Subculture: The Meaning of Style - Essay Example

Sociology Sociology The impact of bringing up young minds from a religious nurturing helps the society from which I come from to maintain virtues within the Bangladeshi society. There are religious beliefs within the society which shape the people’s personalities as far as spirituality is concerned. In addition, the personality achieved from this kind of nurturing affects many other aspects of people’s relationships within the society (Muggleton & Weinzierl, 2003, p. 246). These include the shaping of a moral society that has people who are always accountable for their actions. The part of the family in the advance of spirituality is profoundly important. The parents make sure that they nurture their children in a religious environment such that as the children grow up, they have a religious faith refer to when establishing their principles (Muggleton & Weinzierl, 2003, p. 250). The community as whole also has the responsibility of holding challenging members of the society who tend to relax or totally ignore fulfilling their responsibility as far as religious nurturing is concerned. I was also raised in a religious family. This influenced the shaping of my personality profoundly. I learnt to make decisions that are acceptable to the society. Thus, in the initiatives I take, I weigh for their appropriateness and whether they are right or wrong. Moreover, whether they affect the people in the society positively or negative is a factor to consider so as to take care of the other person as taught in the religious nurturing. In Bangladeshi, education is a profoundly valued. Schooling is, therefore, mandatory for every child in order to gain the learning that the society intends for him or her (Muggleton & Weinzierl, 2003, p. 254). The family has a significantly important role in the pursuit of education by the child. This is by their obligations to ensure that their children education is facilitated for (Muggleton & Weinzierl, 2003, p. 254). They also have the responsibility of motivating the children in order to keep aiming to achieve academically. This is done by them presenting themselves as the first live models for the children so that they can be motivated to achieve as the parents and the society intend them to. The government has a central role to play too in as far as children’s education is concerned. The government’s input is seen through its provision of the human resource, teachers, and education institutions in order to deliver education services to its citizens (Muggleton & Weinzierl, 2003, p. 256). In school, children are taught not only to be literate but also to gain empowerment (Van, 1986, p. 533). Thus, the importance of educating the people in the society where I come from is substantially important due to its contribution to capacity building. Responsibility is a value that is considered very important in my culture (Van, 1986, p. 534). Members of the society had the responsibility of making sure that I was responsible y making me account for all that I did. My parents were also keen on capacity building. They, therefore, gave me the empowerment that would see me become a responsible person. Essentially, responsibility in an individual concerns basically self-care as well as care for others. Independence is closely associated to responsibility. However, it is difficult for an individual to be independent if he or she is not empowered. But with empowerment one can engage in income generating activities, run investments, build teams, run a family among other responsibilities. I belong to youth subcultures that are inclined to youth lifestyle communication. These have been influenced significantly by the Indian youth cultures that lure the youths from Bangladesh to engage in their practices. One is concerned with the way of expression through music. The other one is about designs of fashion characteristic to youths called Them Hipsters. Communication is integral to any society. Apart from the verbal communication, the non-verbal cues contribute profoundly to the communication process. The society in which I belong expects people to use language appropriately to communicate what is considered to be right and constructive to the society. In my culture, one cannot mention obscene words. This is considered to be immoral (Edgar & Sedgwick, 2008, p. 160). Therefore, the way in which children are brought up is associated with strictness in the vocabulary that they learn. This is done by having good live models in the children’s learning environment who are cautious in their use of language (Muggleton & Weinzierl, 2003, p. 238). Consequently, parents as well as adults teach the young minds of their society the usage of the appropriate respectable vocabulary. There is a different way of communication also where members of the society are expected to dress modestly to reflect a moral image. However, in cases where models fail to play their role in shaping the personalities of the young minds of their society in the appropriate way, deviance is evident. For instance, the failure to ensure that the children use respectable language by poor live models inhibits the making of good personalities from the children brought up within that society (Edgar & Sedgwick, 2008, p. 160). The young people are therefore observed to use obscene language in their artistic lyrics as well in several other daily discourses. The youth brought up in a society that has developed a culture of vulgarity will be reflecting this element of their culture in their way of expression. Thus, common channels of youths’ expression such as visual and performing arts as well as their daily discourses will contain vulgarity as adopted from the culture that they come from. In addition, their physical image plays a profoundly important role in presenting the message that they intend to relay to the society (Edgar & Sedgwick, 2008, p. 163). This is seen through their mode of dressing which is off the normal accepted way of dressing in their larger society (Muggleton & Weinzierl, 2003, p. 235). Characteristically, they are not modest in their dressing. Consequently, their dressing suggests sexuality. Sexuality within the subcultures formed by the youths in my society, therefore, take sex very casually unlike the teaching from the religious nurturing of the larger culture (Muggleton & Weinzierl, 2003, p. 260). The subculture which influences my larger culture tends to set rules which are totally not concordant with the rules set by my larger culture. These are such as those which include vulgarity and obscenity. The youths with whom we practice the same subculture have the tendency of being free spirited and the eventually develop a “dont care” attitude. This has profound effects on the influence that it spreads to many youths. According to Sirius & Joy (2004, p. 366), peer pressure also affects the culture behavior. Young people, especially, feel too much social pressure to conform to the group of peers whom they socialize (Sirius & Joy, 2004, p. 356). Thus the influence of how youth dress experienced from this subgroup, makes the subculture become a counterculture to the larger culture. The kind of music presented in the subculture I belong to influences the type of behaviors the youths engage in (Van, 1986, p. 533). Consequently, they engage in behaviors that are opposed to the larger culture such as drug abuse (Sirius & Joy, 2004, p.363). The don’t care attitudes that are developed from the influence of this subculture are characteristically constituents of a counter culture (Edgar & Sedgwick, 2008, p. 160). References Edgar, A., & Sedgwick, P. R. (2008). Cultural theory: The key concepts. London: Routledge. Muggleton, D., & Weinzierl, R. (2003). The post-subcultures reader. Oxford: Berg. Sirius, R. U., & Joy, D. (2004). Counterculture through the ages: From Abraham to acid house. New York: Villard. Hebdige, D. (2002). Subculture: The meaning of style. London: Routledge. Van, S. W. (March 29, 1986). Subculture and Superstructure: Interpretations of Rural Bangladesh. Economic and Political Weekly, 21, 13, 533-535. Read More