WELCOME to this blog that I have set up for Sociology 340: The Development of Sociological Theory. As I noted in class, we will be using this blog for a variety of individual and group activities and exercises. When I post some material on this blog I will let you know about it in class, but it would be a good idea to check it out a couple times a week regardless. Sometimes I may just post some follow-up comments after a class, or I may post something over the long weekend (Thurs-Tues.). In any case, know that this blog is an extension of what we do in this class and an important part of this course in social theory.
FIRST INDIVIDUAL EXERCISE:
In the Preface of our text (which I assigned yesterday, Tues. 2/8), the authors refer to what they call the "forest and trees problem" (p. xxiv), which I believe should really be worded: "missing the forest for the trees." For this exercise I want you to post an example of this problem (an example which can be invented if you can't think of one you may have run across in another course or other reading or even real life) OTHER THAN the one discussed by the authors in the Preface. I also want you to address the question of why this is a "problem." I am looking for NO MORE THAN 1 OR 2 PARAGRAPHS (no dissertations). Post your response as a comment on this blog post. Please do so by FRIDAY, FEB. 18TH. This exercise is worth 5 points.
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I think that the phrase "missing the forest for the trees" is another way of saying by focusing all of your attention on the small details of things you can miss the experience of the whole. I think a fun example of this could be when a man is proposing to his girlfriend.His intention is to ask for her hand in marriage. So, he plans an entire evening for her where they will walk on the beach and then he will propose to her. Not realizing that something about this night is a little bit different than any other night, the girlfriend is more concerned about the risk of sand blowing in her eyes and her hair frizzing up than her potential engagement. The entire night she complains about every little thing. At the end of the night, the boyfriend is a little discouraged because he thought he planned a great night, but sees that his girlfriend isn't exactly thrilled. She missed things that he was doing because she didn't understand why he had her outside on a windy night on the beach. Eventually, he still popped the question, and she said yes! But right after, she makes a comment that she wished he tried a little harder in making this night special. The boyfriend was baffled! He then explained to her that he did make this night special. He placed flower petals on the trail that they walked,he cleaned the car before he picked her up, and he had been making hints all night that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Sh missed all of that because she was more concerned about her hair frizzing up. The big picture was there engagement,but her main focus was her hair. So, in this case, the forest was the engagement and the tree was her hair and the sand. I think the problem with focusing on the tree instead of the entire forest is that you miss out on so much.By focusing only on one small thing you won't experience as much as you would if you looked at the entire picture. Then in some sense you could remain ignorant to some things and therefore limit your knowledge.
My cousin once took me on a tour of the Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis, Missouri, which is said to be the largest collection of mosaic artwork in North America. This cathedral is overwhelming to take in all at once. The sensory overload of a room so large in complete silence, the visual mastery of the domed ceilings and ornate arches, and the breathtaking mosaics covering these ceilings can be transformed into our forest.
Missing the forest for the trees is like missing the mosaic for the tiles. Staring at one individual tile, though it may be beautiful, pales in comparison to what it comprises. The first glance at the interior of the building as a complete work of art is the objective, and to only view one piece of tile is to miss the big picture. Every mosaic, together with other details, composes this striking interior, and it is only through the compilation of these aspects that the cathedral is so spectacular.
The phrase "missing the forest for the trees," to me means focusing all your attention on small details and missing the greater picture. An example of this I've seen in real life was in a movie poster for the film "The Truman Show." When I first saw the poster, I didn't understand what it was about. All I could focus on was how the poster was designed - there were hundreds of tiny photos of Jim Carrey's character or other characters from the movie. The photos looked like stills taken during filming or rehearsals; all the people in the tiny photos were caught up in an action of some sort. Many were of Jim Carrey doing seemingly ordinary tasks. However, when I stepped away from the poster, I saw all the hundreds of tiny images fit together to make a large image of the Jim Carrey's character, Truman. If the viewer, like I did, gets caught up in the hundreds of tiny images, they miss the greater design of the poster.
This is a problem, because people miss the greater picture. For example, if a viewer sees the poster and never steps back away from it and can see what the poster is really designed to show, they will not be able to comprehend the hundreds of images. Trying to do so in the short time people take to view movie posters would be overwhelming and impossible. While each image is important, each image by itself carries little or no message. When all are placed together in a pre-determined manner, they become an entirely new image. This is like "missing the forest for the trees." People become focused on details and the features of individual trees, and miss how they fit into the grand scheme of things and how when they are all put together, the trees create a forest.
