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Pe ·
FOURTEENTH EDITION
- ie
A Down~Jo~Earth Approach
•
l'earson •
••
Contents VII
The Need for Both Macrosociology and Microsociology 122 Reference Groups 160
EVALUATING OURSELVES 160 • EXPOSURE TO
Summary and Review 126
CONTRADICTORY STANDARDS IN A DIVERSE SOCIETY 160
Thinking Critically about Chapter 4 127
Social Networks 160
5 How Sociologists Do Research 128 THE SMALL WORLD PHENOMENON
WORLD PHENOMENON AN ACADEMIC MYTH?
162 • IS THE SMALL
162 •
What ls a Valid Sociological Topic? 130 BUILDING UNINTENTIONAL BARRIERS 163
Common Sense and the Need for Sociological Research 130 Group Dynamics 164
A Research Model 130 Effects of Group Size on Stability and Intimacy 164
1. Selecting a Topic 130 Effects of Grot1p Size on Attitudes and Behavior 165
LABORATORY FINDINGS AND THE REAL WORLD 166
2. Defining the Problem 131
3. Reviewing the Literature 131 Leadership 168
WHO BECOMES A LEADER? 168 • TYPES OF LEADERS 169 •
4. Formulating a Hypothesis 131
LEADERSHIP STYLES 169 • LEADERSHIP STYLES IN CHANGING
5. Choosing a Research Method 131 SITUATIONS 169
6. Collecting the Data 131 The Power of Peer Pressure: The Asch Experiment 170
7. Analyzing the Results 132 The Power of Authority: The Milgram Experiment 171
8. Sharing the Results 132 Individual and Global Consequences of Group
Research Methods (Designs) 133 Dynamics: Groupthink 172
Strrveys 134 PREVENTING GROUPTHINK 173
Humanizing the Work Setting 192 GEOGRAPHY 224 • SOCIAL CLASS 225 •
GENDER 225 • RACE-ETHNICITY 225
EMPOWERING WORKERS THROUGH WORK TEAMS 192 •
STRENGTHS-BASED MANAGEMENT 192 • CORPORATE The Trot1ble with Official Statistics 227
CHILD CARE 192 • THE CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE 193 T11e Medicalization of Deviance: Mental Illness 228
Fads in Corporate Culture 193 NEITHER MENTAL NOR ILLNESS? 228 • THE HOMELESS
Self-Fulfilling Stereotypes in the "Hidden" MENTALLY ILL 229
Corporate Culture 194 The Need for a More Humane Approacl1 230
SELF-FULFILLING STEREOTYPES AND PROMOTIONS 194 Summary and Review 230
Diversity in the Workplace 194 Thinking Critically about Chapter 8 231
Technology and the Maximum-Security Society 196
Summary and Review 197 9 Global Stratification 232
Thinking Critically about Chapter 7 198
Systems of Social Stratification 234
Slavery 235
8 Deviance and Social Control 199 CAUSES OF SLAVERY 235 • CONDITIONS OF SLAVERY 236 •
BONDED LABOR IN THE NEW WORLD 236 • SLAVERY
What Is Deviance? 201 IN THE NEW WORLD 236 • SLAVERY TODAY 237
A Neutral Term 201 Caste 237
STIGMA 201 INDIA'S RELIGIOUS CASTES 237 • SOUTH AFRICA 238 •
Deviance Is Relative 201 A U.S. RACIAL CASTE SYSTEM 239
The Dynamics of Poverty versus the Culture The Changing Face of Politics 329
of Poverty 294 Glimpsing the Future-with Hope 330
Why Are People Poor? 294 Summary and Review 331
Deferred Gratification 294 Thinking Critically about Chapter 11 332
x Contents
DISCRIMINATION 342 • LEARNING PREJUDICE FROM The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective 380
ASSOCIATING WITH OTHERS 342 • THE FAR-REACHING
When Are You ''Old''? 380
NATURE OF PREJUDICE 343 • INTERNALIZING
CHANGING PERCEPTIONS AS YOU AGE 380 •
DOMINANT NORMS 345
FOUR FACTORS IN OUR DECISION 380
Individual and Institutional Discrimination 345
Changing Perceptions of the Elderly 381
HOME MORTGAGES 345 • HEALTH CARE 346
SHIFTING MEANINGS 381
Theories of Prejudice 346
The Influence of the Mass Media 383
Psychological Perspectives 347
The Functionalist Perspective 384
FRUSTRATION AND SCAPEGOATS 347 •
THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY 347
Disengagement Theory 384
EVALUATION OF THE THEORY 384
Sociological Perspectives 348
FUNCTIONALISM 348 • CONFLICT THEORY 348 •
Activity Theory 385
SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM 349 • HOW LABELS CREATE EVALUATION OF THE THEORY 385
PREJUDICE 349 • LABELS AND SELF-FULFILLING Continuity Theory 385
STEREOTYPES 349 EVALUATION OF THE THEORY 385
Global Patterns of Intergroup Relations 351 The Conflict Perspective 386
Genocide 351 Fighting for Resources: Social Security Legislation 386
Population Transfer 352 ''Old People Are Sucking Us Dry:'' Intergenerational
Internal Colonialism 352 Competition and Conflict 388
Segregation 352 Fighting Back 390
Assimilation 353 THE GRAY PANTHERS 390 • THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION
Multiculturalism (Pluralism) 353 OF RETIRED PERSONS 391
Racial- Ethnic Relations in the United States 353 Recurring Problems 391
European Americans 354 Gender and Living Arrangements of the Elderly 391
Latinos (Hispanics) 356 Nursing Homes 391
UMBRELLA TERM 356 • COUNTRIES OF UNDERSTAFFING, DEHUMANIZATION, AND DEATH 392
ORIGIN 356 • UNAUTHORIZED IMMIGRANTS 357 • Elder Abuse 393
RESIDENCE 358 • SPANISH 358 • ECONOMIC WELL-
