People, Households(???) and the World.

Our first reading was quite interesting. I don't really understand the emphasis on the households though. I don't believe the central point of social relations lies within studying household; it would not help in gaining further understanding of development. The greater point of my own learning, after all, is to gain an understanding of the social system, if there is indeed a system.

A very important idea that I found recently is the dynamicity or the elasticity of social order or power relations. The author uses a lot of female adjectives and that may hint as to why she focuses on father-mother relations wherein the old American nuclear family gifts the father the greatest authority. I believe there is unnecessary urgency to investigate this power system. The household unit is easily influence by the greater society, this means that it is dynamic as plastic. What would benefit greater understanding is a study of the factor with the greatest effect over time. Human relations, unlike scientific relations, is marked by it's dynamics, which is either sourced from the complexity of human behavior or the often referenced "free will." But, really, households? The auhor has enough understanding of how social humans are, so why does she start with the household? For us To be able to relate ourseselves to the greater system? To let readers feel the relevance of social happenings?

Social relations, isn't it simply a matter of finding the most static variables and relating those variables to other more dynamic variables? I believe that's how they usually do it in conventional science. They try to find relations between what can be controlled and what can't be controlled. So can the household affect the social? Largely unlikely.

The first few pages, however, referenced plenty of Hobbes' ideas. It talked about realism; How states behave like primal conflictive animals as oppose to cooperative cities. She talked about Hobbes was contradictingly living in a non-realist international system, about the entire Europe linked together by powerful kings, Queenz, Popes etc. I find this interesting because it led me into thinking about the industrial age producing certain economic powers to the public, the public creating republic states, and these states introducing the realist system Hobbes envisioned. I haven't read much of Hobbes writings, but he seems to have some interesting ideas.

She talked about diamonds and emotional relationships as being a tool of the economic system as well. An expected considering her own demography, I guess.