{"id":24964,"date":"2010-07-06T10:02:31","date_gmt":"2010-07-06T15:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=24964"},"modified":"2013-12-05T05:12:06","modified_gmt":"2013-12-05T10:12:06","slug":"the-social-construction-of-hopelessness-and-hopefulness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2010\/07\/06\/the-social-construction-of-hopelessness-and-hopefulness\/","title":{"rendered":"The Social Construction of Hopelessness and Hopefulness"},"content":{"rendered":"

This ad<\/a>, spotted by Stephanie DeH. in a physical therapist’s office, asks viewers to donate blood with the argument that it’s “easier” to save a life than to save the world:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Text:<\/p>\n

Saving the world isn’t easy. Saving a life is.
\nJust one pint of blood can save up to three lives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The ad commits two fallacies.<\/p>\n

First, it compares saving the whole world (or maybe every tree in the world) with saving just “a” life.\u00a0 Saving a life may, indeed, be easier than saving the whole world, but it’s not a fair comparison.\u00a0 Saving the whole world is hard, but about as hard as saving every life on it.<\/p>\n

Second, it suggests that we have to choose.\u00a0 “You could try to save the world,” the ad says, “but it’s pretty hopeless.\u00a0 It’s much easier to save a life.\u00a0 So put down that tree and donate blood.”\u00a0 Giving blood, then, is placed in competition with environmental activism as if (or because) volunteerism is a zero sum game.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This ad, spotted by Stephanie DeH. in a physical therapist’s office, asks viewers to donate blood with the argument that it’s “easier” to save a life than to save the world: Text: Saving the world isn’t easy. Saving a life is. Just one pint of blood can save up to three lives. The ad commits […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12508,233,23384,2123,252,23703,293],"class_list":["post-24964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-activismsocial-movements","tag-death","tag-social-construction-discourselanguage","tag-environmentnature","tag-healthmedicine","tag-marketing","tag-social-construction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24964"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59967,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24964\/revisions\/59967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}