issue208

civilppUID: 2999177

208 20:00-21:35 words:459

" 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 concede that the appearance and behavior of people reflects parts of a society's ideas and values. However, we must avoid biases and prejudice when we
watch the way people act; otherwise, we cannot come to an comprehensive conclusion about the society's custom as a whole.

Admittedly, a society's custom and habits are usually shown through its consisting people who dress and speak in the way having long been accepted by most of the members of the society. To exemplify my point clearly, here's a case in point. Before the French Revolution, the common wearing of people strictly varied from different social standings. While the priests the first estate wore clerics to tell normal citizens, nobilities who were known as the second estate of French society dressed in silk velvet or wool which was made from hand and farmers the third estate might just have few clothes with patched elbows and stains. Through the dress people belonging to different estates, we can clearly tell much about the hierarchical order in France in 1600's.

Nevertheless, it is insufficient to recognize a society's entire culture and conventions only through having an observation on individuals' behaviors. After all, when people confronting diverse problems, the way people intend to act with specifically unique characters may differ a lot from others' even influenced by the same environment .As a result, the difference in daily behaviors of people in the same society may confused the historians what indeed the society's value and ideas was, thus no possibility that comprehensive conclusion can be authoritatively claimed.

It is also significant to consider other feasible methods concerning the politics, literature, arts, science or any other fields of human endeavor for us to get a better understanding of a society's custom, conventions and values. We can look no further than the Rome as a perfect example. No one can conclude the Roman's 200-years peace "the Pax Romana" as a great period when people were in earnest for freedom, pure beauty, and ambition to conquer the world depends on a mere piece of poem. Only through comprehensive analysis from the representative temple the Patheon to famous Venus de Milo, from philosopher like Socrates to Epicureans who claimed that the greatest good was to seek for pleasure ,and from the Roman emperor Caesar's continual desire to invade rest of the world. The more fields people have observed, the more reliable the conclusion of the society's ideas and values will be.

Simply put, unless the objects people observed are representative of the society's model, I fundamentally disagree with the speaker's idea that only through observation of common people's behavior can we realize the essence of a society. We can attain a more comprehensive result after observation of other fields all of concerned.