader areas, especially in places that contain an immense
amount of difference. For example, sociology will work to answer questions like; how can the Jewish
live alongside the Arabs without conflict, and how can African Americans be convinced to live in a
society where Latinos are dominant. The achievement of unity amongst oppositions will be done through
the removal of values.

IV. Removing Values that Create Prejudice

In order to successfully merge diverse nations, a reduction in the importance of values and
ethnicity will be necessary. Religious faith is one of the most important examples, because people with
strong levels of faith base their ethics and morals on religion instead of national law. Historically, nations
built through religion have engaged in both civil war, and war against nations of opposing belief. More
people have died in the name of religion than at the hands of Hitler, Stalin, or Saddam. In fact, the sum
of the deaths caused by these three dictators multiplied by two still would not surpass the amount of
deaths that have occurred during religious war. Estimates numbering the people who have died in
religious wars almost reach one billion, as they are currently stated at 900 million individuals.

Evidence of a lowered religious faith can already be seen in America’s culture. According to the
U.S. Landscape Survey, More than 1/4th (28%) of American adults have left the faith in which they were
raised. The mass media is likely a big contributor to this statistic. Dan Brown’s book, The Da Vinci Code
sent readers on an exciting scavenger hunt that eventually led them to a conclusion in which Jesus was
revealed to be nothing more than a mortal human. The book was later made into a popular movie. The
History Channel has also developed a theme of disproving religion through archeology and other forms of
science. The news has contributed by extensively covering the child abuse cases. All of which serve as
evidence that an attempt to achieve a state of religious uncertainty is ongoing. A process which
eliminates the possibility that someone of one faith will refuse to live amongst someone else because they
are of a different religion. All of these being just some of the general examples that illustrate the
importance of people’s similarities and the reduction of their differences.

In addition to religion, the various racial and ethnic voids that exist would also need to be
abridged. To accomplish this, sociology would likely preach the same lessons it does now; holding
acceptance and an understanding of other cultures as the most common theme. These lessons are outlined
in the structural-functional theory and are also fitting to use against prejudice and discrimination.
Prejudice is revealed in the phenomenon known as ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s
group is superior to all other groups. The ethnocentric person feels that his or her own group is moral,
just, and right and that an out-group – is immoral, unjust, wrong, distrustful, or criminal. Therefore, the
removal of ethnocentric feelings would likely be a high priority, if sociology wanted to successfully
instruct the governments of the world on how to merge differing countries.

Economic incorporation is a highly debated and exceedingly visible process within the three
major countries of North America. However, if one large country were to be formed there couldn’t be a
variety of currencies holding different values. Even with boarders and national sovereignty still in
existence, the difference between the United State’s minimum wage and Mexico’s minimum wage has
been causing economic complication for both countries. Mexicans have little knowledge of economics,
wages, and the compensation they should be getting for their labor. This results in employers in Southern
California furnishing trucks and traveling hundreds of miles to find Mexican laborers. For example, it’s
reported that employers as far North as Wisconsin travel all the way to Mexico in search of cheap labor.

A fraction of the current economic downfall is a result of Mexican employment in the United
States because it results in the unemployment of Americans. Unfortunately, The United States
Government has failed to make any moves towards stopping immigration or controlling the faltering U.S.
Economy. Evidence can be seen in the dollar, because if one were to compare the value of the dollar in
2002 to the dollar now, they would discover a dramatic decrease in the dollar’s worth. In 2002, the dollar
would have been valued at $1.20; at the end of 2006, it was only worth .85 cents, a decrease in value of
more than twenty five percent . In addition, other factors like outsourcing, oil prices, food prices, and
interest rates are all assisting in the decline of the dollar. Yet not one of those problems is beyond
government repair. Regardless, it comes as no surprise that as America’s economy beginnings to
crumble, the Canadian and Mexican economies are prospering. Just six months ago, one dollar was worth
$1.20 Canadian dollars and now one dollar is only worth .97 cents Canadian. The Mexican peso was
worth .10 American cents and is now with .17. The equalization of currency will subsequently make the
merging of the three differing countries much smoother, as it reduces financial inequality between the
three different currencies, as well eliminates any ethnocentric feelings Americans might have had towards
people of the poorer countries.

