все болезни - от недоебита. если направить недоебит в нужное русло, можно делать разные полезные вещи. например, писать эссе про что-нибудь этакое для детей с остановившимся умственным развитием. таким образом недоебит можно помножить на количество идиотов и значительно его усилить. может, дебилы быстрее конверты будут клеить. или чем они там занимаются?
Anton Drozdov
Ms. Pastori
sec. #0634
December 13, 2004
Our culture is personalized. We are attacked by the opinions of other people, or at least we think so. These opinions generally target our physical appearance, which consists of our body and our style in clothing on the physical level, and our style of behavior within our group. We cannot always control the last, but the first two can certainly be altered. One thing of which we are afraid more than death is being laughed about because then, we think, we cannot reach anything in life. For us, successful life is mostly social status, and not personal happiness with our family or doing our favorite thing. This crude, offensive manner of treating our peers produces numerous outcasts, who cannot keep up with the societal expectations, and drop out of the race for social acknowledgement.
In her essay “Never Just Pictures,” Susan Bordo makes very interesting separation between private and public body. Private body is what we think we are, and it is not necessarily our bones and flesh, it is also our self understanding and inner self. Public body, on the other hand, is the way we are seen by the others. Unfortunately, we are usually treated by the appearance of the public body. Popular culture, through advertisements and music videos, indirectly says that we are what we look like. In those media sources we rarely can see not good looking people in a positive manner. Ironically, the only time it happens is when the commercial is trying to appeal to parallels we draw between that casually appearing person and ourselves.
Our culture is very shallow; it does not teach the importance of philosophical development, of finding the own true route of life for every man. I can show it using the example of Japanese culture, which I consider to be much more deep and insightful. During Japanese renaissance, the best thing one could do is sit in an empty room looking at the garden with a cup of tea and think, think, think about the nature of objects and events. This is what a Japanese person would go for, what would make him or her happy. In the American culture, the symbol of completeness of life is a “Cadillac Escalade” with a DVD player installed. No two things in a world are less alike, than an “Escalade” and a thread of thought of a samurai. The same can be applied to our personal physical appearance: currently, in the American society one tries to look like a brand-new “Escalade” – strong and shiny and flawless, instead of deeply, philosophically wise, like he or she would want to be in Japan.
Not counting the people who are born with birth defects, we all start at the same level, and place ourselves on one or the other step of the social ladder. As I’ve already mentioned, two major factors are important: our physical appearance and our social skills. Physical appearance builds the base – when our peers first see us they can only treat us according to what we look like, because they do not know anything about us. Along the way we apprehend our place based on how socially keen we are, but in the very end our looks play their role once again, as we get a sexual partner, whose appearance, in return, plays major role in our social position, just like our in their. If we make friends early, while we are still younger teenagers, they are likely not to treat us as offensively. They form our crowd as we go through high school, when public opinion plays the largest role in our self understanding. During this time we hardly make a distinction between public and private bodies. Acceptance becomes crucial; lack of it can sometimes have effects as destructive as teenage suicide. The base for this acceptance is the material appearance of the public body, and failure to appear right, in the way one is wanted to be seen, is capable to bring the whole structure of the social niche down, just like a crocked base of a house, that cannot support it. Our whole life outside the world of our thoughts is built on our appearance.
It is common to alter the bodily appearance, so the foundation for future relationship would be stronger. Young women starve themselves into anorexia; have tattoos put on without really thinking how this picture is going to look when they are seventy years of age. They spend thousands of dollars on clothing, which also suppose to play major role in how they are seen. Men, whom I see around myself, pay tons of attention to the way they look, and it is not common to a traditional male figure as I was taught to see it by my culture. The vain concern of looks occupies more attention than crime and poverty among the less luck individuals both home and abroad, be we shall not be surprised. For example, ancient Romans used to say literally that “a man is a wolf to another man;” capturing our ruthless egoistic concentration on self appearance, self security and low, animalistic desires. Applying their thought to a present day situation, I might call us effeminate but ruthless animals, who are not striving for inner, spiritual development, but only for bodily appearance and social status.
Interactions in a group of teenagers, or young adults, are very much like interactions in a pack of wolves. There’s a leader, then there is a crowd, every male gets a female of likeness that corresponds to his social status in the pack. Then, there are outcasts, who are forced to leave the pack, and usually die. In human society outcasts do not die, they stop existing for the rest of the crowd. And if in a pack of wolves the main weapon is teeth and claws, in a crowd of teenagers it is sex appeal and sense of sociality.
To what does it sum up at the end? We are strongly social animals, and throughout our lives try to climb higher up the social ladder. Initial position is given to one by his/her public body. It also pushes one forward, giving him or her various boosts along the way. The physical body is also seen as the core of one’s individuality, and means next to everything in one’s public live, and as the result – in one’s seeing of the self.
неожиданно понял, как сильно мне нужно постоянно лично пересекаться с отцом. америка - личная трагедия каждого иммигранта.
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