The whole "missing the forest for the trees" idea, though quite simple, often seems to be the case in many situations. Though it may be a simple example (and one that might fail to clarify the meaning of the original idiom), a similar metaphor came to mind: missing the sky for the fireworks. Silly, perhaps, but I feel that this example is quite relevant in specifically dealing with the concept of sociological theory vs. individual sociological concepts.
Fireworks are quite a popular item, especially for Americans around the beginning of July. During firework shows, one can audibly notice the ooohs and ahhhs coming from spectators gathered for the show. But the bright lights and explosions often hinder one's recognition of the beauty that lay just behind those distractions. Is not the sky, and all its constituents, just as beautiful or worthy of awe? Is it not even a MORE beautiful and vast sight than the fireworks themselves? My point with all of this, and I believe is the point of the former forest example, is that we often dismiss the relevance and appreciation for the bigger picture when we focus to accutely on the details of varying situations, concepts, or subjects.
The phrase "missing the forest for the trees" is something I remember hearing many times from my mother growing up. Literally it suggests that if you focus on each individual tree, you will fail to recognize that all the trees make up a forest. Likewise, if you focus on every little detail of something, you will miss the "big picture". This phrase is sound advice in relation to academics and life in general. In college especially, I have come to realize that understanding the details of a subject is not helpful if you do not have an understanding of the subject as a whole and can see how those details relate to one another. Similarly, in everyday life it is easy to get wrapped up in the to-do lists and problems. It is important to step back and enjoy life as a collection of relationships and experiences.
Although my mother was the one that reminded me not to overwhelm myself with the details, it was I who repeated her own advice one day as she was complaining about her sore back. She said that her back was the only thing she could focus on all day and that she was "falling apart". In my science classes, I am continuously learning about the systems and functions within the body. I explained to her that our bodies are incredible when considered as a whole. It enables us to move, breathe, think, and communicate. If you focus on one small part, such as a sore back, you miss out on recognizing all of the amazing things your body can do. Small details cannot be fully understood or appreciated without first being seen as part of a whole.
I think the phrase "missing the forest for the trees" means if you focus on every little detail of something, you will miss the "big picture". A real life example of this i have personally encountered is that in sports. For my basketball team I think of the a situation in which we may lose a tough game or two, probably to teams we shouldn't have lost to. The coach could get all riled up and pissed off at his team for taking that Loses. In doing so, he may cause dissension amongst the players and may cause a downward spirial for the rest of the season. In this situation the coach is "missing the forest for the trees", because he may be missing the big picture, its just a few games (not the whole season). Instead of focusing on the individual games the coach could focus more on the season goals and the big picture. The team winning the Southern Conference championship.
In past research, I came across the "missing the forest for the trees" issue in autistic children. Dr. Temple Grandin describes her viewpoint of the world as an autistic child in several books that I read this summer. She discusses how she used to look at the world in pieces. For example, she only recognized the individual petals on a flower and did not realize that put together, they comprised the whole entity of "flower." Likewise, she talks about not realizing that trees were made up of leaves and trunks and roots. For Dr. Grandin and other autistic individuals, this issue of "missing the forest for the trees" impedes communication and leads to a lack of understanding in everyday activities. This is socially relevant because autistic children/individuals generally experience some kind of removal from society because of a lack of social skills. Dr. Grandin attributes much of this lack of social skills to the misunderstanding of objects in the world because of the focus on the parts of the objects, rather than the whole. I realize this is not a problem that many of us have encountered; however, because I have worked with autistic children, it is one that I have directly encountered, and I find it to be an interesting example of "missing the forest for the trees."
The expression "missing the forest for the trees" describes the process by which an event, object, or phenomenon is examined too closely, through a microscope per say, and so much of what is there remains overlooked or unseen. Social issues are often subject to this conundrum and remain unsolved because of this narrow scope that occurs when we focus too closely on a tree or two and miss the forest.
Overachieving Wofford students (and students in general) do this often in respect to grades. One bad grade is the end of the world and they are often unable to focus on the good they have done so far, causing stress and anxiety.
Missing the forest for the trees is a problem because to understand an issue fully, it is essential to see the entire picture. Zooming in on a few particular aspects of the issue may give an inaccurate picture.
"Missing the forest for the trees", is analogous to failing to look at the big picture. We often become so focused on infinitesimal details that we impair our ability to discern the "greater picture." In the sense of sociological understanding, often we unduly focus our attention towards a small aspect of society, while failing to appreciate its interconnectedness with other facets. As a consequence we may fail to appreciate encompassing themes, particularly of cause and effect.
