ANALYSIS OF "THE SOCIOLOGICALLY EXAMINED LIFE" (part 20)

Top stories

The search for a habitable second Earth

Engadget · 1 day ago

NASA predicts 5 asteroids to fly close to Earth this year - The Jakarta Post

The Jakarta Post · 1 day ago

What if U.S. quits climate deal? Doesn't look good for Earth

USA Today · 1 day ago

Cultural Context

by

Charles Lamson

Being sociologically mindful of context also means paying attention to culture - the beliefs, values, and practices that are shared and transmitted from one generation to the next, among a group of people. Culture too has to be put in a larger context, since culture is a group's adaption to the environment in which it exists. Beliefs and behaviors that might seem strange, usually make sense when we consider the conditions under which a group is trying to survive.

If we take culture into account, we can appreciate how behavior that seems weird or wrong to outsiders is normal and proper to insiders. This is not to say that any behavior is okay, merely because it is some group's traditional way of doing things, or because it aids their survival. It is to say we cannot understand what people do, and why, without considering what they have been taught to see as normal and correct in their world.

We must remember too that people do not choose the worlds into which they are born. If we are born into a world of calm and wealth, we might learn to get what we need simply by asking for it. If we are born into a world of scarcity, struggle, and despair, we might learn that our survival depends on being aggressive, even violent. The point is not to justify aggression and violence, but to say that understanding others' behavior in context requires understanding the nature of the world that has formed their survival habits.

Imagine growing up in a place where any sign of weakness made you prey to abuse. Imagine that your survival depended on swift retaliation for any threat to your dignity, especially in public. Now imagine that your first job is a sales clerk. In this job, you must put up with being bossed by your boss, teased by coworkers, and insulted by customers, Will you respond day after day, with patience and god humor; or will you fall back on your old habits, and one day give your boss, a coworker, or a customer a punch in the nose?

If you come from a different background, you might think all low-level jobs require putting up with some obnoxious people. You just have to bear it until you get into a better position. If you believe this, it is because you have learned to mask your feelings, and do what the boss says, so as to get along and prosper. This strategy pays off well in some worlds, but it does not work everywhere, and it has costs.

Suppose you have formed the habit of doing as you are told. Imagine that this habit has gotten you a nice job with a high salary. One day you realize that a product your company plans to make is defective in a way that will injure some of the people who use it. You argue that the product should be redesigned to be safer but you are told, "That will raise production costs too much. We will make it as planned. If anyone gets hurt, insurance will cover it." So you rely on the habit that has helped you succeed: You do as you are told. Then, as you foresaw, some people are badly hurt by your company's product.

After all this is revealed to the public, outsiders say that you should have blown the whistle, or quit your job in protest. You could have kept people from being hurt, but you did not. Why? We could say that you are weak and irresponsible. Or we could try to understand your behavior in context.

We should be mindful of your options as you saw them. Did you think you would be fired if you protested any harder? Did you think you could find another job if you quit, or were fired? Did you believe that your career would be ruined if you blew the whistle, because of how whistle blowers are treated by other employers? Perhaps you had children to think about. If you had lost your job, how would you pay for your food, clothing, shelter, medicine, school, and so on. So perhaps you felt compelled, for their sake, to keep your mouth shut.

We should also be mindful of what your job meant to you. Perhaps, like most people in us culture, you learned to stake your identity on our job, so losing your job would have been devastating to you. Or perhaps you were taught that the boss who gives orders, not the worker who carries them out, is responsible for the results. That is a dangerous belief, also common in U.S. society, but we cannot blame you for inventing, and putting it in your head.

To understand your behavior in this example, we would have to be mindful of several contexts at once. The firm in which you had little power; the family and friendship networks of which you were a part; and the competitive and individualistic society, in which, you reasonably feared for your ability to make a decent living. In light of these circumstances, your behavior, though not admirable, would at least make sense.

*SOURCE: THE SOCIOLOGICALLY EXAMINED LIFE, 2ND EDITION, 2001, MICHAEL SCHWALBE, PGS. 83-85*

END