The Erosion of Faith in Society The strength of religious beliefs and faith in God are dependent upon individuals and the society they live in. The personal experiences or the actions of a society can negatively effect these religious beliefs and faith in god. Another aspect which affects faith and religion are the barriers individuals and society place in between themselves and their religious beliefs. The short story “The Young Goodman Brown” and the poem “God’s Grandeur” share one common theme, the erosion of faith throughout society. The destruction of an individuals or society’s faith can be caused by negative experiences.
I believe these conflicts are the 'norm' people's fault because they are the ones who are not accepting others as they are. As well as, some are not standing up to say what should be done about the people who are being evil, and criticizing others, while they are not perfect to begin with, either. Their theories developed from the experiences of Man, particularly from his tribulation. The Waknuk people are insecure about themselves; therefore, they use God as an excuse for their persecution of the deviates. Joseph Strorm is one of these hippocrates who does not believe in the rights of the deviations, who had forced his sister, Harriet, to basically never to come in contact with him because she had a deviation of her own.
Central to Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery is the theme of injustice. In both texts, the theme of injustice is present, due to societies failure to question superstitious beliefs and tradition resulting in inhumane treatments. The societies in both texts, adhere on tradition and superstitious beliefs regardless of the harmful effects it may cause. Fundamentally, it portrays human kind’s vagueness concerning the purpose of their actions, being more alarmed about tradition and rituals. Failure to this, leads to harsh penalties and measures towards the main characters, John Proctor and Tessie Hutchinson.
The driving force in the novel is the theme of guilt. Guilt is the state of being when one realizes that they have gone against what they morally believe is right. Guilt discontinues ones growth and prevents one from moving forward in life. It causes someone to feel bad for what they had done and makes them think of ways to make the situation better. The feeling of guilt is ones moral self telling one that they have done a wrong in some way.
“Civil Disobedience” Civil Disobedience is the act of knowingly breaking a law that an individual feels is morally unjust. We all have a moral compass, and a perception of what is right from wrong. Many individuals see injustices in our democratic system, yet few actually make a stand for what they believe is right. The United States was founded under an idea that “All men are created equal”. However, that motto was not entirely true.
Some of the things a person may experience will affect how they treat other people. A prime example would be The Catcher in the Rye’s Holden Caulfield. “ Holden respond[s] to inner rather than out pressures; ‘he is a victim not so much of society as of his own spiritual illness’ which forbids him from discarding any of his experiences and condemns him to carry the burden of indiscriminate remembrance” (Ohmann 24). This suggests that people can become victims of their experiences. Holden is trapped by the memory of his mind which in turn makes him conduct unfair judgments on others that he actually sees in himself.
I believe that this study was not ethical to conduct because it directly harmed another person just to get a statistic and a person would always get hurt based on the fact that human behavior follows normative influence almost every time. A reason for an ethics board to not approve a test like this one could be to just define ethics in itself, and use that explanation for your whole argument. Ethics is defined as a branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions (Dictionary.com, LLC. Copyright © 2009). This means that there are certain things you can and cannot do to a human being just to get results for a test.
A person cannot do “whatever they like” because in many cases that would include things that are actually not beneficial to them. (Doing drugs might be an example. It might seem satisfactory at the moment, but ultimately, it damages their body.) A person must only do what seems to be in their best interest. Under moral egoism, no moral duty exists to anyone other than self.
However, I believe that for the majority of people, it can be agreed upon that when a person’s actions inflict pain or suffering on someone else, that behavior should not continue because it doesn’t help the greater good of society. I would also argue that actions that intentionally put one’s self in danger should not continue. The people in their society shape the nature of that society. The society we live in today makes it clear that actions towards others that can physically or mentally harm them are illegal. There’s a clear line of what is considered acceptable behavior and what is considered criminal or illegal behavior.
Neofunctionalism is essentially a separate theory all together from structural functionalism. Neofunctionalism states that social structures mold individual behavior, ideas can be rational or irrational, and individuals in nature are conflicted. Furthermore, neofunctionalism argues that structural functionalism is too conservative because it hinders societal progress and is too concerned with the collective conscience. Parson theorized society could only be understood when the system was whole. If the system was missing part or parts, the society could not be understood.