An example of such a phenomena would be the experiment that many cities in the US tried with rent control. By failing to appreciate the impact this would have on property owners, council legislation caused a serious shortage of rent-able property (owners withdrew their property from the rental market as they feared they could not cover their own costs) and homelessness rates increased significantly. Before remedial interventions are introduced for complex social problems it is imperative that the forest- the big picture is fully appreciated.
The old saying, “missing the forest for the trees” simply refers to the tendency of individuals to focus on specific details (the trees) rather than the picture (the forest) as a whole, and thus individuals miss the meaning of the “big picture.” For example, the medical field is becoming extremely specialized and many medical students are devoting their entire career to studying only one specific area of medicine, such as cardiology, nephrology, or dermatology. Although the specialization of medicine is beneficial, it is also detrimental, as doctors no longer treat the whole patient but instead they treat just one organ or system. I believe doctors must not forget the “bigger picture” – to treat the whole patient, and to accomplish this, doctors must study and treat all of the body systems.
Often in academics, as well as in day to day life, we can miss “the forest for the trees.” That is to say, we frequently get so caught up in details and minutia that we can miss the big picture. One example, in my experience, that is especially relevant to this is mathematics. For instance during statistic classes I’ve found that I have gotten caught up in the numerous approaches, theorems and nomenclature (e.g. regression analysis, standard deviation, types of surveys) and have missed the overall practical uses for such tools and the ultimate ends of such methods.
Being a business minor, I have taken a few marketing classes, and am in marketing research this semester. One thing that can be related to the notion of "missing the forest for the trees" is the process of creating a new product. When companies try to make new products, they usually only focus on one aspect of it at a time, and different departments are only concerned with one aspect of the product. This causes problems, because the company is not working as a whole to create a new product, but instead are making it in segments. They are, in a way, missing the forest for the trees. Each individual department is focusing only on one tree, while they should be focusing on the product as a whole, or the forest. This is a problem because people are not looking at the big picture. With more attention to things as a whole, there might be a more cohesive product or result.
The phrase "missing the forest for the trees" simply boils down to becoming so bogged down in details of something that you miss the big picture. For example, when I was a young child, my siblings and I wanted nothing more than to go to the fair. We were absolutely heart broken when our parents said that we were not going to be going that year. Then one day, they took us on a ride. They said that it would be a long ride, so we might as well get comfortable. For the entire ride, I had a bad attitude and was so upset because I knew that I wasn't going to be going where I wanted to, so what was the point in me trying to have fun on the ride? Because I was so upset and focused on the small detail "mom and dad said that we can't go to the fair," I completely ignored that the route we were headed on was one that headed to the fair. I was blinded by my anger and the long car ride, and didn't see the bigger picture, WE WERE GOING TO THE FAIR!
This can tend to happen in many cases, you see only what you want to see or what you are able to see based on what you have been told and miss the bigger picture or idea because you are focused on the wrong things.
I believe that the phrase "missing the forest for the trees", can be simply stated as a metaphor for missing the big picture for the small details. An idiom that deals with the same concept in losing something in its details would be, "you may have won the battle but you have lost the war". Again when too much energy is put into looking at the intricacies of something then the large overarching concepts or ideas of something can be easily lost.
I think that the phrase "missing the forest for the trees" is another way of saying that focusing on small details can make you miss the bigger picture. This is something that many people do on a regular basis. This is something that I was guilty of, in high school when my mom would yell at me. It didn’t matter what she yelled at me for I was just so focused on how she was telling me to do something instead of the point she was trying to get across. One example was when my room was my clean but not my mom’s clean. She said we were having company over but in my eyes it was just my uncle coming over. I didn’t see the point I just knew she was yelling at me. The point she was trying to make was that if company comes over then you have to have yourself together along with your surroundings.
For me this is a big deal because with my family communication is huge because there are so many of us that we have to try hard to just get the point. Most of the time when people have problems with hearing a point they have a problem with the way a person said it or when they said it and not what was actually said.
I believe the "missing the forest for the trees" problem can apply to times when people do not properly place causation to events. For instance, if a failing collegiate student decides to cut back on attending social events in order to increase his GPA, yet, he or she does not see true results, they may be "missing the forest for the trees". GPA is connected to more than just over socializing. If one cuts back on socializing but does not study more, get good rest at night, and attend class attentively, their grades may stay the same. A person would have to engulf themselves in all the facets than can improve their GPA. To think simply "getting more sleep" will fully allow the GPA to reach its full potential is "missing the forest for the trees". Basically, there are many elements that go into being successful and they are all interconnected. You have to recognize the forest and not just pay attention to a particular tree in order to progress.
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