The Elderly Poor 393
BEING 359 • POLITICS 360
RACE-ETHNICITY AND POVERTY 393 • GENDER AND
African Americans 360 POVERTY 393
RISING EXPECTATIONS AND CIVIL STRIFE 361 • CONTINUED
The Sociology of Death and Dying 394
GAINS 361 • CURRENT LOSSES 362 • RACE OR SOCIAL
CLASS? A SOCIOLOGICAL DEBATE 362 • RACISM AS AN Industrialization and the New Technology 394
EVERYDAY BURDEN 363 Death as a Process 394
Asian Americans 363 Hospices 395
A BACKGROUND OF DISCRIMINATION 363 • DIVERSITY 364 • Suicide and Age 396
REASONS FOR FINANCIAL SUCCESS 364 • POLITICS 364
Adjusting to Death: The Importance of ''Closure'' 396
Native Americans 365
Looking toward the Future 397
DIVERSITY OF GROUPS 365 • FROM TREATIES TO GENOCIDE
AND POPULATION TRANSFER 365 • THE INVISIBLE MINORITY
New Views: Creative Aging 397
AND SELF-DETERMINATION 366 • THE CASINOS 366 • CREATIVE AGING 397
DETERMINING IDENTITY AND GOALS 367 The Impact of Technology 398
Looking toward the Future 367 Summary and Review 399
The Immigration Controversy 367 Thinking Critically about Chapter 13 400
Contents xi
The Functionalist Perspective on the Globalization Contrast with Democratic Systems in Europe 448
of Capitalism 416 Voting Patterns 448
The New Global Division of Labor 416 SOCIAL INTEGRATION 451 • ALIENATION 451 •
APATHY 451 • THE GENDER AND RACIAL-ETHNIC
WORK BINDS US TOGETHER: MECHANICAL AND ORGANIC
GAPS IN VOTING 451
SOLIDARITY 416 • THE GLOBAL DIVISION OF LABOR 416
Lobbyists and Special-Interest Groups 452
Capitalism in a Global Economy 418
LOBBYING BY SPECIAL-INTEREST GROUPS 452 •
CORPORATE CAPITALISM 418 • SEPARATION OF
THE MONEY 452
OWNERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT 418
Functions and Dysfunctions on a Global Scale 418 Who Rules the United States? 453
The Conflict Perspective on the Globalization The Functionalist Perspective: Pluralism 453
of Capitalism 421 The Conflict Perspective: The Power Elite 454
Making Capitalism Flourish: Profits and Self-Interest 421 Which View Is Right? 455
CONNECTIONS BETWEEN BUSINESS AND POLITICS 421 • War and Terrorism: Implementing Political Objectives 456
CORPORATE POWER AND CONSPIRACIES 421 • Is War Universal? 456
MULTIPLYING POWER: INTERLOCKING DIRECTORSHIPS 422
How Common Is War? 456
The Global Superclass 422
Why Countries Go to War 457
Shifting Dominance and Power 422
The War Machine and the Profits of War 457
Global Investing 423
Costs of War 459
Work in U.S. Society 425
A Special Cost of War: Dehumanization 459
The Transition to Postindustrial Society 425 SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF DEHUMANIZATION 460
Women and Work 426
Terrorism 461
THE QUIET REVOLUTION 426 • FEMALE-MALE WORK
STYLES 428
Sowing the Seeds of Future Violence 464
SELLING WAR TECHNOLOGY 464 • ALIGNMENTS
The Underground Economy 429
AND DISALIGNMENTS 465
Stagnant Paychecks 429
What Lies Ahead? A New World Order? 465
Patterns of Work and Leisure 430
Unity and Disunity 465
WORK AND LEISURE AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF
ECONOMIES 430 • TRENDS IN LEISURE 431 • Inevitable Changes 466
TELEWORK 431 • THE MOBILE SHIFT 431 Summary and Review 466
Global Capitalism and Our Future 432 Thinking Critically about Chapter 15 467
xii Contents
Grade Inflation, Social Promotion, and Functional Characteristics of Religious Groups 554
illiteracy 523 DIVERSITY 554 • PLURALISM AND FREEDOM 554 •
Overcoming Mediocrity 523 COMPETITION AND RECRUITMENT 555 • COMMITMENT 555 •
TOLERATION 555 • THE SHRINKAGE OF THE MAINSTREAM
RAISING STANDARDS FOR TEACHERS 523 • A WARNING
CHURCHES 555 • THE FUNDAMENTALIST REVIVAL 555 •
ABOUT HIGHER STANDARDS 524
THE ELECTRONIC CHURCH 557
Cheating 524
Secularization of Religion and Culture 557
THE SOLUTION TO CHEATING 525
THE SECULARIZATION OF RELIGION AND THE SPLINTERING
Violence 525 OF CHURCHES 557 • THE SECULARIZATION OF
Technology and Education 527 CULTURE 559
18 Religion 530
What Is Religion? 532 19 Medicine and Health 563
Durkheim's Research and Conclusions 532 The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective 565
What Does Sociology Have to Do with Religion? 533 The Role of Culture in Defining Health and Illness 565
The Functionalist Perspective 533 The Components of Health 565
Functions of Religion 533 The Functionalist Perspective 566
MEANING AND PURPOSE 533 • EMOTIONAL The Sick Role 566
COMFORT 533 • SOCIAL SOLIDARITY 533 •
ELEMENTS OF THE SICK ROLE 566 • AMBIGUITY IN
SOCIAL CONTROL 534 • ADAPTATION 534 • SUPPORT
THE SICK ROLE 566 • GATEKEEPERS TO THE SICK ROLE 567 •
FOR THE GOVERNMENT 534 • SOCIAL CHANGE 535 •
GENDER DIFFERENCES IN THE SICK ROLE 567
GUIDELINES FOR EVERYDAY LIFE 535
The Conflict Perspective 567
Functional Equivalents of Religion 536
Global Stratification and Health Care 568
Dysfunctions of Religion 536
RELIGION AS JUSTIFICATION FOR PERSECUTION, WAR,
