Writing Feedback /
Appearance and society values--An GRE issue [9]
Hi, everyone. I am from China, and this is the first time for me to put my essay here. Thanks for giving me some suggestion.
An GRE issue:
208"The way people look, dress, and act reveals their attitudes and interests. You can tell much about a society's ideas and values by observing the appearance and behavior of its people."One must be inevitably influenced by society principles, society that he/she lives in. people were born to follow the belief and thoughts, which are developed by their ancestors. In a particular environment, someone who has different society ideas and values, might dresses himself/herself and behaves differently from others. These individuals sometimes would be seen as deviant and most likely be blamed or excluded by other regular ones. The instinct of human that pursuing approval from others make most of individuals in a particular society or history conform to the popular appearance and behavior rules which reflect the particular society's or history's ideas and values.
Therefore, the way people look, dress and act, to some extent, reveal their attitudes and interests about their neighbors, culture, society, etc. A lot of people in today's world, especially in developed countries, look and behave differently. Some of them may like wearing sports costumes ,while others enjoy putting on formal clothes; some like smoking cigarette, while others indulge themselves in natural and fresh air; some are busy climbing mountains, while others traveling on the sea. This reveals the society's tolerance to diversity of existence and people's freedom of pursuing their own life style. But in a different period or a particular country, this is not the case. For example, women in Iran should shelter their face from being seen by others, which reflects the society's belief and thoughts about women's rights.
However, appearance and behavior of a society, at times, are unable to tell its true face. As described in a very famous film--Dance with Wolf, during eighteenth century, when European colonists were busy working to explore new land in the middle of America, they have to fight with Indians who are original residents on the land. The while men saw the yellow ones as primitive people, because they enjoyed fighting with different tribes and always lived on butchering animals, which labeled them as kill-liker. But the truth is that while Indian were wearing poor clothes and lived on seemingly simple rude hunting life, they know how to live harmoniously with nature and animals and they also possess many better personalities, including warmhearted, loving peace, tolerant, respecting to other civilizations, than the white who think they are the more advanced race, but factually stole other people's home and oppressed them. So, only from the phenomena can not the whole story be told.
In some cases, appearance is most likely only to reveal one particular person's personality--his liked and disliked, not the society as a whole. Appearance and behavior always tell others who you are or want to be, because they are the outlets of your thoughts and belief. People become more and more judging others from their appearance, especially when they meet a person at the first time. So one might become more and more caring about their looks and pay more attention on how to give a good first-impression. Of course, their appearance and behavior follow their society ideas and values. But different people actually have different believes in many areas. So, it is hard to find out all their common believes only according to their costume and actions.
In one world, appearance and behavior can reflect a society's ideas and values to some extent, but difficult to reflect all aspects. To explore a particular society's mental soul need a more thoroughly investigation in kind of areas of the society, not simply through its people's exterior traits.
