Dorothy Lee Individual Autonomy And Social Structure Summary

The article “Individual Autonomy and Social Structure” by Dorothy Lee demonstrates how law, limits and personal autonomy can coexists effectively without limiting an individual’s own freedom and their way of living in society. A key social problem in our present society is that it has become difficult to respect individual integrity and that we have forgotten the principles of conformity, freedom of choice and personal autonomy. In her article she examines several societies in which she argues that this social problem can be resolved. The examples from different societies such as the Navajo prove that cultural structure can support the principle of personal autonomy. Dorothy Lee’s in depth breakdown of the Navajo society exhibits their way of child rearing and …show more content…
The Navajo society depends on mutual responsibility among all its members; they live in harmony and with great respect for individual autonomy. The Navajo children are raised in a way that they have their own free will, they are not restricted to what they can do by the elders. For example, a Navajo parent will not command his child to do certain chores or tell him what not to do. They would not say, “don’t do that cause it will hurt you” or “do this for me” etc., instead they will let the child do what he is capable of as he grows older giving him his personal autonomy. A Navajo child has his own freedom to make own choices and is allowed to make mistakes at a young age, his parent will let him to suffer pain or joy so that he could learn from it in the end. As Dorothy states, “When the baby starts walking, the mother does not see to it that he is out of reach of the fire, and that all the sharp knives have been put away. The child gets burned a little, and the mother helps him learn from this experience that he has to be careful of fire… the mother helps him understand and deal with particular danger” (Lee