The concepts of social categorization privilege and oppression in the forming of identity in society

Those five are the duties of universal obligation. Knowledge, magnanimity, and energy, these three, are the virtues universally binding. And the means by which they carry the duties into practice is singleness. Some are born with the knowledge of those duties; some know them by study; and some acquire the knowledge after a painful feeling of their ignorance.

Those five are the duties of universal obligation.

Knowledge, magnanimity, and energy, these three, are the virtues universally binding. And the means by which they carry the duties into practice is singleness.

Some are born with the knowledge of those duties; some know them by study; and some acquire the knowledge after a painful feeling of their ignorance. But the knowledge being possessed, it comes to the same thing.

Some practice them with a natural ease; some from a desire for their advantages; and some by strenuous effort. But the achievement being made, it comes to the same thing. Confucius If a Western person is not aware of the very different relational presumptions built into Confucian ideas of reciprocal duty, he or she is likely to presume that the independent pursuit of needs and wants is central to involvement in such relationships.

Robert Westwood does this when he sums up the Confucian position from a Western perspective. The wu lun are dyadic sets of unequal, mostly hierarchical relationships between emperor - minister, father - son, husband - wife, older brother - younger brother, friend - friend.

Although the power structure is differentiated and unequal except for the lattermutual obligations and reciprocities are inherent in the relationships. The person in the dominant position expects and receives obedience, deference and compliance, but in return should respect the dignity of the lower party and provide appropriate care and concern.

This view of an interdependent self is in sharp contrast to the Western view of an independent self. The latter sees each human being as an independent, self-contained, autonomous entity who a comprises a unique configuration of internal attributes e.

This divergent view of self has implications for a variety of basic psychological processes e. It is very easy for a researcher or commentator to apply his or her own understandings of the nature of relationships to those observed in other communities.

Westwood does this when he assumes that hierarchical relationships must involve dominance and subservience, relative power and powerlessness.

They see relationships of dependence in terms of costs and benefits and degrees of loss of independence The independent self is quintessentially Western.

The interdependent self, in one guise or another, is found in communities where individuals know who they are through the forms of relationship they recognize between themselves and other members of the community.

In such communities the rights and obligations of individuals in exchange relationships remain with the interactants rather than being attached to the objects of exchange. So, the other party in an exchange is the focus, rather than the needs and wants of the interactants. In one case, the process of exchange or interaction tends to emphasize the separate identities and, therefore, motivations of the exchangers leading to a stress on independence.

In the other, it tends to emphasize their relatedness and reciprocal responsibilities stressing interdependence. The qualities of the relationships invoked in exchange in the two orientations are very different.

Not only are perceived relationships specific to communities, so too are the perceived qualities that inhere in relationships. How similar their understandings are will largely depend on the nature of the historical connections that have existed between their communities and the degree to which the hegemonies 11 of their communities have interacted over time Throughout their lives, people in communities are constantly corrected and disciplined whenever their interactions or their understandings do not conform to those considered accurate in their community.

In order to understand the ways in which communities build their categorizational models and then from them construct models of community organization and individual interaction, we are going to address two related sets of structures.

Primary ideology The first set of structures is the set of categorizational models that all members of a community or set of related communities hold in common.

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We are going to call these fundamental organizational models primary ideology. The criteria that produce both the categorizational framework and its internal categories and relations are primary ideological presumptions. These are the most basic understandings people have of their worlds, in terms of which categorization proceeds.

Any attempt to alter these understandings attacks the ability of people who hold them to think, and therefore to interact meaningfully with their environments. Most people, when asked to explain their understanding of primary ideological presumptions, find it very difficult just as they find it difficult to explain why they place words in a particular order in their sentences or why certain words should always, never or only in certain contexts appear together.

One of the features of the presumptions is that they are taken for granted. This makes it very difficult to research primary presumptions since people, anywhere, will consider questions related to the definition of the assumptions to be inane.

One should not question the obvious, particularly when the people being questioned find it difficult to express their understandings or even focus on the issues being raised. It needs to be remembered, however, that primary ideological presumptions are not universally held understandings of the world.

They are the understandings that are required by the most basic categorizational models of the community. So, not only should they not be questioned, they cannot easily be altered. Changes in such assumptions occur over hundreds of years and produce strains and tensions in communities experiencing the changes People in any community inherit the primary ideology of their community in the same way that they inherit the language of their community.Article PDF.

Introduction. The early s marked the first publications both in English studies and communication studies to address lesbian and gay issues.

Gender identity haunts every aspect of our lives, dictating the outcomes of our conversations, our workplaces, our relationships – even our bath products. Before most infants are named, they are assigned a sex based on the appearance of their external genitalia by a third party.

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These decisions are dolled out in a typically binary fashion, with no expectations for ambiguity. My interest in Medieval science was substantially sparked by one book. Way back in , when I was an impoverished and often starving post-graduate student at the University of Tasmania, I found a copy of Robert T.

Gunther's Astrolabes of the World - folio pages of meticulously catalogued Islam. My interest in Medieval science was substantially sparked by one book. Way back in , when I was an impoverished and often starving post-graduate student at the University of Tasmania, I found a copy of Robert T.

Gunther's Astrolabes of the World - folio pages of meticulously catalogued Islam. Social Knowledge Social Sciences is a major category of academic disciplines, concerned with society and the relationships among individuals within a society.

It in turn has many branches, each of which is considered a "social science". The main social sciences include economics, political science, human geography, demography, and sociology.

However, the right to say whatever we like is tempered by the Human Rights Act, which makes it an offence to express opinions that could be deemed to be ‘threatening, abusive, or insulting’ on the grounds of ‘colour, race, or ethnic or national origins’.