Establishing a Monopoly on U.S. Health Care 569
AND TERRORISM 536 THE PROFESSIONALIZATION OF MEDICINE 569 •
THE MONOPOLY OF MEDICINE 570
The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective 537
Historical Patterns of Health 572
Religious Symbols 537
Physical Health 572
Rituals 540
LEADING CAUSES OF DEATH 572 • WERE AMERICANS
Beliefs 540 HEALTHIER IN THE PAST? 572
Religious Experience 540
Mental Health 572
Community 540
Issues in Health Care 573
UNITY 540 • EXCLUSION 540
Medical Care: A Right or a Commodity? 573
The Conflict Perspective 541
Skyrocketing Costs 573
Opium of the People 541
Social Inequality 574
Legitimating Social Inequalities 541
Reducing Inequalities Health Care Reform 574
Religion and the Spirit of Capitalism 542
Malpractice Lawsuits and Defensive Medicine 575
The World's Major Religions 543 A PARADOX 575
Judaism 543 Medical Incompetence 575
Christianity 544 Depersonalization: The Medical Cash Machine 576
Islam 546 Conflict of Interest 577
Hinduism 547 Medical Fraud 577
Buddhism 547 Sexism and Racism in Medicine 578
Confucianism 548 The Medicalization of Society 578
Types of Religious Groups 548 THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON MEDCALIZING
Cult 549 HUMAN CONDITIONS 578
Propaganda and the Mass Media 650 Extending Human Abilities 670
GATEKEEPERS TO SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 651 The Sociological Significance of Technology: How
Why People Join Social Movements 652 Technology Changes Social Life 671
Relati,re Deprivation Theory: Improving Status CHANGES IN PRODUCTION 671 • CHANGES IN WORKER-
OWNER RELATIONS 671 • CHANGES IN IDEOLOGY 671 •
and Power 652
CHANGES IN CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION 672 •
RELATIVITY OF DEPRIVATION 652 • RELATIVE DEPRIVATION
CHANGES IN FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS 672
AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT 652
When Old Technology Was New: The Impact of the
Declining Privilege Theory: Protecting Status
Automobile 672
and Power 653
DISPLACEMENT OF EXISTING TECHNOLOGY 672 • EFFECTS
Moral Issues and Ideological Commitment 653 ON CITIES 673 • CHANGES IN ARCHITECTURE 673 •
When Social Movements Pose a Threat to the Government 655 CHANGED COURTSHIP CUSTOMS AND SEXUAL NORMS 673 •
EFFECTS ON WOMEN'S ROLES 673
On the Success and Failure of Social Movements 655
The New Technology: The Microchip
The Rocky Road to Success 655
and Social Life 674
The Stages of Social Movements 656
COMPUTERS IN EDUCATION 674 • COMPUTERS IN
Resurgence 656 BUSINESS AND FINANCE 675 • COMPUTERS IN
Multiple Realities and Social Movements 658 INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT 675
•
XVI
••
Special Features XVII
FIGURE 8.1 How Safe Is Your State? Violent Crime in the United States 216
FIGURE 8.5 Executions in the United States 225
FIGURE 9.4 Global Stratification: Income of the World's Nations 252
FIGURE 10.11 Patterns of Poverty 290
FIGURE 11.6 Women in the Workforce 323
FIGURE 12.6 The Distribution of Dominant and Minority Groups 355
FIGURE 13.1 The Graying of the Globe 376
FIGURE 13.6 As Florida Goes, So Goes the Nation 379
FIGURE 14.4 The Globalization of Capitalism: U.S. Ownership in Other
Countries 424
FIGURE 14.5 The Globalization of Capitalism: How Many U.S. Workers Work
for Foreign-Owned Companies 424
FIGURE 15.1 Which Political Party Dominates? 446
FIGURE 16.14 The ''Where'' of U.S. Divorce 493
FIGURE 17.2 Not Making It: Dropping Out of High School 507
FIGURE 17.3 The Unequal Funding of Education 517
FIGURE 18.2 U.S. Church Membership: Dominant Religion, by County 545
FIGURE 18.3 The Second Most Popular Religion in the United States, by
State 546
FIGURE 20.13 How Urban Is Your State? The Rural-Urban Makeup of the
United States 618
FIGURE 22.2 The Worst Hazardous Waste Sites 679
•
XIX
•••
ELCOME TO SOCIOLOGY! I've loved soci- We aren't born with instincts. Nor do we come into
ology since I was in my teens, and I hope you this world with preconceived notions of what life should
enjoy it, too. Sociology is fascinating because it is be like. At birth, we have no concepts of race-ethnicity,
about human behavior, and many of us find that it holds the gender, age, or social class. We have no idea, for example,
key to understanding social life. that people '' ought'' to act in certain ways because they
If you like to watch people and try to figure out why are male or female. Yet we all learn such things as we
they do what they do, you will like sociology. Sociology pries grow up in our society. Uncovering the ''hows'' and the
open the doors of society so you can see what goes on be- ''whys'' of this process is also part of what makes sociol-
hind them. Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach stresses how ogy so fascinating.
