arung1

Didnt keep up time. would appreciate suggestions and improvements Thnx... 'Man is a social animal'. He gets influenced by his surroundings as a whole as well as his kith and kin. But some factors tend to influence more on attitudes of people than others. It is difficult to attribute the effects on human attitudes completely on either the individuals or the society . But we can segregate the different human drives according to the cause, which will make the identification of the influences easier. These drives are basically one among emotional(including pleasure,pain), sentimental, political, social, economic and cultural. Influences like economic, sentimental are usually due to the problem of the individual and his life situation. Wheras some of the bigger influences in the attitudes namely the political, social, etc are arising from the society as a whole rather than a closer circle of people. A few of the factors as already mentioned are due to the individual and not due to the society as a whole. For instance the economic status of family is one such factor which is a major factor that determines the attitude of people. That is people from a poor family have a different attitudes from the ones from a middle class background. This is because of the psychological effect of the lower economic status that makes the people have a lesser ambition in life and hence a different attitude to life. Similarly the sentimental effects due to the people around are also an important factor. For example the suffering to a close friend or a family fued will have an effect on the attitude of people. Though these factors definitely has an effect on the attitude of people, they usually have only a short-term effect. Inspite of being so the effect of these factors on the attitude is not insignificant and so ignoring them from this discussion will be incorrect. On the contrary, the long standing effects on attitudes arise from the society as a whole. First and the foremost effect on the attitudes of the people is the role of the political situation. The kind of a rule, the rights of the people etc are an important factor on the people's attitude. To Illustrate this we can consider the recently fallen Taliban regime in the Afganistan which was an oppressive rule and denied the rights to people and went against the ethics of government. Because of this kind of government people took to looting, terrorism and also many other malpractices like illegal opium trading etc. Thus effect of political situation on the attitude of its people is evident. The other main factor is the social influence on the people. The social life of the people around also affects the attitude of the people. To make this clear we can consider the large number of social reformers who were unable to bear the pathetic state of the society around them and determined to change the situation, turned to social reformers. In short they had an attitude change due to the social status of their society. The best example would be that of Mother Teresa, one of the greatest soul to have ever lived. She gave up all the pleasures of life and donated herself to the cause of helping the needy and the destitutes. This was because of the poor social state of the scoiety that has changed her attitude to life. Finally, we also have the cultural & other factors affecting the attitude of individual. An evidence to this would be the high school childeren of the US who have started carrying guns with them. This 'gun culture' which was started as a means of self-defence has now become a threat to life. This carrying of weapons along with the action movies and the fighting games being played would definitely has an effect on the attitude of the young childeren. Thus bringing a disposition to violence in young minds. Thus I would like to conclude saying that the society has more effect on the attitudes of the people, not only because the effect they have is long standing unlike the effect due to closer circle of friends and relatives but also due to the extent to which they affect the people's attitude. Thus in my view the society as a whole has a larger effect on the people's attitude than the individual in it.

140 WHAT SOCIETY THOUGHT TO BE ITS GREATEST SOCIAL,POLITICAL AND INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENTS HAVE OFTEN RESULTED IN THE GREATEST DISCONTENT. The work considered to be greatest achievements of mankind in social and political fields and the individual achievements have often not been great as they were thought & resulted in greatest discontent is central idea of the topic. Some of the examples of social achievements in my view would be the achievements of Luther King Jr. in the freeing of Black people and social reforms by Mother Teresa for helping the poor and the destitutes. The revolutions like French revolution and Russian Revolution were some of the political achievements. The individual achievements of people are difficult to be listed. They are in many fields like arts, science, economic etc. One perspective of the issue is many of the achievements have been actually been destructive like invention of the nuclear energy leading to nuclear bombs that are detrimental to human society. They were once thought to be an achievement but now considered to be an evil. Another example is the recent hype about the E-Commerce being a greatest achievement and changing the way business was done, was a failure. This is because initially the issues of the security were not considered by the people . Hence it was not a success as it was supposed to be. On the contrary, the achievements of Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. in the social field are great by any means. They can be no doubt about the greatness of these achievements in our society. These great people have made great achievements as an individual in their life. There are also other reformers with similar achievements. So it will be incorrect to conclude that mostly these achievements resulted in great discontent. Also, the historical revolutions by the people against government were great political achievements. Due to these achievements, there is a check against cruel government by the people with the confidence to fight against them. But there are also fighting in the form of extremism and terrorism which are now viewed with discontent. Finally the achievements of greatest artists and musicians like Picasso in their field of work were great. Also they cannot be considered to create any discontent and they are still considered as a great artists. Thus we can conclude that some of the work considered as achievements resulted in discontent, but this cannot be extended to all the achievements. The works of social reformers , artists and many other people are great achievements and they cannot be considered to result in any sort of discontent.

142 The well-being of a society is enhanced when many of its people question authority The issue that " Well being of the society is enhanced when many of its people question authority " is an interesting one. My stand about this issue is to support the idea of people questioning authorities because it is advantageous in many ways to the society .Though it can be misued in some cases, its advantage would be made clear from the following arguments. Primary reason would be that it doesnt allow absolute power to the high rank. For Instance in PreWar Iraq, the main reason for all the grave offenses being commited by Saddam and his yesmen was that there was'nt anybody to question his authority.He made sure nobody had any questioning authority by beheading anybody who would dare to do so. Hence he was able to get away with his offenses, for atleast sometime. One more advantage of people questioning authority is corruption is kept under check. When the power is given to people, most officials would be more careful as they know that they would have to answer questions of many people when caught. So they will try to be more loyal, which eventually is good for the society. Also enfranchising people with the right to question will also make the people feel more responsible for its well being. The people tend to be more concious about their society since they know they have an part to play with its developments. As a result of this, people tend to be more productive for the society which is essential for its well being. Finally, good questioning, leads to good solutions. The questioning of current system and its usefulness many a time leads to developing a better one which has a solution to questions. This theory is strengthened by Sir Issac Newton's famous law of gravitation. On seeing an apple fall down he put a question to himself about it and eventually was able to suggest his theory, that had solution to this question.Hence we see constructively used questioning power leads to good solutions. Inspite of all these advantages one problem which could arise is improper use questioning,which gets us nowhere. For example if people start putting too much questions with an ulterior motive (like personal benifits) rather than for constructive purposes, it will be detrimental to progress. It could lead to stalling of new ventures or work due to excessive questioning. We can conclude that the when people question the authority constructively it avoids various problems like corruption,misuse of power, also makes people responsible and can provide solutions to problems in society. Thus questioning authority if allowed will definitely enhance the well being of the society. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I would really appreciate positive and negative suggestions .......Thnx