Most people in society firmly believe with high levels of personal autonomy, comes lawlessness and chaos. They assume that when there are high levels of structure, there will be no levels of autonomy and vice-versa. In this essay, Lee demonstrates otherwise, she suggests that with only high levels of autonomy comes highly developed structure from society. In other words, you need one for the other to exist, which indirectly promotes each other.
To begin, in Dorothy Lee’s (8) essay, she explains that our society do not respect the autonomy of others, and when they do, it is not as easy or as simple as the Wintu culture. For instance, when someone needs something they generally ask for permission. It is this permissiveness that is the social problem addressed in her essay.…show more content… This lack of autonomy indirectly affects the structure in which society operates. Having a lack of respect of others autonomy will lead to less developed structure in society for group situations. This will lead to a less developed structure because people would not accept the opinions of others nor will they respect them as an individual. By doing so, this leads to an uneven, biased community which will not represent the people fairly leading to chaos and anarchy. Similarly, many governments are built on this idea which is why they are not a proper representation of the people, but instead a representation of the majority in that community. In other words, by not respecting others in the society you indirectly cause harm to the structure of the community.
On another note, Dorothy Lee, uses the example of Wintu Indians of California mainly because their lifestyle and respect for each other is phenomenal. In the Wintu Indians culture, they respect others and everything as its
