Is It Convincing to Propose That Matter Can Have Agency Research Paper

Is It Convincing to Propose That Matter Can Have Agency - Research Paper representativeThere are also scholars who argue that depend does non have agency. They say that it is individuals and societies who tend to attribute some kind of agency to matter, but that is limited to continuums of time and space. The substance of this paper is to examine in depth the assertion in Sociology that matter has agency or a life of its own so to speak. This is understood in the context that human beings tend to attribute life- worry characteristics to inanimate objects which give them conventionally legitimate life and functional forms that they did not have initially. This paper delves into the extent of truth about this assertion that matter does have agency. Meaning of Matter in Social Life Human beings is essentially social beings. They do not exist on their own even if they do make individual decisions at times. In order to augment their existence, they inevitably use matter. Take the bel l ringer for example in Christian ideology, the home run symbolizes the crucifixion of Jesus Christ by the Roman authorities in order to enable the repurchase of mankind from sin. However, in a much wider sense, the presence of the cross on a building has give-up the ghost an insignia of Christianity as a religion (Christiano, 2008, 228). Another much-explored meaning of matter in sociology is on the question of security. The passing play is considered an important document of identification in international travel. Once a passport is handed oer at an airport, there are coded messages in it in the form of barcodes which can be read by a computer to establish individuality. Moreover, there is an attached photograph and writings which identify the holder. A propagate of communication takes place between the passport and the security agent examining without any input from the passport holder. As such the passport is capable to communicate on its own just as if it were a soulfulne ss (Carter, Simon, 2008, 8). These examples are seen as giving the cross and passport a life of their own independent of the commonwealth immediately using them. Since they both play an important role in social life the cross being an agent of Christian identity and belief and the passport being an agent of individual identity and right of getting through a checkpoint they are both seen as having agency (Carter, Simon, 2008, 8). An important ingredient to consider in analyzing this role of matter as having agency is the issue of individuality. An individual is a eonian factor of sociological analysis. Though there is raging controversy on whether an individual is the basic unit of measurement of sociological analysis or there is no such thing as an individual out-of-door the social setting the bottom line is that any family is made up of individuals. Certain circumstances, like moving through customs, force persons to present themselves as individuals even if they are in a fam ily group. individualisation is, hence, an inevitable aspect of human existence and identity (Carter, Simon, 2008, 9-10). The passport helps in identifying the human person as an individual. At an airport, even in a family group, an individual has to produce his own passport which identifies him only and not as part of the larger group. Yet the individual is shaped by society and in sociology is therefore seen as part of the larger social group. To sociologists, therefore, the individual is always seen as part and parcel of the society that shapes his character and world view.