Social Norms Essay

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Social norms. Social norms are rules of behavior that are considered acceptable by a group or society, but what if the social norm happens to be oppressing and discriminating an entire race of people based solely on the color of their skin, how is it still considered right? And what if half of a nation relied on this idea of social norm in order to power their economy? This social norm I have described was slavery. And the half of nation I’m referring to that depended upon the continued idea of this social norm in order to power their economy was the south during pre-civil war times. Southern supporters of slavery used economics, history, legality, and even religion to defend not only to them a social norm, but to defend a way of life. There …show more content…
From the Greeks to the Romans and even the British have all had slaves. Was America not a civilized and advanced society? Why then could they not have slaves. James Henry Hammond expressed his views on this in his Mudsill Theory. His Mudsill Theory was a proposition that stated, there always has been and always will be a lower inferior class that does all the manual labor for the upper class to rest upon. By the lower class doing all the menial work it enables the higher classes to advance the civilization. And since southerners and pretty much all Americans saw African Americans as being an inferior race of people, then they would make the perfect lower class that the superior white man could lean and build …show more content…
So if the abolitionists didn’t want to own slaves then they didn’t have to, but they had no right to ban the south from having them. Any continuance of the abolitionist movement was viewed as a group of people trying to force their beliefs and way of life on everyone else. So when John Brown, an outspoken abolitionist, kidnaped and killed 5 southerns in what’s known as bleeding Kansas happened, the south was outraged. To them this act is not an act of bravery against moral injustice but an act of oppression and taking of God given rights trough violence and bloodshed of innocent

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