profoundly our society and the groups to which we belong One of sociology's many pleasures is that as we study
influence us. Social class, for example, sets us on a particular life in groups (which can be taken as a definition of sociol-
path in life. For some, the path leads to more education, more ogy), whether those groups are in some far-off part of the
interesting jobs, higher income, and better health, but for oth- world or in some nearby corner of our own society, we gain
ers it leads to dropping out of school, dead-end jobs, poverty, new insights into who we are and how we got that way. As
and even a higher risk of illness and disease. These paths are we see how their customs affect them, the effects of our own
so significant that they affect our chances of making it to our society on us become more visible.
first birthday, as well as of getting in trouble with the police. This book, then, can be part of an intellectual adven-
They even influence our satisfaction in marriage, the number ture, for it can lead you to a new way of looking at your
of children we will have and whether or not we will read social world and in the process, help you to better under-
this book in the first place. stand both society and yourself.
When I took my first course in sociology, I was I wish you the very best in college-and in your career
''hooked." Seeing how marvelously my life had been af- afterward. It is my sincere desire that Sociology: A Down-
fected by these larger social influences opened my eyes to a to-Earth Approach will contribute to that success.
new world, one that has been fascinating to explore. I hope
that you will have this experience, too.
,...
From how people become homeless to how they become
presidents, from why people commit suicide to why women
are discriminated against in every society around the world-
all are part of sociology. This breadth, in fact, is what makes James M . Henslin
sociology so intriguing. We can place the sociological lens on Department of Sociology
broad features of society, such as social class, gender, and race-
Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville
ethnicity, and then immediately tum our focus on the smaller,
more intimate level. If we look at two people interacting- P.S. I enjoy communicating with students, so feel free to
whether quarreling or kissing-we see how these broad fea- comment on your experiences with this text. You can write
tures of society are being played out in their lives. me at henslin@aol.com
xx
To the Instructor ... from the Author
EMEMBER WHEN YOU FIRST GOT "HOOKED" In short, this text is designed to make your teaching
xxi
•
IS
Chapter 1 Applying Sociology to Your Life: ''So You Want That Job.
What about Your Past?''
Applying Sociology to Your Life: The Sociological Perspec-
Applying Sociology to Your Life: How to Humanize Your
tive and Your Life Course
Work Setting
Figure 1.1 Suicide of Americans ages 18 to 24
Sociology and Technology: The Shifting Landscape:
Figure 1.7 Western Marriage: Husband-Wife Relationship
Virtual Reality and Diversity Training
Topic: William Graham Sumner taught the first course in
Topic: The experience and perspective of white males are
sociology in the United States (Yale 1872)
being added to diversity training
Topic: As a warning to Russia, NATO has stationed token
Chapter 2 troops in the Baltics
Topic: Strengths-based management as a way to make work
Sociology and Technology: The Shifting Landscape:
teams more effective
The End of Human Culture? Artificial Intelligence and
Super-Smart Computers
Topic: In the 1600s, killing cats was part of festive celebrations Chapter 8
Applying Sociology to Your Life: How Does Social Control
Theory Apply to You?
Chapter 3 Applying Sociology to Your Life: How Do You Use
Topic: Ekman's conclusions on the universality of the ex- Techniques of Neutralization to Protect Your Self
pression of human emotions is challenged by research Concept?
