American Cultures and Values (Blog Entry #4)

Privacy, equality, time, informality, looking to the future...all are major U.S. American values that the American society has developed over time.  What makes our definition of life so much different than other nations?  Or why are other nations so different from us?  By definition, "values" are socially shared ideas about what is right.  Robin Williams (1914-2006), a sociologist who studied and identified the core values of the citizens of the United States, came up with a concrete list of American values.  I'd like to take a bit of time to explain the meanings of some key American values, and to explain them in the context of other nations.

1. Privacy

Privacy can have many meanings, but for our discussion, I would just like it to take on two meanings.  First, privacy could be physically "private", separated, away from the outside world.  In the United States, we put up signs on hotel room doors, such as the one shown to the left, to keep people out.  We like to keep to ourselves, and to not always have to invite someone inside.  However, in Singapore, people live in such tightly compacted areas that there is no privacy, and people learn to live in close quarters with each other.

A second meaning that the word 'privacy' can take on is being secretive, keeping things to ourselves and not telling others what we are truly thinking about.  On a handout that the University of North Caorlina uses for its foreign exchange students, it explains that the question, ""What is on your mind?" may be considered by some to be intrusive."  As Americans, we are brought up in a society that believes in keeping to yourself and being very independent.

2. Time

  A second major value of the American culture is time.  We are constantly hurried, and rushed, needing things immediately and on the go.  For example, even our food is "fast".  We are a fast-paced society that keeps moving at all hours of the day.  The expression "time is money" is often used in the business world.  Peter, a "Lost Boy" who came over from Africa, observed that in the U.S., "Time is money.  But there in Africa, there is no 'time is money'."  Because of this thinking, people in Africa seem to be a lot more social because they are not concerned with just getting money as many Americans are.  They actually take time out of their day to talk to one another, unlike Americans who would not be willing to forfit their salaries for a conversation with a friend.  In the U.S., we are so concerned with being on time for places, and are often criticized if we are late.  There is no such thing as being late in the U.S.  If we are late for class, we are punished with unexcused absences or tardies.  If we are late for an interview, we most likely will not get the job.

3. Material Comfort

Americans are also very concerned with material items.  Madonna sang in her song "Material Girl", "You know that we are living in a material world and I am a material girl."  Americans often lose sight of what is important such as family, friends, religion, etc.  In our society, a person defined as rich has a lot of money.  However, while talking to a friend from England, rich is defined much differently in his country.  Rich actually entails having a lot of friends, etc.  When someone says, "he is rich", it could be interpreted as "he has many friends; he is rich in friends."  It seems sometimes that it is not about who you are, but about what you have.  While watching t.v. even for a half hour, we see dozens of commercials flash across the screen advertising products to make us look younger and healthier.  It isn't ever possible to be content with your body because a new product is out on the shelf every week pointing out that something else is wrong with our bodies.  Even from this week while reading my Seventeen magazine, I noticed that every other page had an advertisement for perfume or for makeup.  "Get longer lashes", "drop ten pounds in two weeks"...these are just two of the slogans I saw in a magazine for teenagers!!  At the teenage year we are so vulnerable, yet we are constantly being told through the media that we aren't perfect, that our bodies could look better to attract others.  We forget to be who we are and start becoming someone the advertisement agencies would use as a model for their product.

We have grown up learning social norms.  In each country, different social norms are prevalent, but people are judged nonetheless upon whether or not they follow the social norms of their respective countries.  In the Sudan, the "Lost Boys" spent many nights dancing with the other members of their community, as it was a ritual.  However, if they were to dance and sing here in the United States, they would stand out from the rest of us because that is not part of our culture.  Norms are "expectations about what behavior, thoughts, or feelings are appropriate within a group or culture."

In college, I would love to have the chance to study abroad in Spain.  However, it will be a huge cultural adjustment for me because I have become so accustomed to the American ideals and values that everything else seems foreign to me.  I empathize with the immigrants who come to America not understanding how different our culture is and having to adapt to the culture in order to fit in.

