Learning to Swim Part 2

2. I think that by understanding what makes Americans act in the way that we do, we can learn to navigate the waters. Why do we value certain objectives? Why do we spend our time doing certain things in certain places? When we understand the differences between our answers and they answers of those from other cultures, we can better understand our own. The way sociologists are able to learn why we do what we do is the way we can learn how to swim. An example of the adaptation to our surrounding culture would be how we respond to the media. Like we were talking about in class today, the drama surrounding the "balloon boy" was a perfect example of how our reactions are swayed by media bias. We will just as easily praise someone as we will condemn them. We adjust our behaviors because we expect those around us to feel the same way because heaven forbid we think against the crowd. Nowadays, that's something very hard to do.