Please see the graphic below.
Are you able to recognize the cycle of socialization in your own life?
Do you recognize the ways you are privileged? And the ways you are oppressed? These two things can intersect.
Is “because that’s the way it’s always been” – a good enough reason to continue something, such as the cycle of socialization. Or do we need to realize the cycle of socialization for what it is and try to affect change?
© 2026 – SoulSequel
13 responses to “The cycle of socialization”
Seems like an accurate description of the way things are.
I see how I am an active participant in the social system to be who I am, however, I see also that I have recognized the exit ramp and maybe even taken a few concrete steps to see the view from that perch.
I think the biggest issue affecting the masses, in any societal construct, is the concern about what happens if we just think and act for ourselves. Will the entity that we purely are, survive in a society that is populated by automatons.
I was recently invited to Atlanta for a business function. I’ve been there several times.Its a beautiful city with so much to offer. But, I turned it down.
The very first thought I had was danger. I have lost all desire to cross into a country that has enough signs that it is dangerous, which is not offset enough by the many awesome things that truly make experiencing the US a truly wonderful place to be.
I think the overriding issue is that I perceive that a society exists that seems different to mine. Enough so that it makes me feel insecure to leave my cocoon of what I have perhaps been brainwashed to believe is a safer society.
Our sense of security…anywhere…is what brings our tribes together. Safety in numbers.
Yesterday at about dusk, we went for a dog walk. We got to a point where we heard a pack of coyotes yipping up a storm. We turned around to head back to the sanctuary of our home.We didn’t run. We just turned around, with the idea that returning to refuge was better than a potential confrontation. Isn’t that an exact parallel to why we, as humans, seek refuge in adapting to the idea that society is safer than going at it alone?
Maybe one of the biggest differences in our two very similar societies is how we see it being organized for our sense of safety. I think we trust that democracy actually works and we don’t need a back up plan like a 2nd Amendment. Maybe that influential caveat is enough to shape a society by removing one fear of consequence from how the rest of the organization evolves? We have less murders per capita. We have less imprisoned per capita. We have less conflicts globally and when we hear coyotes, we turn around and head home, rather than turn to a weapon and “take care” of the problem.
Both are just very different ways to try to feel safer.
@spitfire3dc thank you for your thoughtful and well-put response. Atlanta is indeed a beautiful city. Sadly, there is a lot of homelessness in downtown Atlanta.
Do you have anything in Canada that is the equivalent to the black lives matter movement? How inclusive is Canada, in your opinion?
Why do you think so many people live in this cycle for so long? Do you think the easiest thing is to do nothing? to not question? to say, oh well, its been this way for x amount of years, no use changing it now?
@Scarlett Regarding inclusivity; take a look at this paragraph written by the American former coach of our NBA team, who was just fired
“Thank you for teaching our all-American family the Canadian way. That being polite and considerate to one another is always the best way. That diversity is something to be embraced and celebrated.”
Multi-culturism is just the way things are here.
I think people live in the cycle because we fear. That simple. The perhaps more complicated issue is that very few know it and are actually afraid to understand it. The old adage, “the best defense is a good offense” IS the American Way.
For sure, the easiest thing is to do nothing, but who says easy is best? I’m not sure you can shift a momentum that is based on the primal nature of fear coupled with the fact that truth is an issue of perspective. We believe what we want to believe. We search out evidence that supports what we already believe, rather than that which supports an oppositional belief.
When a society reaches a point of believing they are all powerful (Incas, Egyptians, The Third Reich, America…), it is the beginning of the end. The society crashes. Some have literally completely disappeared.
This is the thing that gets me; We have people that study the issues. They teach the related lessons. They understand why things crash and yet, we don’t act in ways that will avoid the decline. Why? Fear on one side with the masses and power on the other side of the few that understand how to manage that fear for personal gain. The combination of fear, power, greed are all inherent characteristics of humanity. Society can’t change. It just adjusts around those negative dynamics and I think all we can really do is try to make our own sanctuaries different because we know its inherently right.
We can try to teach our children to be brave, but to be brave in the face of fear being managed by those we trust to lead, is an incredibly challenging task.
Fox&Friends sees this for what it really is.
THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@luftballooneyegouge hahahahah truth!
Interesting. Bobbie Harro’s Cycle of Socialization. What a bunch of liberal socialist nonsense you’re getting into.
As a woman, what systems, do you perceive, are keeping you down?
@Weenis
Doesn’t the generalized idea of the Cycle graphic apply equally well to your own Christian warrior marching against main-stream pop-society thing?
I can barely read that small printing, but life just flows when you don’t over-think it. I am not into overthinking everything I do or don’t do. I do what feels right for me at the time.
Where do you come up with this psycho-babble drivel? Stop over thinking life and just live it.
@immortal_pirate this particular graphic, I came up with from the Kent School of Social Work. However, some of the ideas I like to discuss come from books.
is all of life not “just living it”? does it make a difference if we Read a book, or construct a banjo or watch the walking dead? What is your criteria for living and not living? I like to ask questions and talk about ideas, and yes, I like to think. Do I lock myself in a room and do nothing but worry? heavens no. I go to grad school, I work, I help raise a child, I spend time with my own college age children, I laugh, I dance, I make love, I cook, I walk, I play tennis, I do mundane tasks, I visit the creek, the river, the mountains, the forest, I hike. It appears that my questioning nature offends you. I thought thats what this site was for, to ask questions and talk about ideas. maybe I was wrong about that.
@Scarlett It doesn’t offend me. Why do people think something offends someone simply because someone disagrees with it. You do ask some very intelligent questions here, but some times they seem a bit “out there”. Perhaps this was one of those times. Pie charts and graphs are fine in a class room, but they don’t exactly relate well with reality. When egg heads try to put life into diagrams and charts in an attempt to explain why things are the way they are, it loses something in translation.
So here’s a meme (not a chart) to show that I too can use graphics to explain it…
Here is an exercise that visually shows what privilege is.
In a video posted by Buzzfeed, several people are asked a series of questions and then told to either step forward or backward if the question applies to them. The questions were based on an exercise created by social activists Margo Adair and Sharon Howell.
Each question asks the participants whether or not they enjoy certain privileges or endure different disadvantages.
“I think when you can represent it visually like this and so immediately, it definitely takes a new form,” said one of the participants.
Watch the video above to see what happened.
@Ginaive seen this before, it Is certainly a good one. one thing we are talking about now is how most people don’t realize intersectionality.