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How social norms affect society
Impact of culture on people's behavior
Impact of culture on people's behavior
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To what extent do the belief systems in The King of Trees act as a means of enforcing societal norms? Social norms are a natural part of any society and influence the course of human behavior. Societal culture is based generally on the interrelationships of fairly like-minded people with a shared belief system of accepted norms which leads to trust and predictability, and a stable community. The novellas in The King of Trees by Ah Cheng set in Communist China explores the expectation of conforming to societal rules with stories told from the perspective of characters who question why people are blindly following the expected social norms of the culture. When various characters throughout the novellas challenge the accepted belief system they are outcast, ridiculed, or punished as a deterrent. The King of Trees uses compelling stories to illustrate how a belief system, whether imposed or implied, enforces social norms. Very different belief systems can result in stable cultures and communities. The King of Trees novella, focuses on how a powerful government can demand what is socially acceptable. The novellas are set in revolutionary China in the midst of major culture changes dictated by the government as necessary for people to live together successfully. The social norms are set by a popular government leader, Mao Zedong. The imposed belief system from his radical change to society, from a free-thinking population to one focused on the collective good, was the foundation of the what was sociably acceptable. The new social norm of working hard for the good of all is emphasized when in the first novella in The King of Trees, also titled The King of Trees, many characters are introduced including LiLi, a high spirited educ... ... middle of paper ... ...non-conformist attitudes, and in The King of Chess the chess fool defeating the old chess master symbolizes the act of the old culture being defeated by the new. The King of Trees depicts how the belief systems in revolutionary China enforced new social norms on the population. Understanding the power of the social norms that were imposed in China at this time helps the reader understand how individuality in the citizens might have been expressed as well as why the government felt threatened by such behavior. One theme in The King of Trees is that individuality is persistent despite what is socially acceptable, and understanding the concept of social norms allows one to appreciate both sides of the difficulty conforming to social norms. Word Count: 1303 Work Cited Cheng, Ah. The King of Trees. Trans. Bonnie S. McDougall. New York: New Directions, 2010. Print.
The book "The Baron in the Trees," by Italo Calvino is about the Baron Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò, or simply known as Cosimo, spent almost all of his life living up in the trees of Ombrosa after refusing to eat the disgusting plate of snails that his sister had made for the family dinner one night when he was twelve. Cosimo kept to his word "I'll never come down again!" (Calvino 13) and he never set foot on the ground again. Cosimo was not bound to one tree though; he was able to travel to many parts of Ombrosa by tree, and lead a very adventurous and full life. The main point of my essay is to discuss the ongoing relationship between Cosimo and the environment.
The Sun of the Revolution by Liang Heng, is intriguing and vivid, and gives us a complex and compelling perspective on Chinese culture during a confusing time period. We get the opportunity to learn the story of a young man with a promising future, but an unpleasant childhood. Liang Heng was exposed to every aspect of the Cultural Revolution in China, and shares his experiences with us, since the book is written from Liang perspective, we do not have a biased opinion from an elite member of the Chinese society nor the poor, we get an honest opinion from the People’s Republic of China. Liang only had the fortunate opportunity of expressing these events due his relationship with his wife, an American woman whom helps him write the book. When Liang Heng and Judy Shapiro fell in love in China during 1979, they weren’t just a rarity; they were both pioneers at a time when the idea of marriages between foreigners and Chinese were still unacceptable in society.
There is no better way to learn about China's communist revolution than to live it through the eyes of an innocent child whose experiences were based on the author's first-hand experience. Readers learn how every aspect of an individual's life was changed, mostly for the worst during this time. You will also learn why and how Chairman Mao launched the revolution initially, to maintain the communist system he worked hard to create in the 1950's. As the story of Ling unfolded, I realized how it boiled down to people's struggle for existence and survival during Mao's reign, and how lucky we are to have freedom and justice in the United States; values no one should ever take for
“The whole character of Chinese popular religion flows in the direction of plethora of rituals and obligations without much discernable doctrinal underpinning” (Corduan, 2012, p.410). The Chinese popular religion has gravitated away the gods of Buddha and Daoism and captured the philosophy of luck and materialism (Corduan, 2012), while it “is less concerned with philosophical issues and
Folkways are impulsive and passively observed in a way that there is little to no pressure, on individuals who violated such orders in the society. Children learn how to behave in agreements with those Folkways by observation from parents and adults in such society while Mores are norms of a society that have an official means of conforming the laws of the land. Norms are ways to guarantee that every member of a giving society behave according to the customary law of the land. An individual who breaks these laws are subjected to punishments. The society has this mores and people are assigned to enforce them and whoever that cannot conform to this law are liable for the consequences and this are just ways that every society use to promote orders and reinforcing that there is a uniformity in everyone's behavior in order to coexist in a giving society by order.
