【八九A2】I 208

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TOPIC: ISSUE208 - "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."

I agree with the speaker that the way people look, dress, and act reveals their attitudes and interests. However, whether we can base on the appearance and behavior of a society's people to tell about its ideas and values should base on a case-by-case study.

The appearance of an individual is an indicator of his or her attitudes and interests. The punks, for instance, dress leather jackets or T-shirts with bold, impressive logo, draw dark eye-lines, and keep colorful or big spiky hairstyle. Those who are unsatisfied with the society are likely to dress in punk style to make a statement of their individualism. Or those who are big fans of punk music may dress this way. A messy punk looks, to some extent reveals an individual's rebellion towards the society or interests towards punk music.
Another example for this point, the vegetarian hold purposes of live longer and healthier lives, or are ethically opposed to eating animals by keeping their diet. From one's action of rejecting eating meat, we can conjecture that he or she values about the animals' lives or that s/he is trying to keep an ideal lifestyle. To conclude, it is always the case that the way people look, dress and act reveals some aspects of their attitudes or interests.

However, this does not necessarily indicate that we can tell about a society's ideas and values by observing its people's appearance and behavior. Consider the appearance first. Take obesity for example. The women in Maurtitania are generally obese since they think it beautiful to be moderately to morbidly obese. This does reveal obesity weighed heavily in their values of beauty. However, in some developing country, people also tend to be obese, which has no concern with values or ideas. It is just because many people there are busy with working, and thus, do not have enough time to prepare a healthy diet. Instead, they turn to unhealthy fast-food for convenience. In this case obesity is just attributed to lifestyle. The style of school uniform, another example for my point, tells nothing about a society's ideas and values. Query, is the sailor style school-uniform indicates anything that they values the sailor? This style is just a tradition. Query, is the zip-up sport uniform commonly used by Chinese schools indicates anything about Chinese attitudes, towards politic, towards lifestyle, and something else? Actually, we conclude nothing from the popular style of zip-up uniform.

The validity to speculate a society's idea and value from its people's appearance depends on different situations. So is it when focus on people's behavior. For example, Japanese has an habit to queue up-for bus, for ticket, to name a few, while Chinese always throng to get on buses or to get in shops. This comparison does reveal, to some extent, that Japanese regard the society order prior to self-benefit while Chinese do not. However, in some cases, people's behavior is no indication of values or ideas. Put the etiquette of dining in India to illustrate my point. The Indian use their right hands instead of cutlery to have their meals. Yet, this is no evidence they value rudeness or meant to be unsanitary, it is just a tradition. In fine, we cannot assert that whether we can tell about a society's ideas and values by observing the behavior.

In sum, appearance and behavior of an individual does indicate something about his or her thoughts. Yet, whether we can learn the ideology of a society by its people's behavior and appearance should base on a case-by-case study.