V. Means of Success
Sociology views social agents as important vehicles of influence. So, the ability to take
advantage of these becomes essential when one seeks to create change. While it’s important to note that
every social agent is valuable, the reality is that some are far more useful than others. Achieving change
on a massive scale requires the control of mass media, government, and education. Mass media is so
important because it’s the streamline in which the masses acquire their information, in most cases it’s the
only way they acquire information. Government, because it makes the decisions and implements the
policies that affect the people of their respective countries. Education, because it instills the skills and
knowledge that people will use throughout their life.

Mass media has a strong ability to effect public opinion. The information it provides can create
confidence or a lack thereof in any aspect of life. It can make any event public or keep it secret for
extended amounts of time. “Americans are media freaks, they spend more than 360million hours in front
of the television every single day. Consciously or subconsciously everyone who watches television on a
regular basis is affected.” Herbert Krugman, discovered that when a person watches television, brain
activity switches from the left hemisphere to the right. The left hemisphere is the logical portion of the
brain, while the right is the emotional sector. So through this shift, the media has the ability to effect ones
emotions without having to contend with its logical reasoning. Krugman’s study also goes on to
demonstrate another shift in activity from the higher neo-cortex regions to the lower limbic areas of the
brain. The limbic regions control the primitive functions of the brain, and they are unable to determine if
what the brain takes in is real or stimulated. The combination of these two shifts are what grants the mass
media with the means to create a subconscious influence on its audience.

Woodrow Wilson created the Creel Commission prior to world war I, the commission’s purpose
was to research ways in which America’s popular opinion could be swayed, so they would favor entering
the war. Edward Bernays, nephew to Sigmund Freud, was one of the commissions biggest contributors.
After successfully creating an abundance of Anti-German hysteria in America, Bernays said that “The
conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important
element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an
invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” The fact of the matter is, media has
an unimaginable amount of influence on popular opinion, so much that it can be used to direct a nation’s
citizens in any direction it desires. Bernays also created the term engineering consent and developed
various methods in which to do so. His studies were valued so much that the current public relations
programs of the United States Government has been derived directly from Edward Bernay’s work.

Education is another extremely important social agent. If a society is intelligent, they are far less
likely to be influenced or persuaded without understanding the underlying reason. Therefore, decreasing
the amount of intelligence in America would ultimately allow for easier manipulation. So, it should be no
surprise that The United States Government created the Department of Education in the 1980’s. The
department’s objective was, and still is to control and monitor the information being taught in all
American schools. In 1996, the democratic party called this department an inappropriate federal intrusion
into local, state, and family affairs. However, when President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind
Law in 2001, the Department of Education’s budget was increased by 70% and its reach extended into the
elementary and secondary schools. Additional evidence supporting the Department of Education’s
counterproductive tendencies are seen in the Educational Productivity Index. The United States has
suffered a 71% decline on the index since 1980, which was year the Department of Education was
founded.

Recent events have provided transparency into the American Government’s international motives.
Currently, immigration is a continuing problem, and a problem that wouldn’t exist if terrorism was a
reality. As discussed earlier, immigration is severely damaging the economy of The United States.
However, none of the three remaining candidates in the 2008 election have announced any sort of plan
that would stop this problem. On the contrary, two of the three candidates are for issuing illegal
immigrants drivers licenses. The reason for this arbitrary position they’ve taken can be explained with a
study into the backgrounds of all the candidates that began the election. At the beginning of the election,
the six main candidates were; John McCain, Mike Hucklebee, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, Hillary
Clinton, and John Edwards. Little known however, is that every single one of them are members, or have
someone within their neutral family that is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. It should be
noted that this is the same Council on Foreign Relations that created the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA). The council has recently released a document called, “Building a North American
Community”. A single except provides the motive of the paper as a whole;

“We propose the creation by 2010 of a North American community to

enhance security, prosperity, and opportunity. We propose a community
based on the principle affirmed in the March 2005 Joint Statement of the
three leaders that our security and prosperity are mutually dependent
and complementary. Its boundaries will be defined by a common
external tariff and an outer security perimeter within which the movement
of people, products, and capital will be legal, orderly, and safe. Its goal
will be to guarantee a free, secure, just, and prosperous North America.”

