Issue208 [戮力同心小组] 第十四次作业by 宇之空 求拍

宇之空UID??2341042

"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."



Can people’ appearances and behaviors reveal their attitudes, interests, and the values and ideas of the society they belong? In the era of rapid social changes challenging the traditional ideas, the discussion of this issue among individuals and society as a whole has come into vogue during the last decade. The statement oversimplifies the topic and give an affirmative answer to the question above, however, in my view, the final judgment should depend on a case-by-case analysis.
First and foremost, when it comes to the way people look and dress, in some cases, it can reflect people’s attitudes, tastes, and even values and ideas of the society they belong to. On the one hand, for the individual, individuals with different characters may prefer different kinds of outwards appearances, meanwhile, a certain group of people with similar value in some aspects may share the same appearances’ features. For example, it is almost impossible that a professor dress himself like a rockstar. On the other hand, for the society, there are distinctions among different societies and some peoples have their own traditional costumes. If a society which places a high value on individuality such as contemporary America, there is surely a diversity of its people’s outwards appearances. Accordingly, if the members of a society intend to share the similar way of looking and dressing, it demonstrates the society’s value centering on unity and solidarity. Such example involves North Korea. Moreover, many Muslim women in Arab countries have to wear veils for culture reasons and such clothing is considered to be a testimony to oppression of women in that society.
However, in other cases, judging by one’s outside, we cannot draw any conclusion about his inside. Firstly, some people may care little about the way he looks and dresses. It is entirely possible that a millionaire businessman dressed himself just like a common worker. Secondly, some people’s outwards appearance is not a function of their attitude and values but rather some objective factors like company or career regulations. Just as an attorney and financial positions will surely wear more business suits which look trustworthy and signal “serious business” whether they like them or not.
In the second place, when it comes to the way people act, we may safely draw the conclusion that people’s behaviors can always show their attitudes, interests and values, if they are not forced. Accordingly, we can tell much about a society’s ideas and values by observing its people’s behaviors. For instance, Americans prefer ahead consumption to saving money while Chinese are quite the opposite, and this indicates different values of the two societies. Furthermore, even from the rate of its people’s walking can we learn the society’s ideas and values.  People’s rapid walking pace demonstrates high productivity and efficiency which the society values, while slow walking pace shows the gentle pace of living in the society, which surely values the comfort of daily life.
In the third place, when we talk about people’s appearance and behavior revealing the society’s ideas and values, we talk about people as a whole or at least most. In other words, neither one person nor a group of persons can represent the whole members of the society. Therefore his or their appearance and behavior cannot reveal the society’s ideas and values.
To sum up, there are still some occasions that we cannot tell accurately about their attitude, interests and the ideas and values of the society they belong to from the way people look, dress and act, however, we can tell much about them to a certain extent. Therefore, studying about its people’s appearance and behavior is an effective way to study the society.