Task 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Task 2 - Essay ExampleThe other will always be lesser, not as good, and below the members of the group at large.This is not a new phenomenon. It is something we have seen play itself kayoed throughout history and it is reflected in many works of literature as well. To some extent, the concept of the Other is a means of social control. It is a method of separating out into groups those who think as we do and those who do not. If some single does not think as we do, whence they must be lesser than we are. They must in like manner be against us. Thus, caution should be exercised when dealing with a person who is an Other.In Melissa Algranatis essay, macrocosm an Other, otherness is presented as a state of being wherein you have no peer group or cohort, outside of your own family. I learned at a young age that there are not too many Puerto Rican, Egyptian Jews out there (Algranati, 1996, p.135). For Algranati, the realization that you are a one-of-a-kind is startling. It forces a s eparateness from other people. She could not simply choose one group to identify with. She explains For most of my look Ive been living in two worlds, and at the same time Ive been living in neither (135). Algranati finds her state of being an Other most disconcerting when she is asked to choose identification for herself on the PSAT. She negotiation about her confusion at even being asked to select only one group with whom to identify, since choosing one means leaving out the other, which is, as she put it, leaving out so much (135). Our individualism is in part shaped by how other people perceive us. But when the criteria for ascribing a certain identity include things over which you have no control as is the case with gender, race, and sexual orientationthen whether you identify with that identityis not only up to you (Appiah, 2005, p. 70).For Algranati, both parents have spent their lives as Others as well. Her fathers family was displacedfirst