The Stigma of Obesity
Cultural agreements are interesting, as are how they come into being. For one, they're neither necessarily nor universally morally inspired; not everyone "agreed" to stop persecuting African Americans, bashing gay people, or beating their wives and children. Some people, sadly, still continue to do so.
Publicly, however, our agreements become standards that must be adhered to, lest we face the shame-inspiring and often legally-binding consequences of collective disapproval.
The opposite is also, and oddly, true. So intent are we to remain in the good graces of people we do and don't know that we'll often do things we personally and even morally disagree with. (If interested, Elliot Aronson's excellent The Social Animal provides for a further exploration of the topic.)
No comments:
Post a Comment