among the Trobianders of Papua New Guinea. Topic: In murder trials, if the victim is white and the ac-
Topic: Negative effects of day care depend on the age at cused is black, juries are more likely to impose the death
which children are placed in day care penalty than if the accused is white and the victim is
black
Chapter4 Chapter 9
Applying Sociology to Your Life: Getting Promoted:
Topic: Face-recognition software can turn the police's body
Making Impression Management Work for You cameras into surveillance machines, able to identify
Topic: Transgender as a master status
everyone an officer passes on the sidewalk
Topic: Students learn more from attractive teachers
Chapter 10
Chapter 6 Figure 10.7 Physical Health, by Income: People Who Have
Applying Sociology to Your Life: The New World of Work: Difficulty with Everyday Physical Activities
How to Keep a Paycheck Coming in the New Global Figure 10.8 Mental Health, by Income: Feelings of Sadness,
Marketplace Hopelessness, or Worthlessness
Topic: Explaining the conformity of the Asch experiments: Figure 10.10 An Overview of Poverty in the United States
people feel less agency when they do something they Figure 10.13 Poverty and Family Structure
have been ordered to do Figure 10.14 Poverty and Race-Ethnicity
Topic: Investigation of JonBenet Ramsey as an example of Figure 10.15 Poverty and Age
groupthink Topic: The 20 richest Americans have more wealth than the
bottom half of the U.S. population combined
Topic: Before they turn 65, about 60 percent of the U.S. pop-
Chapter 7 ulation will experience a year of poverty
Applying Sociology to Your Life: Using Mirroring Topic: The Jardin in Las Vegas sells a $10,000 cocktail and a
to Improve Popularity and Open the Doors to Success weekend Valentine package for $100,000
••
XXII
New to This Edition xxiii
Chapter 13 Chapter 17
Applying Sociology to Your Life: You Wan t to Get Through
Topic: In Japan, more adult d i apers are sold than baby
College? Let's Apply Sociology
d iapers.
Applying Sociology lo Your life; You Really Wan t to Get
Topic: The Social Security d ependency ra tio has dropped to
11, mugh College? Let's Apply More Sociology (Experi-
3.6 (current workers to one beneficiary)
ment that manged self-expectations, leading lo higher
Topic: Of the world1s 44 supercente narians whose age J-,as
completion of the first year of college)
been confirmed, 43 are women.
Topic: To increase graduation rates, community colleges are
developing guided pnllrwnys.
Chapter 14 Topic: A major change is occurring in Japan's higher
Applying Sociology to Your Life: How to Network education- a s hift to job training in its lower tier
fig ure 14:1 How Networks Can Create Opportunities and universities and more research in its top tier.
Build Sources of Knowledge Topic: University salaries in Russia .a.re so low that tens o f
Topic: Techn ology is leading to a mobile sirift, executives thousands of academics have left Russia.
, ..rithout offices, more mobile in the corporation. Topic: Tucson., Ari zona, r w1s a "Teen age Paren t High
Sch ool," where pregnant girls and those who have a l·
ready given birth learn parenting skills as well as tradi·
Chapter 15 tional subjects
Sociology and Technology : The Shifting landscape: How Topic: What does an A mean? High school teachers give
Could the Polls Get It So Wrong? twe,ity Umes more A's than C's.
•
XXIV New to This Edition
Chapter 18 Chapter 21
Sociology and Technology: The Shifting Landscape: Down-to-Earth Sociology: The True Believer: The Nazis
Changing Religious Practices in the Digital Age and ISIS
Topic: Roman Catholics use Confessor Go to locate priests Figure 21.2 The Participants in a Crowd
to hear confessionsf and WhatsApp to discuss moral di- Topic: Bringing emotions back in: the study of crowd
lemmas with priests. behavior
Topic: Pokemon Go and fidget spinners added to crazes
Chapter 19 Topic: The demonstrations of ''the dreamers'' added as an
example of relative deprivation theory
Topic: To whitewash international relations, China made a
law prohibiting the harvesting of organs from executed
prisoners, but the practice continues. Chapter 22
Topic: In Holland, there are about 6,000 medically assisted
Topic: The United States withdrew from G7's Paris Accord
suicides a year.
on Climate Change.
Topic: Each of the half million U.S. patients on dialysis costs
Topic: Global warming threatens the Earth's coral reefs,
$88,000 per year.
which hold chemicals to cure diseases. Venom from the
Topic: Americans spend more on alcoholic beverages than
cone snail, fifty times more potent than morphine, is
they spend on beef, fish, and eggs combined.
being used as a painkiller.
Topic: The average smoker dies ten years younger than the
Topic: In coming distance learning classes, the simul-
average non-smoker.
taneous translation of speech will allow students
Topic: Nanorobots are being developed to travel down
from different cultures to talk and to understand one
a patient's bloodstream to deliver drugs that target a
another.
tumor's cancer cells.
Topic: In coming distance learning classes, artificial
intelligence will enable students to go on virtual field
Chapter 20 trips in other cultures that immerse them in different
Topic: The United States has 40 million immigrants. realities.
Topic: The world now has thirty-one megacities. Topic: The Pentagon operates a Cyber Command with nine
Topic: Japan's population is shrinking by a million people ''National Mission Teams'' of sixty military personnel
a year. each
Topic: Update on Monsanto subverting GMO research. Topic: An Italian company sells '' off-the-shelf'' programs
Topic: Tomorrow's suburb: Attempts of suburbs to trans- that allow someone to insert malicious code in comput-
form themselves into cities. ers and mobile devices
It was far into the night when, amid a matted drift, half-way up
one bank of the arroyo, something stirred, faintly. Caught in a web of
debris, and a tangle of mesquite roots that thrust far out from the
soil, a man strove feebly to disentangle his head from a smother of
something that enwrapped it. When at last he partly succeeded he
looked up at the calm stars, lamping the sky in solemn splendor.
Below him he could still hear the rush of water, but above all was
peaceful.
Long he lay, more dead than alive, trying to remember what had
happened. By the bright starlight he managed to make out that the
body of the light wagon had caught upon an out-thrust web of
mesquite roots. He was lying on his side in the wagon box, one arm
thrust, to the shoulder, through something that he could not see.
