Comparison of British and Suri Society

997 Words4 Pages
Assess the view that British culture is better than Suri culture. When compared to a standard British town or city the Suri culture comes across as primitive and backwards; through Western eyes most of their norms and values do not make sense. In this essay I will investigate the weaknesses and strengths of both British and Suri culture. This investigation will include the values and norms, how roles and status are achieved and a comparison of socialisation. The Suri seem to be a very communal culture which could already be seen as ‘better’ than Britain. The sheer proximity in sleeping and day to day life leads to a very strong relationship within the family, a distant virtue within British households. The Suri push their children—both boys and girls—to be independent and assertive; this is very evident from the games young children play. There is no physical punishment, such as beating, but much verbal discussion, encouragement, and reprimanding. In the domestic sphere, parents are much respected by their children; a definite improvement over typical British teens. They are not exposed to much interethnic or out-group social contact. They develop a strong group consciousness and pride, which often results in disdain of all non-Suri groups. This lack of inter ethnicity could be considered a weakness purely because if they were to travel outside of their social group the behaviour, values and norms they have learnt would cause them to deviate from what Western societies would consider normal. Even though primary socialisation is not as epochal in Britain as it is with the Suri, what Britain seems to have successfully determined is that multi-ethnic and multicultural societies benefit from secondary socialisation; be it through learning others values and norms or just learning to cope with cultures which differentiate from your own. As communal as the Suri culture
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