Love Around the World (Blog Post #3)

I had not given much thought to how Valentine's Day is celebrated across the world, or even if it was considered a holiday in other parts of the world.  For Valentine's Day this year, I received some chocolates, a sweater, and a movie, all from my loving mother :)  Now for others, there was dinner and the movies and presents, and maybe even a kiss here and there, but for others who are not in a steady relationship or a relationship at all for that matter, Valentine's Day in the United States is just another way of saying "you're not loved."  I'd rather refer to it as Single's Awareness Day though...but this is besides the point.  The fact of the matter is, we as a society have created Valentine's Day to be a very important holiday in our community.  From the generic Hallmark greeting cards to flowers and teddy bears, and even to over-dramatic commercials like the one below from Kay Jewelers (my sister and I mock this commercial every time it is shown on the television).

In America, we seem to get so caught up in the act of giving that we forget what the holiday is truly about.  Valentine's day is just another "Hallmark holiday" here, whereas in other countries such as Norfolk, 'Jack Valentine' knocks on the door to bring children presents.  I found this article on Wikipedia especially interesting about the different customs of Valentine's day in different societies throughout the world: Global Valentine's Day Customs 

While we might find some of these customs obscure, it is because of ethnocentricity that we believe that we are right and others are wrong.  Ethnocentrism is using our culture as the basis upon which we judge other cultures.  While reading in class about the "Nacirema" and the "Rac", we were so quick to judge other cultures without putting ourselves in their shoes and understanding that what is normal to some cultures is not normal for us.  After our teacher told us that "Nacirema" and "Rac" were "American" and "Car" spelled backwards, it made so much more sense, and I was appalled at how quickly I had judged another culture, when really it was my own culture.  In the Nacirema article, the human body was discussed and it was obvious how much energy and time we spend perfecting our body.  While I was reading the article under the perspective of "Nacirema", I was so confused as to why these people performed such obscure rituals, but after rereading it from the perspective of "American", I realized that things such as "the opulence of a house is often referred to in terms of the number of such ritual centers it possesses" was just like our culture where everything is about what you have and not who you are.  From the "Rac" article, it was so intriguing to read "some people move their homes because the rac paths must be as straight as possible..." under the notion that racs were animals, but once I realized that they were talking about cars, it was so true!  When the government wants to build or expand an expressway, under the constitution it has legal rights to cease the property owned by homeowners upon which it wishes to build.  Therefore, we value our transportation more than we do our own homes.

Finally, in Sociology class today, we discussed values (the standards by which people define what is desirable or undesirable).  What we value in society is not always what others value in their societies.  Such is the case with the Yanomamo tribe.  The Yanomamo Indians live in southern Venezuela in many different tribes scattered throughout the area.  Anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon (referred to as Shaki by the Yanomamo), lived with the tribe for a year and a half, and described his initial experience as a culture shock (fundamentals of life learned no longer apply).  Because of ethnocentrism, he immediately thought that the warring tribe was savage like.  He described the people as being 'barbaric' and 'aggressive'.  They believed that beating their wives was a sign of your aggressiveness and power, "Beating a wife with a club is considered to be an acceptable way of displaying ferocity...", whereas in the United States, beating your wife would put you in a courtroom being charged for battery, and spending years in a federal prison.  Shaki also learned that Kaobawa (the headman of Upper Bisaasi-teri) had a wife who killed her newborn baby at birth because she thought that it would take away the nutrition of her other son from the milk.  I believe this to be very similar to abortion because women decide to take the life of a child because it is unwanted, even though that child is still creation.  

However, not everything that Shaki saw was different from our culture.  For example, he noticed that the geographical locations of the cultures really played a role with how they acted.  This is similar to the United States where Northerners are often much more fast-paced while Southerners act in a more leisurely fashion.

Shaki saw that the Indians were very manipulative, and would try to steal his food by threatening him.  He didn't understand why he couldn't be friends and allies with the tribe...this calls for a musical break:

It wasn't until he realized that he had to adapt to the culture around him.  Eventually he adapted to the culture of the Yamomamo and in doing so raised his own status.  The people were more accepting of someone who was more like themselves.  For example, Shaki set the Indians into the current to let them float away after they had stolen his palm boards to use as paddles for their canoes.  Shaki writes, "whenever I took such action and defended my rights, I got along much better with the Yanomamo."  