About his neck and head was a tangle of cloth which he made out to
be the deputy’s coat, and a long thong of leather, probably one of the
harness reins. This was wound, as well, about what remained of one
of the seat braces.
Slowly, by agonizing degrees, the man began to work himself loose
from the tangle. Then he discovered that the thing binding his
shoulder was the strap of a horse’s nose-bag, and the bag itself. It
was caught over a long, splintered fragment of the reach, which had
broken through the bottom of the wagon box. The bag seemed to be
about half full of oats.
Inch by inch he cleared himself, and laying hold upon the mesquite
roots, rose slowly, until he stood up. Every movement was pain, but
he persisted doggedly, climbing little by little up the bank, clinging
now to a root of mesquite, now to a point of rock, pausing for breath,
or to ease the strain upon his tortured muscles. At last he grasped the
trunk of a mesquite and dragged himself out upon the desert, where
he fell helpless upon the sand.
CHAPTER III
The morning light did not confirm Gard’s impression that he was in
the deep woods. Beyond the thin region of growth fed by the pool the
little valley into which he had been led lay sandy and cactus-grown,
like the desert. The stream that should have watered it, that had
probably, at some time, made its way down the dry wash which he
had traversed, now found some underground outlet, and was
swallowed up by the vampire plain below.
Above the glade was a steep, rockbound ravine, down which the
stream still flowed. The pool seemed to be its last stand against the
desert. Gard, tentatively exploring the lower end of this ravine for
fuel, found a few blackberries, drying upon the bushes, and ate them,
eagerly, with appetite still unsated by his breakfast of mesquite
beans. The mesquite grew here, too; with manzanita and scrub oak,
arrow-weed, and black willow.
The man’s chief sensation was a vague surprise at finding himself
still alive. He was too sick—too weak—after his exertion and his rages
of the day before, to consider the problem of keeping himself alive.
He was chilled to the marrow, and yearned like a fire-worshipper
toward the warmth of his camp-glow. He tended the fire carefully.
He dared not let it go out; for that meant the sacrifice of another
precious match.
The elemental appetite awoke when, stooping to drink from the
pool, he saw fish darting about in its clear depths. He worked with
the cunning of a pre-historic man until, by means of the feed bag,
which he emptied of its contents, he succeeded in catching two of
these.
A long thorn of palo-verde served him for a knife in dressing them,
and he cooked them in the earth, with hot stones, laying each fish
between the split halves of broad lobes of the prickly pear. They were
insipid, and full of bones, but they served to satisfy his hunger.
He decided to keep a record of the days that he should spend in
this place; by sticking palo-verde thorns into an out-reaching branch
of willow, near the pool. He would stick in a thorn for each day. He
cursed the first one, as he thrust it against the wood; because he felt
powerless to do anything else.
Following, half sullenly, a mere human instinct to be busy about
something, he set about making a knife from the smallest plate of the
buggy-spring. He heated it in his fire till the paint came off, broke it
in two and spent the day working one thin end down to a cutting
edge, on a big, rough boulder. By night he had six inches of blade
with one rounded, sharp end.
He used this, next day, to cut ocotilla-stalks, to make a bed,
scraping away the thorns with sharp stones. He worked all day; less
because he wanted a bed than because he dimly realized that sanity
lay in occupation. That night he set a snare, and before morning
managed to catch a cotton-tail which he dressed and roasted for his
breakfast.
He was getting over the feeling of being hunted. They would not
search for him now, he reasoned; they must feel satisfied that he had
died in the cloudburst. He bathed in the pool that day, when the sun
was high, and set about constructing a fireplace against the big
boulder. This would make fire-keeping easier.
The days slipped into weeks. Little by little the man was adapting
himself to his environment. He learned to dry the mesquite beans
and grind them between stones into a coarse flour. This he made into
little cakes, which he baked upon a flat stone before the fire. Later, he
turned over a patch of earth, watered it, and sowed it with the oats he
had saved from the storm. Now, however, his food was the mesquite,
the prickly pear, the century plant, and the fish and small game that
he managed to catch.
As he grew stronger he fashioned himself a bow of oak, shaping
and smoothing it with his rough knife, and stringing it with fibres
from the century plant. His shafts were those of the desert Indians,
the arrow weeds growing close at hand, and he tipped them with the
cruel, steel-hard dagger-points of the yucca.
With this primitive weapon he gradually grew skilful; and at last he
shot a buck, as the creature came down to the pool one night, to
drink. He dried the meat, and used the skin, when he had made it
ready, as a covering for his bed.
Twice, during the winter, the camel came back to the pool. The
creature went as it came, silent, inscrutable. Whither it went Gard
did not know; the pool was evidently one of its ports of call while
going to and fro on the mysterious business of being a camel. It
accepted the man as a matter of course, and left him, when ready,
with the indifference of fate, though Gard could have begged it on
bended knees, to remain.
He was horribly lonely, with nothing but his hate, and a sick
longing for vengeance upon life, to bear him company. There were
days when he cursed the chance that had kept his worthless hulk
alive, while sending Arnold, in all his strength, down to death. He
had no doubt but that the deputy had perished. Nothing could ever
have come, alive, through the rush of water into which he had been
flung.
The weeks became months. His oats were coming up, a little patch
of cool green on the yellow sand, and he had occupation to fend the
field from the small desert creatures that coveted it. He also worked
at times at making various utensils of the red clay that he found in
the valley, baking them in a rude kiln of his own fashioning.
