Second assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Second - Assignment Example Hitherto, one needs to clarify this result: was she pushed to stealing because of her social structure or was it her choice? In anthropology, this question can be shaped and reformed into one of the most famous debates in this field: what drives human action? Is it the social structure in which the human exists, or the agent, wherein the human action is due to decisions and free will? Not so long ago have I had the fortune to enter such a debate with some friends. The main subject of the debate was: was one of our friends actions due to her environment or was it her decision? I, honestly, believed that it was because of her environment and apparently her ability to deal with it was all because of how her environment shaped her. Therefore, going back to Liesel, I would say that her stealing was caused by her choking environment. In other words, its the social structure that shapes the human actions. Likewise, theorists such as Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Marvin Harris would also agree in such notion. Social structure, in the simplest definitions, would be the arrangement of human relations in a society. At the same time, social structure would also be the environment in which humans exist. In this environment, it could either be the society or of the biological, physical or chemical origin (Harris). Now, going back, Marx, being one of the key theorists in anthropology, looked at human actions based on the interest of the individual itself. He gave the idea that an individual formulating ideologies force these ideas to the society in order to reshape the society where this individual grew up in. Incidentally, these ideologies formed by the individual came from the ideas presented by the society. In other words, Marx was trying to point out that humans would not be altering their society if, in the first place, they were not introduced to such