The 1960’s was marked by global complexities in culture and political trend. It is, however, the age of reform and rebirth in US history. The sixties were a decade that was full of promise and hope to follow the heightened social consciousness that opened the minds of the people. It was period that wishes to fight social injustice that corrupts the social system. To curve this, politics was perceived to be the best solution. However, many social and political analysts thought that it was presumptuous to assume that politics can provide a remedy to the ailing community. Among them were Angus Campbell, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes, authors of the book entitled The American Voter.
The American Voter, first published in 1960 was a 588paged book that tries to assess the behavior and attitude of the American voter at the time that it was written. The authors pointed that whatever disposition or attitude that the American voter has during that period was largely influenced by the Party ID system. This system identifies the voter to a particular political group—either Democratic or Republican. The authors furthered that one’s preference is largely influenced by the social forces and influences as choices made by family and friends but is not necessarily the doings of the voter himself.
In chapter 3 of the book, the author tried to go further in evaluating the attitudes that shape the voters. According to the authors, voters tend to generalize their perception and their feelings. So whatever, idea they have about the party to which the candidate belongs to would automatically be the same idea they have of the candidate. People often confuse identity for individuality. Perhaps people see both concepts from the aspect of how it is involved in defining an individual. This is similar to the case of a family, which is considered as the smallest unit of society. People tend to assume that people belonging to a certain family would share similar values and principles not realizing that every person is unique. Given this premise, it has been assumed, therefore, be true that every processes and practice that is utilized in the family can be translated into the society. This is similar to the belief that a particular political candidate from one political party would automatically embrace every single cause taken up by the party. This perception is likely to be false. However, since candidates are endorsed by political parties it would be hard to think that the endorsed candidate will not support the cause of the group that endorses his candidacy.50’s – 1960: THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION
One of the most influential personalities during this time was Martin Luther King. He was an ardent advocate of equality and social justice made a bold statement from Birmingham Prison when he defended himself and his staff from participating in a nonviolent mass demonstration addressing the injustices experienced in the said area. They were referred to as outside intruders to which King vehemently objects.
King questioned the political and the social system of that time for blaming the oppressed for experiencing oppression. According to King, the argument offered by the opponents of their nonviolent action of massive resistance claims that they are insinuating or precipitating violence. King replied with a series of questions all leading to one direction, that the society must not blame the oppressed for wanting to fight oppression. To which King made the statement “society must protect the robbed and punish the robber!”
Another key personality was Meerloo in 196 who presented his theory that suggests that racial prejudice is a result of the defensive’s ego and superego to protect one’s self. People who are threatened by the object of their racial prejudice usually develop this. There are incidents that when people who are experiencing deep racial animosity would resort to inflicting violence. This was further supported by the identity formation theory postulated by Bettelheim in 1964. According to Bettelheim, people with racial prejudice join or form groups who share the same feeling of animosity to further boost and enforce their identity. Typically, these people are afraid to lose their identity over the object of their disgust. Therefore, to ensure that it will not happen, this group would enforce racial prejudice to alienate the other group from trying to pursue equal opportunity.
Society has trained people to be vigilant and to scrutinize the people we meet along the way. We could all probably recall how our mothers would time and again remind us not to talk to strangers because they will be out to get you. As a child we were trained to see every stranger as a potential kidnapper, a villain, an assassin or a drug addict. This was our parents’ way of protecting us from being abused, hurt or kidnapped when we were young. So perhaps it is the reason we grew up being overly judgmental of the people around us.
On the other side of the boat, there is still the strong influence of media in creating stereotypes. When media portray villains to take the form and shape of a particular race, gender or class everyone jumps into the bandwagon and assert that everyone who comes close to the description automatically fits the person. It is almost similar to saying that once the shoe fits, it is automatically the Cinderella. In this case, just because the criminals on television and in the movies all look the same—big hair, muscular men, blacks and shady personality, everyone who looks even half as that would automatically be a criminal. This behavior is quite unfair especially for some culture that is born to those physical features.
Every nation ponders on creating a utopia, where individuals can live harmoniously with one another. It is an ideal state where social order prevails because of the existing perfect status. However, the state of utopia is simply an idea. Is the state of utopia possible? Can a modern nation embracing the concept of a democracy achieve a state of utopia or even just a balance in individual rights and social order? To respond to this question one must provide quantifiable definitions to the different terms used. What does one pertain to when they refer to individual rights? And how does one qualify a society possessing social order? Does it necessarily have to be in a democracy and not communism where social order can be regulated?
First allow us to justify that we are using a democratic nation as a subject to this discussion simply because of the reason that a democracy allows people to enjoy civil liberties. It is in democracy that everyone should and must enjoy freedom because this is the principle embraced by a democratic nation. Democracy has been defined as a social system where people have the capacity and the authority to decide the fate of their country by choosing representatives who will occupy the government (Dahl). From that context alone, anyone who would ask whether people under a democratic nation are free would immediately know that people from these nations enjoys the widest scope of freedom and rights compared to any other civilized societies elsewhere. It should follow, therefore, that there would be no contention when we make an argument on balancing individual rights and social order because the first category had already been accounted for in a democratic nation—that is the presence of individual rights.
How does one define the limits of freedom in a democracy? It is important to remember that civil liberties and social rights are distinctively different from one another. The scope and dimension of civil liberties are different from social rights that are encompassing as compare to individual rights. Individual rights stand for freedom relating to political and economic sovereignty while social rights are associated with social control. Individual freedom or civil liberties include all provisions that cover one’s right to life, autonomy and property. Social order equates to social institutions, practices and structures in a given society. Given these definitions of individual rights and social order, it would be easier to give shape to an argument that supports the balance of individual rights and social order.
CONCLUSION
Every independent country is entitled to its own sovereignty. The best form to represent and guard one’s sovereignty is through the government. A government is an organization that has the authority to rule and oversee the management of a nation or country. However, there are different forms of government as this is not universal for all nations.
The type of government usually depends on the several factors. Although some of the governments, we have today are evolution of the governments we had in the past. Among the most popular forms of government are democratic, parliamentary, monarchy and dictatorship. This paper will focus on the democratic form of government and the implications of having this form of government.Democracy only entails that the people have the power to choose the individuals who will represent them. This is done through a process known as election. By virtue of the election, the people are free to select the leaders who will occupy a seat in the government.
Democracy is usually defined using three important characteristics that describe it—equality, freedom and rule of law (Raaflaub, Ober and Wallace). Other academicians, scholars and political experts define democracy as the government that allows people full exercise of their rights and freedom as mandated in the constitution.
The right to vote is the best feature of democracy. In as far as the book The American Voter is concerned, there is nothing in it that poorly criticizes how American voters make their decision. Nevertheless, the implication that American voters do not make clever decisions would be wholly unjust. For one, the leaders of the US are selected by virtue of the electoral college and not through popular vote. Therefore, it would be unfair to generalize all American voters to make poor decisions as far as voting is concerned. However, we cannot blame the authors for making generalized conclusion before this was primarily applied to them. The society has been used to generalizing and making haste judgment only by virtue of what is overtly observable.
Work Cited
Campbell, Angus, et al. The American Voter. New York, NY: Wiley Publishing, 1960.
Dahl, Robert A. On Democracy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000.
Delaney, Carol. Investigating Culture: An Experiential Introduction to Anthropology, 2nd Edition. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. 2011
Raaflaub, Kurt, Josiah Ober and Robert Wallace. Origins of democracy in ancient Greece. . San Diego, California: University of California Press, 2007.
