本帖最后由 greeky 于 2010-2-25 23:09 编辑
208"The way people look, dress, and act reveals their attitudes and interests. You can tell much about a society's ideas and values by observing the appearance and behavior of its people."
Walking on the street,we can observe various people in different dress:white or yellow,young or old and male or female. Of course we can get lots of information from their dress,look and act,such as faith,interest and attitude. The appearance of people we are observing is undoubtedly a reflection of the society`s valve and ideas. Nonetheless,is this enough to reveal the extremely complex values of the society we live in ? Of course not. The appearance of a individual merely tell us one dimension of his of her life,faith,and interest. There is much more about the culture he or she shares and believes in hides deeply behind the appearance. Similarly,when it comes to the community level,telling the ideology and value of a society by the appearance of some certain single group of people is unwarranted----there is much more waiting to be discovered by us.
Indeed,we could get myriad of information just based on a person`s appearance. Act,appearance and dress play s vital role in a person`s value----they are undoubtedly significant part of people`s ideology. Take a monk as an example,we we meet a monk,it is not very hard for us to identify his faith and value just from his clothes and the "hair-style" . To monks, their appearance is a common single of their faith. Also,we can easily identify someone`s motherland just by the conventional clothes. For instance,even Mahatma Gandhi was ever exiled in other countries for a long period,we can still tell that he is an Indian,just looking at his clothes.
However,how can we judge a society only through a single group of people? Society is a complicated combination of different group of people with different appearance,value even faith. Hereupon,even though we can get sufficient information for the appearance from every group of people, it is still such a difficult job to combine the distinct culture together to conclude a description of the whole society. Just look at America-------there are so many different ideology prevailing in the society,for instance,the white`s,the black`s,the Latin`s,and forth on. Thereupon,Judging a society by the appearance is not advisable.
finally,whether the appearance contain all the information we need to conclude about society`s value? Think about the art,the written documentation,especially the books. Words have a magic power to tell us everything about a society. If you want to get more knowledge about the Africa,why not go to the library to borrow some books? The book will give you more information about the believes and life style about Africa that the appearance of the African people,at least from my perspective. Take Mona Lisa as another example,the profound of the masterpiece of Da Vinci lies not only in the magic smile of the beautiful woman,but also in the information it contains about the value of individualism of that century. Thereupon,compared with the appearance of people, both the arts and books can tell us more.
To sum up. When it comes to conclude some information about some certain aspect or dimension of a society,observing the appearance of the certain group of people might be help. Natheless,it is of no use if we want to get the whole ideology of a society just depending on the action,dress,and appearance. We need more detail resources,maybe the arts,or maybe the written documentation such as books. There is no denying the extremely function of the arts and written records in the study of a society. | 
发表于 2010-2-25 19:03:07
发表于 2010-2-25 21:05:02
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