Analyzing My Own Assumptions

In this post I will reflect on my own personal values and beliefs by answering the four questions in "Analyzing the Text's Relationship to Our Own Cultural Assumptions".

Z S, "what katie did." 7/28/2014 via Flickr. Attribution 2.0 Generic

1. What cultural or social values, beliefs, etc., do we share with the society or culture in which the text was written?

• I agree with the the growing American belief that marijuana legalization should be a pressing issue in our culture. The many benefits that the author includes in this text are all very important and would improve society vastly. I too think that it is hypocritical of society to feel that tobacco and alcohol are drugs that deserve to legal, while marijuana is not. Prohibition seems like a somewhat archaic idea nowadays, especially when it is unclear who it is benefitting, as the text mentions. Money is definitely an important factor in our society, but our government is running low on it, to say the least. Thus, I agree with the authors opinion that lessening the amount of individuals who are arrested and put in jail for marijuana, by legalizing it, would save citizens and the government a lot of money. Additionally, I think it would be great for legalization to create jobs and help the several mentioned industries prosper.

2. What cultural or social values, beliefs, etc., do we not share with the society? Why not?

• I share all the cultural values that are related to this article. I feel like all of the points that the author points out make a lot of sense, thus I can't disagree with any claims she made about the society that we live in.

3. If the text is written from a culture distant or different from our own, what social values, beliefs, etc., connect to or reflect our own culture? What social values, beliefs, etc., can we not see in our own culture?

• The text is written from the same culture that I am a part of, so this question is not applicable to this piece.

4. If the text is written in our culture but in a different historical time, how have the values changed over time?

• This article was written less than a year ago, so the values within it have not really changed. Other than the fact that Oregon, Alaska, and D.C. have officially legalized marijuana for recreational use, everything that Smith states about American values is still relevant. However, if the ideas within this text were to be published in the past, maybe even ten years back, they would most likely have caused outrage among Americans. But since our society's general thoughts about marijuana have changed drastically in the last couple years, the author's claims are not that surprising.

Reflection:

After looking at Katherine's and Breanna's "Analyzing My Own Assumptions" posts I have learned a lot. I realized from both of my peers' work that in modern times the beliefs and values of different nations really don't differ that greatly in certain aspects, especially when it comes to technology. This made me think about how my selected text would be perceived in other cultures, due to the fact that opinions about marijuana are not as unified as other topics. It was really interesting for me to see how some of my opinions coincided with those of my classmates, while some differed on certain things. I guess this just goes to show that no matter how simple and one-sided a person thinks an issue is, there is always going to be someone who feels differently. Another thing that I noticed was that values of a society really don't change quickly, therefore it is hard for a lot of people to change their views on an issue that they have felt a certain way about for a long time, which is a very prevalent part of the debate surrounding the legalization of marijuana.