Sociologyspeaking topic
The human brain can only genuinely keep track of about 150 people. Living in a world of millions of followers, how does this invisible ceiling make us lonelier?
— Dunbar's number
practice with this topic
Set the timer (5-30 min), take 20 seconds of prep if you like, start talking. Jot your thoughts onto the sticky-note board.
similar topics
- Althusser's ideological state apparatuses: do school, media, and family shape us quietly rather than by force? Does the state rule more through ideas than through weapons?
- Durkheim's collective conscience: what are the shared beliefs and feelings that hold a society together? Where does that feeling of 'us' come from during holidays, big matches, and public mourning?
- Bourdieu's concept of the field: are art, academia, and politics separate playing fields, each with its own rules and its own currency of power?
- Elias's civilizing process: are table manners, shame, and disgust natural, or a history written into our bodies over the centuries?
- For Durkheim, even suicide is social: how can the most personal decision imaginable be explained by the strength of society's bonds?