Hugh Laurie's song for America: American Culture- A Look From Outsiders

In a small clip on youtube, from a comedy show on BBC, a singer who is dressed up in very street and informal clothing sings a song about America. The singer looks as if he doesn't care about the way he looks, and careless about his image. He wears a plaid shirt with a bandana and his hair is very messy, greasy, and sloppy. Their are only but three words in his song,  "America" and "The States." To give some insight about the video and the background. The show is a British comedy show, which is not limited to its views and tell anything the way they perceive it to bring a few laughs. 

Now, the video shows what possibly might what British culture perceives Americans as. They show that Americans don't look at their image and don't worry about weather or not we care about first impressions or not. They show then when the singer sings, when he first begins to sing "America," the crowd begins to laugh. The way that the singer depicts Americans to be makes the audience laugh and shows that they think that Americans are hilarious with how they look, act and behave. 

The singer only sings about one thing, America. The verses to his song are nothing complex at all either, just basic repetition of "America" and "the states." The verses seem to show that American people are self absorbed and onyx care about themselves. Patriotic, yes, but the laughter of the audience suggests otherwise. The laughter directs the audience to believe that maybe, they don't believe that the singer shows passion towards America, but shows how they view Americans to be. 

Just to how much certain people see, thats how they assume all the people to be. Many cultures will view others by just how they see them in the media, or how others have viewed them. This causes stereotypes.   At the end of the clip, we see that a man in a suit comes and punches the singer. Being a British show, it just shows that they needed a British to tell the American to shut up, according to the show that is. This just goes to show, if different cultures could see each other's cultures, in depth that is, than they would appreciate each other a lot more and come to cease with the awkward and bizarre stereotypes. 

Stanford Prison Experiment: Ethical or Unethical?

After viewing a few videos about Dr. Zimbardo's experiment with prison which involved his college students, I saw that the experiment was completely unethical. I understand, that they took it as a experiment to learn, but for many of the students that participated in it, were left with scars that they will never forget. I happened to stumble across another video with a student who was a guard, and another who was a prisoner, and the prisoner said he didn't feel like it was a experiment, but as if they were in a real prison.


Before we go into detail about how I believe the experiment to be a unethical, I wanna share some information about the experiment. It was an experiment designed by Dr. Zimabardo, and students of a class he taught participated in begin randomly selected to being chosen as a prison guard, or a prison inmate. The experiment was supposed to run 2 weeks, but was cut back to 6 days because of the negative intensity the lurked on the experiment. Now the guards getting power, misused it, and helped make the atmosphere more jail like. This is where the problem beings.


The students as prisoners had to stay in their cells for 24 hours, while the guards only had to stay for 8. This caused the prisoners to have the feeling that it was real, and not an experiment. Students went through so much torture from their classmates, that they ended up not being able to consciously say that they want to quit the experiment. The guards put pressure on the prisoners, and mistreated them


The experiment is unethical. If we look at it, the experiment wasn't an experiment but a really intense temporary feel of negativity. The shock and what the students had to go through left permanent scars which are still talked about today. Both the guards and the prisoners (students) felt as if they changed when they went in costume. The guards took advantage of their power, which goes to show that power without responsibility is bad for society and an individual. This experiment made the students loose their focus of what was the main reason they are going thru the experiment and what the hypothesis was. The corruption in the experiment was power. 


Even in today's world, the Abu Ghraib incident with the guards and the prisoners has been such a negative outlook on the United States. It isn't a positive to mistreat prisoners. It is inhumane and is shunned upon by society. Leaving prisoners to have permanent scars of what went on with them while they were in custody. Its a terrible thing to let power get the best of you. 


The things we encounter shouldn't just be things we see, but things we learn from. No matter what it is, we always can take a learning experience from everything. We learned that power without responsibility just causes problems and get to people's head which lead to hurtful action. Always learn from things we see and hear. It helps make us better people to learn from mistakes, but not just of ours but of other's mistakes a swell. 

Blog #1: Getting Started with Soc 200

Hey class. You guys may have already known, my name is Angdhdev Kahlon. I am currently going to NOVA to get my associates in business. I am almost near my ending point of getting my degree. I have been living in northern Virginia since I was born. Pretty much used  and well aware of the people, the surroundings, the traffic on Route 7, the cool places to see, interesting places to go. I grew up here in northern VA. Went to Herndon High, and here I am now, at NOVA, working on my degree. I am really passionate and detailed for the things I do, otherwise, why spend valuable time doing something you don't care for? 


Now to tell, a bit about why I am taking this class. For starters, it was required to getting my degree. I chose this course over the other classes, because it seemed to catch my attention a lot more and seemed to be interesting, and something I can use later on in the world of business and communicating and being sociable. But most importantly, a someone really special to yours truly  recommended that I take the class for i would enjoy it a lot.


After NOVA, my goals are to go to a four year university and get my masters in business and get a good paying job. Just have an honest living and being helpful to those who need.  I am not sure if i will stay in-state or go out of state for college. I am pushing to go out of state, but I still have to do many transfer applications, which hopefully after getting settled in this semester i will start to fill out.


I like watching T.V. or let me correct myself, "liked" ever since college and working part-time tutoring students in math & reading, watching T.V. has become a 30 second thing from where it once used to be a 5-7 hours on saturdays watching cartoons, and indian soap-operas. I used to watch the SPEED Channel a lot too. I am really passionate about cars. I worked on cars too, back when I had more time before i entered the world of college. I also used to go to do auto tracking and race on a track for timed laps and neck-to-neck style races out in Maryland. I liked being able to put work into a car, and to see the finished product, performance, made me grin knowing that this is something i did. Working with my hands, and seeing the finished product and seeing this is something i accomplished, something i could do, which shows me my capabilities. I can look back and always know that no matter what, if I put myself towards it, I can accomplish it, I can do well.  


Music is another thing I really like. I listen to large variety of music, from many different genres. I, myself am a musician. I play the Dhol, a South Asian drum, which I picked up from my culture in Punjab, India. I not only play the Dhol, I collect them too. After getting well aware of how these drums are made, and how much it takes to make them produce such a clean and crisp note, it gave me more reason to enjoy and to appreciate the maintenance that went into taking care of these drums. 


"Their are those who live by history, but real men are those who make history"