What Is Taboo

Some of my family norms are the love of many sports such as Football, Baseball, Basketball, and Golf. America norms are choices that are not demanded by specific cultures. I believe they are choices you can make but will not be reprimanded if you do not choose one. Some of the frequent Cultural foods that were eaten with my family growing up as a child were rice and pinto beans. I believe this comes from the different cultures rooted within my family. My culture experiences many misunderstandings of who we are and what we stand for in society. Some examples of police brutality, racial profiling, style of dress, and the slang used when speaking. Historically, racism existed and continues to exist in today’s

Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches by Marvin Harris divulges into some difference and components of culture around the world. He answers question as to why individuals perform and act the way they do in relation to culture. He looks at sexual hierarchies among Yanomamo culture as well as the Hindu’s respect for cows in India.

Norms are behaviors or rules that set forth what is expected of us as people and as a society.

Different religions have beliefs that certain foods are sacred and then some are considered “tainted”. People that are Hindu believe that the cow is considered to be sacred. The reason being, they consider the cow to be a symbol of life; so cows may not be killed in the Hindu religion. They also believe in the harmony of living peacefully with nature, so they only eat food they believe help or hurt their physical or spiritual development. Closely related to Hindu’s is the religion of Buddhism. Many Buddhist don’t eat meat and don’t partake in the drinking of alcoholic beverages. Like the Hindus, Buddhist believe that a person returns as something or someone else, so a person could come back and live again as an animal. That is why the Buddhist don’t kill animals because they believe that it could have been someone they have known reincarnated. Interestingly enough, they also ask themselves questions before eating their meal. The questions they ask are: what food is this, where did it come from, why I am eating this food, when am I going to benefit from this food, and how

Misfit. Rebel. Troublemaker. These are all names that may be given to people who go against the social norm. According to Andersen, Taylor, and Logio, the authors of Sociology: The Essentials, norms are defined as the specific cultural expectations for how to act in a given situation (2016). When someone disrupts the expectations, they commit a norm violation and may display deviant behavior. Since norms are so automatically built into our everyday lives, the rules of social interaction can be subtle and may be imperceptible to the people who participate in them. Therefore, sociologists often purposefully commit a norm violation in order to study what the rules or norms are. This approach, known as ethnomethodology, interprets society as being

Every culture has their own practices that are seemingly foreign to other cultures that come after them. For example, we cannot judge the culture of Chinese people today in present day China as we judged the culture of the people who used to settle in the same country. The only thing that they share is location because history, technology, and religion have influenced modern cultures in ways that would have been completely foreign to ancestors of the same place. An example of this comes from Ruth Benedict in her essay The Pueblos of New Mexico. In this essay she describes that Indians who used to live in New Mexico. They were very different from the people that live there today. They were very relaxed in many ways of their culture expect religion.

Taboos are alike in basic society because they are forbidden for the most part. In some countries what maybe a taboo in a country, may not be a taboo in another.

as a symbol of the decay of moral and social values. Taboo things in our society are completely

The sociological Taboo (or imagination) is defined as a way of thinking that help us use external information and experience to form theories about the social pattern around us. We collect data and from that information, we make judgments and predictions. These require going beyond one’s point of view. People 's life and experiences are different. Therefore, it is important to take into consideration their reasoning and thoughts to be able to understand why they act the way they do. Hearing others stories and theories help us distant our self and creating a broader perspective. The saying “never criticizes someone until you have walked a mile in their shoes" is the best way to interpret sociological imagination. Its components include jobs, income, education, gender, race-ethnicity, and age.

i feel we need such thing to prevent a world of chaos without fear or anxiety. Anyway, to give an example of a taboo in the domain of marine, I know that if you are on a boat it is strictly banned to say the word "rabbit" because it is bad luck and the boat might sinks. In the same way, to give to someone the salt from hands to hands, might creating troubles between you and this person. In France, we have numerous taboos related to superstition. It gives people to the possibility to have irrational answers for things that they can not control.

The violation of the social norm can be meant to be utilized as a way of sustaining power, position, and influence of a specific group of people or organizations. In most cultures, the idea of deviance is based on the values, deeds, and beliefs that are achieved through interaction among people that have influence in the society and from the understanding that culture is passed on from member to member. Societies are also comprised of the subculture and the culture itself. The huge cultural forces depict what deeds are appreciated and which are unaccepted or discouraged. On the other hand, the subculture in a certain setting creates a resistance to the dominating culture and in doing so, they give a hand in the behavior that violates the large culture social norms. Therefore, the deviation from the cultural norms can be attributed to the social classes and financial classes. For example, prostitution in regions of the developing world is deviant in most cultures, however poverty pressure pushes young girls toward it for survival.

A norm is something that is usual, typical, or standard. Norms can come in all shapes and sizes and each holds their own unique purpose to a culture. In the society we live in today, these norms have developed more sophisticatedly into what are known as social norms. These are the rules of behavior that are considered acceptable in a group or society. These norms are taken so seriously that people who do not follow them can be shunned or suffer in some way, typically emotionally. For example, a common social norm is shaking hands when you meet somebody. If you were to not extend your arm out to meet theirs in a handshake, you would be looked at as disrespectful. The expected reaction would be one of anger, but at the same time there would be an awkward pause because it would feel wrong to defy the norm and neither one of you would know how to react.

Religion is another external factors influencing food habits and food culture. Different culture has different religion, different religion has different custom and food is an important part of a religion. Some religion such as Muslims, consider eating pork as a dirty food, and people should not eat them. Buddhism do not recommend members to eat meat, because they think that is cruel to kill an animal and that we should respect them so we should not eat them. Therefore, a lot of Buddhism followers are vegetarians. Hinduism followers do not eat cow because they think that cows are scarce. People who believe in a religion will follow the rules of the religion, so this will influence their food habit. Some religions do not have rules about food, but they have specific food to eat.

According to Pewresearch.org, Muslims are the fastest growing religion in the world with a population of 1.6 billion as of 2015. Dietary laws have existed since the biblical years of the Old Testament in the books of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy which explains the practices for Christians and Jews. The Muslims are no exception because their dietary laws are outlined in the Koran and Hadith as received and practiced by Prophet Mohammed from God. Hence, the Muslims jurisprudence is the Sharia law which is the religious law governing the members of the Islamic faith and it is a combination of both the Quran and the hadith. These laws provide guidelines on what is forbidden known as haram and foods that are permitted known as halal which means cleanliness and hygiene in food preparation However, for this practice to be effective, most Muslim countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia have a food certification program with labels to food which are halal and provides safety to the consumers Kwon and Tamang, (2015). How the food is prepared and slaughtering of animals also has to be halal and the Islamic law states that animals should be killed in a humane manner. The awareness of halal food among non-Muslims has helped with the acceptance of halal food. Also, the concept of Islamic foods in the Quran and Sunnah which will be considered halal or haram as stipulated in the

For this sequence, our focus was on taboos. This comes out a little in “Taylors New Persona” and was my main focus in “Inked”. I think by including these pieces of work it helps talk about the taboos in society and it helps shed some light on the untold truths. The second assignment was my story told through different lenses; this helped me try and expand on my writing style and adapt to writing in a college setting.