Through the characters and their experiences in The King of Children, Ah Cheng shows the effects that the Cultural Revolution had on education and how that affected the people’s search for personal meaning in education. The Cultural Revolution and Down to the Countryside’s elimination of all practical and economic incentives for receiving an education caused characters to find moral and ethical incentives for education, such as to protect others and to be able to communicate effectively.
In Lord of the Flies, the boys take into account the context they are acting in. Upon realising their freedom from the rules of society, they defy morality by giving in to their human desires of violence and power. Nurture limits these unscrupulous desires, but human nature overrides nurture when nurture lacks constraints. This pattern occurs within any society. Whether the norms of a society are ethical or unethical, the beliefs are enforced upon that particular group. Society norms make an immense impact on individual
In conclusion, it can clearly be seen through all of the examples posed that the belief systems of a nation can both directly and indirectly influence a nation’s people and culture. Whether it be negative, such as Legalism’s harsh rule causing revolts and Confucianism’s filial piety causing economic downfall, or positive, such as Buddhism reuniting the people of China and Daoism’s advancement in sciences, the correlation is clear. This influence has occurred in nearly every nation that existed, and likely every nation to come, as it all revolves around a single idea: all of the actions we take, and the products which sprout from them, are rooted from our beliefs.
The codification of deviance can vary widely between different cultures, a norm in one culture can be considered deviant in another. For example, the notion of cannibalism has been proved by anthropologists to be a spiritually divine form of ritualistic sacrifice in the ancient Aztec culture of Mexico. Yet in Western culture murder and the consumption of human flesh is considered highly revolting, dealt with by harsher consequences by law than most other deviant crimes. These differences are due to the way each individual society develops their own moral codes. These codes are often defined by cultural ideologies, adversity to other cultures and ritualistic practises which have become accepted, as well established patterns in the development of culture. Lloyd, M 2007 implies this by saying 'we are born into a pre existing (social) order the comes ready made with a large stock of norms and rules we must learn if we are to participate as c...
...values, practices, ideals, expectations and self image joining together in order to achieve a common goal. In Yu-i’s case, the traditional Chinese community wanted to maintain ancient practices, while western oriented Chinese adults wanted to modernize the country and make it similar to the United States and Britain. In Kaysen’s case, abnormal behavior in communities resulted in admittance into the community of the mentally ill. The psychologically disturbed community wanted only to fit in, while the sane community decided that they were threats to society. Both Yu-i and Kaysen physically leave their group only to find that the community ideals have only made them better people.
...at maintain the harmony of the universe (Philosophy and Theory). This concept of balanced equilibrium is seen many times in Chinese mythology and applies well to real life aspects, especially with the notions of good and evil, and how the two interact in a given person or thing. Mythology in China also tends to show a discouragement towards violence, a main belief of Daoism and Shintoism. This religious concept aims to promote peace in society, where time usually wasted on trivial matters like arguments and war could be spent protecting nature and appeasing spirits (Collier 25). Religion in Chinese mythology has set certain guidelines in which followers of a given faith were expected to act accordingly based on the concepts they learned from legends. It has proved to be one of the more influential factors in the daily actions of those affected by Chinese traditions.
It holds that, as a matter of fact, moral beliefs and practices vary between cultures (and sometimes between groups within a single society). For instance, some societies condemn homosexuality; others accept it; in some cultures a student who corrects a teacher would be thought to be disrespectful; elsewhere such behavior might be encouraged. The rules, principles and standards that constitute a morality differ in different religions, and cultures, just as they differ historically. The morality of ancient Greece was not the morality of feudal Europe or contemporary American; the morality of the Trobriand Islanders is not the same as the morality of the Kwakiutl Indians (Barnet, 2008). In this paper I intend to argue that moral reasoning
The human phenomena of conscience and the instinctive concepts of respect and consideration are only a few of the positive qualities that have helped shape complex cultures with all the many different belief systems throughout the world. Every different society in the world has different laws and rules that guide the behavior of their members.
Thomson, Steve. "Saving B.C's Forests through the Trees." The Filipino Post 12-18 July 2012: 12. Print.
On the edge of a small wood, an ancient tree sat hunched over, the gnarled, old king of a once vast domain that had long ago been turned to pasture. The great, gray knees gripped the hard earth with a solidity of purpose that made it difficult to determine just where the tree began and the soil ended, so strong was the union of the ancient bark and grainy sustenance. Many years had those roots known—years when the dry sands had shriveled the outer branches under a parched sun, years when the waters had risen up, drowning those same sands in the tears of unceasing time.