Monday, March 9, 2009

Eating your friends is hardest

Please write a short reflection (1 paragraph) on the article we discussed today and how it relates to your understanding of deviance.

11 comments:

  1. The article discussed the controversial topic of eating someone else. Which in a physical way is no different than eating an animal, though psychologically it is a very different thing. It relates to my understanding of deviance in a very simple way, that it is not always deviance. When you are stranded in the wilderness, you are in a new different society, where there have to be different rules and norms to survive, so eating someone, isn't exactly against that society.

    -Coti

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  2. The article was informative in that it dug deeper into deviance in societies. It discussed things we already know, such as how deviance changes according to certain societies, but it also made some interesting new points, such as how society needs deviance and how members of society use it to assess themselves. Another big part of the article discussed how the environment in which one is a part of affects whether that person participates in serious deviance. For example, that a person living in a tough neighborhood raised by a single working parent is less likely to "succeed" in society. As I said, the article reaffirmed some things as well as brought up some new ones.
    -Andrew

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  3. Well obviously in our culture, eating a friend is not considered a norm. However as the article showed, when the environment around you changes, norms can be different in this new society. What may seen as completely incomprehensible in most cultures, is regularly practiced in other; deviance in one place, a valued norm in an other.

    - Jack

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  4. Our class lesson was ultimately about the true extent of the flexibility of the terms "norm" and "deviance," specifically in times of desperation. The article we read was about people who were forced to dine on the flesh of those who didn't survive the plane crash for survival. In the beginning, the thought sickened them, but as time passed they grew more and more accustomed to the situation. When all other options were exhausted, what would be considered among the most extreme deviance in other cultures had become a norm among the survivors of the plane crash. This was all addressed in our discussion as well.

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  5. that last one was Julian

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  6. The article showed how social norms are relative. Depending on the situation, you can have almost anything become an alright thing if you can have enough people go along with it. Logicaly, this would also cause deviance to be a reltive social factor as well. In the story, these people were doing what they needed to do in ordeer to survive. They needed to change their cultural norms in order to do this. For them to feel comfortable with changing the norms, they had to generate semi laws to regulate their actions. This made what was before considered unreasonable, reasonable.

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  7. The above one was Collin

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  8. Pretty much deviance is an opinion, or it is subjective. Its all based on the norm of the situation, and since every situation is different in every plce to every person. Like in America pretty much everyone does deviant things everyday because the nrom is set by the minority which is rich white males. like in a everyday situation you wouldnt start knawing on your buddies arm, but when your about to die of starvation, draztic times call for drastic and deviant measures. Charlie O.

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  9. eating your friends is considered taboo by most society's, but in this case, the circumstances changed. it was expected that they eat their friends because it was the only way that they could survive, and their friends were already dead. this situation is a reminder that social deviance is based on society alone and it is always relative, just like everything else.
    -Brendan

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  10. this article was interesting. i dont think eating someone would be accepted very well in a normal society. this article just proves that peoples values change in changing situations. if i was stranded with no food and i had to choose between eating someone and living or starving to death im sure after long conversations with myself about the "right and wrong" thing to do i would most likely eat the person. it is human instinct to do whatever it takes to survive.

    -jacob g

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