A Convention Of Society

A Convention of society

Everything we do is to please someone else. And that someone else can be all of society. Society is based on conventions. Most of society conforms to them, otherwise they may appear to be “outside” of the society that they live in, they may also appear to be eccentric or dangerous to the “norm” of their society. These conventions are general agreements on social behaviour; they have a strong force within society. This is stated by Frye in his speech “The educated imagination” he expresses that, “There’s clearly a strong force making toward conformity in society, so strong that it seems to have something to do with the stability of society itself.” (35) We conform to please others this is what creates “stability” within society. However if people don’t conform to the “norm” they are often cast out of it, unless they conform to different socially acceptable conventions, such as becoming a nun. Make-up is one of the strongest conventions of this society.

The western world view, as a whole society has the convention that beauty is young looking, “enhanced” features on a person, therefore without it you must try to achieve it, this is done mostly by wearing make-up. This society believes that the skin must be smooth looking and the eyes must be framed in order to stand out. Man y people have conformed to this, and to state that there are degrees of conformity may or may not be fair. One can not partially conform. Many things are not black and white but conformity may not be, it does not have a grey area. You conform like the others or you don’t. There may not be a grey area but there may be a fence, when you’re not sure what you think or feel. There is a transition stage when people have to explore both sides of the convention, yet not everyone enters this stage. According to the statement saying that people do everything to please everyone else; to wear make-up is to give a visually positive look to yourself so others will be pleased with your appearance. By doing this one is more likely to attract the opposite sex. This is true especially with women in this society.