Individual vs. Society: Examples from Different Authors and Works

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Have you ever felt like your identity has been strip from you? I have. For many, identity is only the image of society, for others identity is far more. For me it was becoming something I wasn’t just to prove I belonged. Having two separate society clash in together made me realize I don’t have to be the image of society. I can be my own Vietnamese American individual. Individual vs. Society can be interpreted in various ways and in the class readings it showed the different interpretations. We become what our surroundings tell us to become and sometimes we get lost in the chaos. As an individual what role do we play? We get extremely caught up in society’s image that sometimes we forget about our morals, our life, and our identity. It’s fair to say that society is our guide that structures us to be part of the social norms. Once the individual has stepped out of the box into unfamiliar behaviors there is complete chaos and society is forced to push social norms back together. But what are the social norms? Through the class readings and outside readings, the topic Individual vs. Society are expressed and interpreted in several ways. It is tough enough trying to find one’s own identity but when Society is constantly pushing for the perfect image identities are lost and we find ourselves accepting and becoming a robot of Society. We all have our own identity in this world that is bursting to come out. But our identity gets strip from us when we don’t step out of society’s image. Stereotypes plays a huge role in the way society structures our image. Although everyone has their own identity, we stereotype all races putting them in categories stripping them of their own identity. In the short article “Stereotyping... ... middle of paper ... ...cism and the word itself. She states in her article “Racism—persuasive in the U.S culture to the point that it deeply affects all the local town folk and spills over, negatively influencing the fortunes of fold around the world. Racism is pervasive to the point that we take many of its manifestations for granted, believing “that’s life.”” (99). We can deny all we want that society does not structure how we live but, in reality society’s image is our outline to life. We shape how we live and become depending on how society’s desires. The author Gloria Yamato makes a great point of how we also accept racism, stating that, “that’s life.” Throughout all of the readings it interpreted Individual vs. Society it all different ways. However, it all came down to society stripping our identity making us accept our path in the society’s image and making us the robot of society.

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