Finally, I noticed that something we take for granted is the use of names.  Everyday we call someone by their first name to get their attention, but in the Yanomamo tribe, names are held sacred and are seldom used.  No one uses the name of a deceased individual, and becomes very offended if the name is spoken.  This created difficulty for Shaki because he wanted to trace the genealogy of the tribe.  However, he became allies with Rerebawa through a common connection of being outsiders in the tribe.  He learned much from Rerebawa about the history of the tribe.

We are very culturally different from many different countries, but we need to be accepting of each other and take part in 'cultural relativism', which is "not judging a culture, but trying to understand it on its own terms."  

Eating Your Friends? (Blog Entry #2)

What would you do if you were stranded in the middle of the Andes Mountains after a terrible plane crash and you overheard that the search party for you had been called off? Would you lose hope and not even try to survive the cold temperatures, or would you do whatever it took to stay alive?  Now ask yourself this question...would you resort to cannibalism in order to have a chance at survival?

After watching the video, you might have cringed at the end when you saw the man cutting into the dead man's body for a source of food.  What would make someone get to this point where cannibalism was acceptable?  In Sociology class, we learned about a sociologist named Max Weber who discovered that "people attach meaning to their own actions of others" and that our choices are products of our environment.  At first, cannibalism seemed disgusting to the survivors of the plane crash, but as time progressed, they realized that it was their source of survival and they had attached a new meaning to the word.  This idea follows the concept of Symbolic Interaction, which explains that nothing comes with a 'built-in' meaning but rather that humans attach meanings to things.  The article states that, "the dead became part of their lives." 


Once cannibalism had been implemented into the survivors society, they had to establish some rules to create order.  They began to delve out jobs and tasks for the survivors to complete, which included cutting up the bodies, keeping the bodies cold, taking care of the plane (their shelter), and some used aluminum to melt snow for water so that the survivors would not be dehydrated.  It was clear that some of the survivors were stronger than others, and these members had more power in a sense than the others did because they were allowed a bigger portion of "food" so that they could build up the strength to go seek help.  This idea has to do with the conflict perspective which states that "social living is a contest of who attains the most power".  To diverge from the cannibalism idea and provide a more relative example to everyday life, in the pilot episode of the show, Freaks and Geeks, Jeff, the principal, uses his authority and power to make Lindsey, a very intelligent student, a mathlete by threatening to hold her accountable for ditching school.  It is much easier to identify with the characters in the Freaks and Geeks show because they are of an age close to ours in which life is a constant power struggle.  Everyone is vying for spots on athletic teams and plays or positions on clubs and they are building up their social status in order to achieve this positions.  But I digress.  In society, we search for a form of government to maintain stability and order in the world.  In class, we discussed that out of the French Revolution came "self-government and democracy".  From this we can gather that people feel the need to have rules to create an equilibrium within society.

--If you observe this picture, it is clear that in society we have many labels for each other based on outward appearances, and because of the amount of power we have in our given society.  The geeks do not have much power within the school so they are often picked on, but can do nothing about it because their words mean nothing to the people with the most power like the jocks or the preps who believe that their social status is held in a much higher regard than others.--


Although in the survivor's society cannibalism became a social norm, when they were finally rescued and returned to Uruguay, physicians and government officials did not release that the survivors had survived by means of cannibalism because it would not have been accepted in the Uruguayan society.  It is interesting that in different societies, different things are acceptable and banned.  This is because of the different associations people have with words; with cannibalism, in normal society it is viewed as illegal and immoral, but in the survivor's society, it was viewed as the source of life.  However, it is interesting to note that in societies people believe that they must justify their actions for other individuals.  The article reasons that the priests explained that the bodies which were eaten had no soul left because after the people had died, their souls had gone to heaven, so eating the bodies in order to survive was acceptable.