The problem is that the majority of United States citizens have never heard of The North
American Union, or even the Council on Foreign Relations. Whenever talk of The North American Union
does manage to sneak into the media, it’s always pushed off a wild leftist conspiracy theory. However,
theories lack facts and the facts that exist supporting a North American melting pot are in abundance. To
name just a few; NAFTA was created in 1996 and it eliminated trade barriers between Canada, the United
States, and Mexico. It has continued to push for decreased boarder security and increased continental
security. In 2006, The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) was created. The SPP
is a government organization created with the belief that prosperity is dependent on security, and claims
that the three nations are bound by a shared belief in freedom, economic opportunity, and strong
democratic institutions. There have been ongoing “Trilateral Summit Meetings”, some of which have
been broadcast on popular news channels like CNN and MSNBC. However, no explanation is given
when the television is turned on, and people see President Bush standing at a pedestal, with Stephen
Harper (Canadian Prime Minister) standing to his left, and Vincente Fox(President of Mexico) standing to
his right. All three working together to answer questions concerning what they call “our nations”.

Further evidence of North American integration and the molding of its citizens can be seen within
the presidential election as this the first time an African-American or a woman has progressed this far into
an election. Surely an African-American president would decrease the ethnocentrism whites have
towards blacks. A woman president would also reduce prejudice towards woman in the workplace and in
society as a whole. One example of this could be recently be seen in the news, because within the week
Obama spoke a Mexican sentence and then translated it afterward. In addition, Senator Obama has been
criticized for his desire to meet with these leaders of countries that support terrorism. In one interview
Obama defended his position by saying, “it will make things much easier, because all these leaders really
want is a piece of the pie in the world’s new order. He calls for change and for “One America”, but does
anyone think that maybe this “One America” doesn’t mean the United States, it means one Canada,
United States, and Mexico.

Finally, the most palpable evidence rests in the knowledge that this is the second time not the
first, that this exact process has taken place. In 1992 the European Community was formed, and it
emphasized the importance of free trade between the nations within Europe and made changes to other
economic matters, it is the equivalent to NAFTA. Then in 1994, The Common Foreign and Security
Policy was established, it outlined the need for European political corporation, and it is the equivalent to
The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. Finally, in 1999 the Police and Judicial Co-
operation in Criminal Matters was created to centralize law enforcement policy and work towards
fighting against racism. The combination of the three political agreements resulted in what is now known
as The European Union.

VI. Sociology’s Morals and Ethics

The processes and their similarities are unmistakable throughout the creation of continental
unions in both American and Europe. They are both occurring through precise social and political
models. Sociology provides the studies that have and will continue to explain how to influence the
acceptance of massive integration. The three established operations just listed effected Europe’s
economical, political, and racial positions. Just as Woodrow Wilson hired the nephew of the most
accredited psychologist in history to discover ways to affect popular opinion, the government employs
sociology to discover the best ways to create social change.

With understanding of how sociology is assisting the ways in which social-political change is
being created, questions of ethics and moral can be discussed. America’s economy is collapsing, its dollar
is losing value, its citizens are becoming less intelligent, and its boarders are being opened up. Some
would say The United States is being destroyed for Canada and particularly Mexico. However, a moral
dilemma is created when one asks if this is good or bad. Historically, Mexico has had high amounts of
poverty and a slave like labor policy. So, is the lessening of The United States justified by the knowledge
that its creating a better Mexico? Is sociology’s creation of these continental unions producing a greater
good, or just a broader bad?