Download TOPIC: ISSUE208 - "The way people look, dress, and act reveals

TOPIC: ISSUE208 - "The way people look, dress, and act reveals their attitudes and interests. You
can tell much about a society's ideas and values by observing the appearance and behavior of its
people."
What can we infer from the way people look, dress and act? The speaker asserts that these
suggest people's attitudes and interests; he thinks we can tell much about a society's ideas and
values by observing the appearance and behavior of its people. I agree with the speaker's broad
assertion though on the individual level, to judge what people are thinking about and what they
are interested in, we have to know more about them other than his appearance and act.
In the first place, I agree that on the individual level, sometimes we do have the evidence to infer
people's attitudes and interests from the way they look an d act. It is common that many people
dress and acts differently from others, partly because they intend to show that they are different
from ordinary people, partly because they do have different status and appetite. Lending
credibility to this statement is the example of Paris Hilton. Hilton is a very rich lady, who will take
over a large enterprise of her family. She is very proud, never willing to have similar dress style of
others. In fact, she does have the ability to dress and behave herself differently. This is not only
duo to her wealth, but also because she has outstanding flavors-she has designed several types of
perfumes which sell well!
On the other hand, though there are some people whose interests and attitudes can be inferred,
this is not always the case. If we over exaggerate the extent that people's attitude and interests
can be inferred from the appearance, we will put ourselves in peril that we overlook the most
common phenomenon in which most people wear similar clothes and do similar jobs, but they
have different ideas. One need look no further to the white collar workers who wear uniforms
and do repeated work that is attributed to them. There is no doubt that every one of them has
their own interests and attitudes-for example, some may prefer classical music, while others may
prefer hip-hop; some support Obama, some have trust in McCain. But it is not likely that we can
tell this from their appearances-because they look and act in a similar way.
However, on the societal level, we can tell much about a society's ideas and values, because we
have much larger sample size and we do not have to pay attention to one certain person, but the
whole society. By observing people's dress styles and behaviors, we can feel the society's hidden
impulses. One extreme example involves North Korea. People in North Korea have very
conservative dress style-few married women wear skirts and men wear thick clothes even in
summer, especially those who have high social status. From this we can infer that this country is
not only poor, but also isolated from the international society. So they still have not been fully
liberated from old ideas. If they were open enough, they would not dress and behave so
conservatively like that.
In conclusion, I think this statement can be divided into two parts. On the individual level,
sometimes people's interests and attitudes can be judged from their looks and acts, but more
often we have to know more information such as what they often do in their spare time, and how
they think of daily occurrences and big events as well. On the societal level, since we have more
samples to observe and we do not have to focus on a certain person, it is easier for us to discover
the hidden ideas of a society.