求各位圣贤拍拍~~~~不胜感激~~~issue208

哈。利。波。特UID: 3009120

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."


I agree with the statement that the way people look, dress, and act reveals their attitudes and interests, however to say that we can tell much about a society's ideas and values by observing the appearance and behavior of its people cannot stand on the ground. It is a serious mistake to make the illogical assumption that there are some solid link between society's ideas and values and its people's attitudes and interests.

The old proverb from China goes that you can recognize one's style by observing his/her hair. And it has been illustrated by a recent survey conducted by China daily, a famous Chinese newspaper. Among the respondents, fifty-six percent of them who are optimistic claim that they prefer the clothes with bright color like yellow and pink. On the contrary, forty-four percent of them who regard themselves as the "thinkers" prefer the dark clothes. And clearly, the style of the clothes can excatly reflects the interests of the individuals. Take the sportsmen for instance; these people usually take the playsuit as their normal clothes so that they can free their bodies when they take part in the exercise training. And convincing thing is that this kind of people cannot keep quiet for a long time as long as they are awake because every cell in their bodies wants to have some kind of delightful movement. So through the surface phenomenon of the person, including the appearance and behavior, we can get some ideas about what in the person's mind.

However, even if you can penetrate people's mind, you cannot so easily understand the ideas and values of society that the people stay in. People may change from one generation to generation, but the society's ideas and values are steady buried deeply in the rich culture and weather-beaten history. So when we say that we can grasp the steady things by a changing perspective, we cannot confess that we do not make a mistake. Talking about the changes in the stable situation, China, an excellent example strikes my mind. The outside appearance of Chinese has changed a lot since the ancient time, but some precious values and ideas is still remained the same. For example, a great many Chinese people have become more international than before since the China reform and open-up. They put up prevalent clothes and imitate the superstars, but old tradition never lost. They still respect the old very much and show a great devotion for their country, taking it as an important virtue just like their ancient does. Hence, never guess the society's values and ideas by seeing its people's appearance if you do not want to make stupid mistake.

To sum up, we maybe can get to know people' attitudes and values by observing what they wear and what they say, but it's totally absurd to get conclusion of a society's values and ideas just thinking about what's the taste of its people without considering the other factors.