We Create This: meanings we may not mean.

To make a long story short: a group of young and promising men and their loved one’s crashed in the bitterly cold and barren Andes and chose to eat the dead men for survival. Many of you will cringe and reread the last part of the sentence.

They ate the dead men for survival.

Cannibalism; our society views it as grotesque and unacceptable. And most of the time it is. But if you were dropped into the freezing snowy mountains with absolutely no food source, would you face a slow and scary death or would you put an effort into maintaining your life, if not for yourself, but for your family praying for back home?  Like one of the men said, “We have a duty to survive. If we don’t eat the bodies, it is a sin. We must do this not just for our own sakes but also for our families.” In the end, three courageous men gathered enough strength to hike for help. They were saved. One man said, “It was like holy communion. God gives us the body and blood of Christ in Holy Communion. God gave us these bodies and blood to eat.” It’s a simple story of survival. However, to many it’s simply extreme because these men broke truly embedded social standards. Society puts an arbitrary meaning on human bodies.

Humans are “not food”.  We have symbols and meanings for each item, concept, and activity in our life. Humans are not for eating, mathletes is for losers, and marriage is supposed to be full of love and fun.  Symbolic interactionism is how people use symbols to develop their views of the world and how they communicate with people. In the show, Freaks and Geeks, dodge ball resembles pain for the geeks and the smocking patio resembles the hangout for all the burnouts. Nothing comes with built in meaning, people in society give it meaning.

So the men stranded in the middle of the Andes Mountains needed to decide, were they going to change the meaning of “the human body”? Would they go against social norms to refrain from starvation? The answer is yes, they ate the meat of the frozen men on the flight F-227. They survived.

Eventually, since there was no other men or women in their “social location”, eating human meat became normal. The human body now symbolized nutrition energy, and survival. In the article it said, “The dead became part of their lives.” The meanings of everything around us can change depending on our viewpoint and situation.

In recent years, divorce rates have climbed higher. We can apply the sociological theorem of symbolic interactionism to this situation. Over the years, marriage has grown to be more exciting, personal, and full of pressure. The meaning of “love” has become more important for marriage compared to the 1940’s, for example. The meaning of children and the meaning of parenthood has evolved. These two elements have become stress factors on marriage. There is so much pressure to have beautiful children and to be perfect parents. Also, the role of husband and wife has become blurred. In the 1940’s men worked and women looked after household chores. Now, it is hard to organize specific roles for a wife and husband because women are gaining more self righteousness. Also, one of the most symbolic changes is the meaning of divorce itself. Before, it used to be irresponsible and immortal to divorce your spouse. Now, divorce means freedom and new beginnings. All these changes in symbolism have led to 1.1 million more divorces than in 1890. Our society changes the meanings of things and has direct consequences, as predicted by the symbolic interactionism theory.

Divorce occurs because society is changing; our views are changing. Here's a link explaining the top 10 reasons for divorce. All of the elements have some tie to societal standards and expectations that people create. We create the world we live in, even if it's a latent disfuntion, we create it.

http://www.divorceguide.com/free-divorce-advice/marriage-and-separation-advice/the-10-most-common-causes-of-divorce.html