Response to the Readings - Assignment Example

In Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of pollution and Taboo, (Douglas, 1) the author presents a very strong case for how belief systems are determined and dictated by the common precepts that a particular society deems good or bad for its survival or continuity. Among the Nyakyusa tribe of Africa, a pregnant woman is regarded as a danger to purity, because of the burgeoning being growing in her womb. Even her husband is considered taboo for the interests of the tribe (Douglas, 2). Similarly, the Ehansu tribe of Tanzania sends a mad member of their tribe into the wilderness to appease the gods in the absence of rain. In the piece On Abjection, the author delves into the limits a human being can sink to in order to ensure survival, as undoubtedly noted at Auschwitz. Is it the complete absence of ego or the antithesis of narcissism, he argues, or just the reverse? (Anon,14). In La Frontera, Gloria Anzuldua laments the Anglicization of the Spanish language and says that it is tantamount to losing Chicano or Latino identity in the USA, although the Latin American population is fast growing into the nation’s largest ethnic community (Anzuldua, 87). In The System Shattered and Renewed, the author comments that dirt is reviled in most religious rituals, while water purifies (Douglas, 160). In all these articles, the agent that could cause disruption for the rest of the community is told to stay away from it till he or she is healed or the element causing the danger to purity has passed or faded away. Even in an enlightened society like the USA, we rightly consider the abuse of power or proof of corruption or scandal as disastrous to the career of a politician or indeed, any public figure. It is for this reason (the Watergate and Lewinsky scandals) that Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton had to resign from the highest office in the land.