He came by degrees to love this work, and took great pleasure in it.
He even tried to contrive a potter’s wheel, but was balked by lack of
material. He had to content himself, therefore, with modeling the
clay into such shapes of use and beauty as his untaught hands could
achieve. In time he came to ornament his work as well, graving
designs on the edges of his plates and bowls. The camel’s counterfeit
presentment figured on one or two of the larger pieces, and upon the
others, as the impulse prompted, he put inscriptions, until the
homely articles of his daily use came to be a sort of commentary,
seen by no eyes save his own, of his moods, and the longing for their
expression.
He wrote thus upon other things as well. Lacking paper or
implements charcoal and sharpened sticks became his tools; the
rocks and trees; his broad earthen hearth; the plastic clay; even the
yellow sand of the desert, his tablets, and little by little all these
became eloquent of his lonely thoughts.
He put them down upon whatever served, for the mere comfort of
seeing them; scraps of lessons conned in the old brick school-house;
sums; fragments of the multiplication table; roughly drawn maps
and sketches of boyhood scenes; lines from half-remembered poems
and hymns; familiar Bible verses that his mother had taught him.
They came back to him bit by bit, in his solitude. And one and all his
soul found them camps by the way on its long journey up from
despair.
From one of his excursions into the valley he brought home the
empty shell of a desert turtle. This he split, and fashioned the upper
half into a bowl to contain the palo-verde thorns of his record. They
were already crowding the willow branch, and but for them he could
scarcely have realized the passage of days.
There were a hundred and forty-seven thorns on the day that he
transferred them to the new receptacle. Gard could not be sure that
he had one for each day in the desert, but he knew that each one
there actually represented a day.
“I’ve had every one of that lot,” he told himself, talking aloud, as a
solitary man gets to do. “Had ’em in the open, in spite of the law
sharks.”
He still lived from day to day, however, despite his vows, and his
threats of vengeance. He had known, when he sought Ashley
Westcott, begging the price of a ticket east, that he was a doomed
man.
“It’s all borrowed time,” he muttered, shaking the turtle-shell.
His face darkened.
“’T ain’t either,” he cried. “It’s time won back. They stole it from
me down there. They robbed me of three years, the filthy thieves!
What’s a hundred and forty-seven days against that?”
He remembered an occasion when to get away from the wood-pile
that was his special charge, in his boyhood, he had heaped a scant
supply of split wood over a pile of chunks yet untouched by the axe,
and exhibiting the result as his finished task had escaped with his
fellows upon some expedition of pleasure. He had meant to return in
time to complete his work before the cheat should be discovered, but
he forgot it.
His father had first thrashed him well for his wickedness, then
lectured him tenderly about it. The wicked, he had told him, would
not live out half their days. Gard’s laugh as he recalled the words was
more nearly a snarl.
“He was a good man all right,” he said, “but he didn’t know it all;
not by an eternal lot.”
He tormented himself with other boyish memories: the broad
grassy stretches of the prairie came up before him; the woods that
neighbored his father’s farm; the pleasant fields, and occasional low
hills that had seemed to him so high, before he had seen mountains;
the swimming-pool where he and the fellows played in summer; the
skating-pond where they raced and built forts and fought mimic
battles in winter; the red brick school-house at “The Corners”; the
white church at “The Centre,” where he had gone to Sunday school;
the little shed chamber with its creaking stairs that his mother had
climbed, how many cold nights! to see if he were warmly covered.
She was gone from earth now, but the old boyhood places were left,
and he yearned for them all, with yearning unspeakable.
“I thought I was going to get back to it,” he groaned, through his
set teeth. “I trusted that poison-snake to help me; God! If I could get
these hands on him, just once!”
But the quiet of his hundred and forty-seven days, and the balm of
the healing air, had wrought within him more than he knew. His
excursions afield grew longer, day by day, and in the gray of one
beautiful morning he started out to explore the mountain.
He had traversed the cañon before now, climbing over rocks, and
around mighty boulders washed down by ancient avalanches, or torn
from above by titanic storms, until he came to where the mountain
stream took a leap of some seventy feet, and the sheer face of the cliff
barred his way. This time, however, he followed the cañon’s edge, to
which the trees clung precariously, sycamores, oaks, and, to his
delight, some walnuts. He marked the spot where they grew, as a
place to be visited in the nut season.
The morning was far spent when he reached this point, so he
lingered to rest, to eat the jerked venison and mesquite bread he had
brought with him. Then he resumed his climb until he was well
beyond the timber growths and had to fight his way through
chaparral.
He crawled among this on hands and knees, now and then,
frightening birds, and other small game, from their hiding-places,
and at last came out upon the rocky open, and the broad spaces
where the large creatures of the mountains make their homes. He
noted more than one faint trail leading over the wastes, and now and
again he caught sight of deer in the distance.
Higher still he climbed, into the regions of white sunlight, until the
cold, pure air of the snowy ranges blew through his hair, and he
began to feel the altitude. In spite of this he pressed on, and at last
reached a ridge where grew a few scattered heralds of the great pine
belt above him. Here, quite unexpectedly, the vast waste of the desert
suddenly met his gaze, far, far below.