From my perspective, I don't know if I would be able to resort to cannibalism if I was stranded anywhere.  I became a vegetarian about 4 months ago, so I don't eat meat period.  To have to eat my own kind would just be disgusting!  I don't think that I would be able to hold a piece of someone else's flesh to my mouth...Although I might die, I think that if I was meant to live, I would live, and that if it was my time to die, I would die and go peacefully.  To be clear, I was in a plane crash!  Obviously it was supposed to be the end of something!  Maybe it would just be a sign that I shouldn't be a vegetarian anymore...

Unwritten Rules (Sociology Blog Week 1)

Who decided what was right and what was wrong?  Was it an innate instinct, or was it something that was developed over time.  How does each individual define their own right and wrong?

When I think about it, everything that I've been taught about right and wrong has come from my parents, my teachers, and my mentors.  Where did it all come from?  Sometimes I feel like I do not have a choice, that my life is predetermined.  There isn't a rule book for what is right and wrong, and if there was, it would probably be the book that sat alone on the library shelf and never was picked up because people wouldn't want to know what they were doing wrong.  We all live our lives as if we are doing the right things, because we have been told that it is the right thing to do.  Even today my parents sat me down and had another one of our conversations about college.  While it may seem obvious which school I should attend next fall, that it is the right thing to do, it's not the right thing to do in my eyes.  It's the right thing to do in their eyes.  When can I make decisions for myself?  It seems like even that has been predetermined with a number.  18.  The age of adulthood.  Sure, younger children need guidance with choosing the correct path to follow, but once they are older, they are quite capable of making decisions for themselves, and should be encouraged to do so.  We can't just be expected to live on our own at 18 after not learning the correct right and wrong for ourselves.

It wasn't until last year until I started realizing I was in control of my life.  My parents are there to guide me, but I can choose the path that I want to follow down.  I started challenging everything last year, from my beliefs to my friends, and I believe that I discovered who I am, but more on that another time.  For me it was an act of rebellion.  As Henslin described in "What is Sociology", circumstances affect who we are.  As sociology would observe, external forces affect an individuals decisions. I had been raised in a Christian family, in an affluent suburb of Chicago.  Rarely had I ventured outside of that bubble of mine, and it was as if I were in a fish bowl with everyone else looking in, but not being able to touch me.  These are my circumstances.  I am fortunate enough to attend a highly respected high school whose name alone could get me into college.  However, I wanted nothing to do with my "circumstances".  I didn't want to be just a character in a fairy tale whose story was already written out for me.  I wanted to know I made it to where I am on my own.  So i began to challenge my life, to discover who I am.  Henslin writes, "we have the added pleasure of constantly discovering and rediscovering our changing selves."  It is so true!  I started with my religion, challenging God and figuring out if it was truly what I believed in or just what my parents had told me was the answer.  After a mission trip to New Orleans this summer, there was no doubt in my mind that my God is an awesome god.  So this being said, I had "rediscoverd" my faith.  From a sociologist's point of view, my faith would have come from external forces, the Christian people around me in an Anglo-Saxon community.  However, I have to argue that although it may have influenced me on which path to follow, after last year I believe that I have the made the decision on my own.

I digress, but with good reason.  But back to the original point of right and wrong.  C. Wright Mills questions "And who is to decide and to accomplish whatever choice is made?"  From a sociological perspective, it is the society we live in.  Structural issues.  What defines juvenile delinquency?  Society's rules and standards.  What society doesn't realize, however, is that they are stereotyping.  The police who question the troubled youth do not look at the individual as a clean slate.  All they see is trouble and consequences.  Sociology would study how police define people, how any authority figure defines a person.  For example, you're in the airport security line with 1,000 other people whom you've never met.  You see a man with a turban, and I bet your first instinct is to think he is a threat.  Well that comes from stereotyping.  Although the terrorists on September 11 may have been wearing turbans, this does not mean every person wearing a turban is a terrorist.  Just as every girl who wears a pair of Uggs is not the same.

So sociology studies structure, society, societal rules and agendas.  Think about these unwritten rules of right and wrong.  Are they really what you believe in, or are they just what someone told you to believe?