Sociology Week 7

This week in sociology we discussed the values we have in American culture. We read an article talking about the main 13 values we as Americans all tend to have. They include - change, time, individualism, future orientation, taking action, efficiency/practicality- just to name a few. We also read another article about a man who came here from Germany and lived in Chicago, he was very surprised by the jogging phenomenon he encountered. Back in Germany, no one would ever choose to do that. Jogging is a good demonstration of American values. It's very individual, as it is done alone. Although it may be more fun to get a group of friends together to play a sport that comes into conflict with other values- like time, action, and practicality. It takes more time to arrange a sports game then it does to just get up on your own and do it- making it a much more practical form of exercise to fit into Americans' busy schedules. The man also discussed how he was surprised that Americans would even get up at 5 AM to go jogging. This illustrates the value of taking action. Doing something is always better than not, and so taking action is more "productive" than sleep to some Americans.

Reflecting on my knowledge of Indian culture I can definitely see a difference in their values versus ours. For example, in India the oldest son does not move out of his parents house typically. He will marry a woman and then bring her in to live with him and his parents to start their family there. Over here we would look down upon that saying that they aren't growing and developing as people and on their own as a family because we highly value the experience of change. It also has to do with them being less individualistic over there compared to over here. Another example I have regarding individualism is how we value privacy more than other cultures. According to our reading, privacy isn't even a word in some languages. This makes much more sense to me now as to why my parents who were raised in India have more trouble "respecting my privacy". Growing up as an American, it has always frustrated me because I feel like they owe me privacy. But where they grew up, privacy was not valued at all and someone who wanted privacy would probably be seen more as isolating themselves from the group.