There was a strange, horrible unreality about it. The far gray plain;
the mountain’s bare, brown bones; the wind-distorted trees; the
solemn, snowy sierras, even the blue arch of the sky, seemed but
components of some fearful nightmare.
“I’m not asleep,” he muttered; “and it’s no dream; I’ve died, and
gone to hell!”
The bitterness of desolation was upon him. His very soul lay bare
in the bright, white sunlight of the heights, and he cowered, like a
child afraid of the dark.
As he stood thus, from out the silence a soft, clear whistle rose
upon the air. It was repeated, then taken up, farther away. The man
quivered as though the sound had struck him. Then his tense
muscles relaxed; he saw the whistlers to be a covey of quail, moving
along the rocks a little below him.
They came nearer, walking in single file, full of curiosity about
him, alert, speculative, keeping up a murmur of little ornithological
remarks among themselves, the while. The gentle fearlessness of the
small, pretty creatures filled all that grim place with an ineffable
grace. A sob strained at the man’s throat.
“Just as if they were in a garden!” he whispered.
Long he stood watching the birds, who presently, as if satisfied
that no harm dwelt in him, scattered about the rocky waste in search
of food. One only remained on watch, guarding the flock from a little
eminence where he stood motionless save for his pretty crest, which
the wind blew from side to side. Gard watched him, fairly hushing
his own breath lest he alarm the small sentinel, who in turn regarded
him, with bright, innocent eyes.
“To think of it,” the man murmured, “the little, little things, so
fearless, up here in this—this—secret—place—of—the—Most—High!”
He stopped, in vague surprise at his own speech. He had not
meant to say that, but from some neglected recess of his boyhood’s
memory the words had sprung, vital with meaning.
“I wish,” he finally began, after a long pause, and ceased speaking
as a wave of sickening despair swept over his soul. The idleness of
the phrase mocked him; the folly of wishing anything, helpless there
in the bitterness of desolation, came home to him with cruel force.
Then the ache of his spirit’s yearning drew his clenched hands up
toward the blue vault.
“I wish,” he breathed, his heart pounding, his brain awhirl with a
sudden vision of the infinite wonder of things, “I wish that—if there
is such a thing as God in the world I might come to know it.”
Slowly his hands came down to his sides. The sentinel of the rocks
gave a soft little call of reassurance to the flock, which had halted,
observant of the gesture, and the birds resumed their feeding. Gard
turned for another look at the snowy ramparts on high; at the vast
plain below. All their horror was gone, for him, and he began the
descent of the mountain with the peaceful visage of one who has
been in a good place.
Far into the night he awoke with the feeling of something stirring
near him. In the dim firelight he could make out a shadowy figure on
the hearth, and he sprang up in haste. A second glance, however, as
he sat upon his ocotilla bed, showed him that there was no harm in
the visitor shivering there by the coals.
It was a burro, and the listless pose, the drooping ears and the
trembling knees proclaimed a sick burro. It was too miserable even
to move, when Gard threw an armful of brush on the fire and
speedily had a blaze by which he could see the intruder plainly. His
first glance revealed a jagged, dreadful sore on the shoulder next to
the light.
Speaking very gently, he drew nearer to the burro and though the
little creature trembled violently, it let him bend down and examine
the wound.
A great spike of the long, tough crucifixion-thorn had somehow
become imbedded in the flesh, and the whole surface of the shoulder
was swollen and inflamed. Gard made a little sound of pity in his
throat, and the burro, turning, tried to lick the sore.
“No use to do that yet, Jinny,” the man said. “That thorn’s got to
come out first.”
The burro had probably never before been touched by hands; but
not for nothing was Jinny wide between the ears. She scrutinized her
would-be helper closely, for a moment, through her long lashes, and
drooped her wise-looking little gray head still lower. Gard threw
another armful of light stuff on the fire and when the blaze was
brightest attacked the thorn, using one of his sharp arrows as a
probe.
Once or twice the creature flinched. Once she snapped her strong
teeth at the hurting side; but Gard worked steadily and quickly, and
presently had the offender out.
“Look a’ that, Jinny,” he cried, triumphantly. It was a joy to hear
himself speaking to something alive.
“Look a’ that!” he repeated, “Ain’t you glad you found the doctor
in?”
He dipped warm water from an earthen pot in the ashes, and
washed the wound carefully, talking all the while to the still
trembling patient, silently regarding him. When the place was quite
clean he made a poultice of prickly pear and bound it on with a strip
of deer-skin.
“Lucky I shot another buck, Jinny,” he said, “or you wouldn’t have
that nice bandage.”
The little burro expressed no thanks; only stared solemnly at the
fire. Gard strode out into the darkness and pulled, recklessly, an
armful of his precious, growing oats. He threw the green stuff down
before her and she sniffed it curiously before she began, ravenously,
to eat it.
“Hungry, weren’t you?” the man said, sympathetically. “Been too
sick to eat. Well, well, make yourself at home.”
He threw a big stick upon the fire and went back to his bed, leaving
the burro chewing, meditatively, before the blaze.
He was just falling asleep when he felt something warm fumbling
about him, and he awoke with a start, and an exclamation that
quickly turned to something very like a laugh. The grateful little
burro was licking his hands.
“Why, Jinny!” he cried, sitting up. “Well, well, Jinny! Well, I’ll be
jiggered!”
He slipped an arm over the rough little neck and the two watched
the fire till dawn.