Walter_B_Miller

Walter B. Miller: Focal Concerns Walter B. Miller idea of focal concerns of the lower class has to do with America as a society. American society has many different values and characteristic patterns of behavior. As a result, these patterns are a product of a unique cultural system which many people call the lower class. The lower class way of life can be characterized by a set of focal concerns or issues which commands an extensive and relentless concentration and a high degree of emotional involvement. Each focal concern can be conceived as a dimension within which each person has a different story but experiences the same focal concerns. Consequently, these focal concerns have to deal with lower class men and women who disassociate themselves from normal society. Furthermore, Walter B. Miller has different types of names for each of these focal concerns such as: trouble, toughness, smartness, excitement, fate and autonomy. Each focal concern can be conceived as what certain lower class members display in their every day lives. One of the main focal concerns according to Walter B. Miller is a concept called trouble. Generally speaking, the concept of trouble has to deal with the lower class individuals particularly young men and women who are looking for encounters of a larger society such as: police, truant officers or teachers. In other words, trouble for men meant frequently involving themselves into fights or sexual adventures while drinking and for women trouble meant having sexual involvement with unfavorable consequences. Hence, many of these individuals try to avoid getting into trouble as much as possible. By the same token, if these certain individuals are caught they are going to have to deal with the consequences themselves. The second concept that Walter B. Miller talked about was toughness. Toughness most important component is physical prowess. This is demonstrated by the men’s strength and endurance. Many of these men showed their masculinity by being very muscular and having various tattoos along there body also drinking showed toughness as well. Subsequently, 85 percent of men in the lower class come out of a female based home and lacked a consistently present male figure to which they learn indispensable components of the male role. In addition to this, men in the lower class that come from a female dominated home did not want to become a sissy. As a rule, men have to have the ability to defend themselves this also showed a great deal of toughness. Furthermore, many men did like to show their softer side such as: cooking or showing their girlfriend affection this made them less of a man. Moreover, when it comes to fighting in the street to show that a man has an immense deal of toughness they can not walk away from a fight. Furthermore, when it comes to homosexualities men that want to show toughness tend to cause harm to people that are gay. Also men that want to show toughness treat their women as property. In essence, many street corner gangs show their affection toward each other by aggressive verbal and physical interaction such as: kidding, ranking, and roughhousing. Walter B. Miller states, “Smartness involves the compactly to outsmart, outfox, outwit, dupe, con another or others and the concomitant capacity to avoid being outwitted or duped.” (Miller, p.106) In essence, smartness engages the capability to achieve material goods and personal status though the use of mental agility. Generally, men who display smartness have the ability to speak street lingo. Furthermore, a man that has smartness finds ways to survive by getting over someone. For example, when there are two workers are doing the same job together and the man with smartness gets the other man with toughness to do both of their work at the same time. The man with the focal concern of smartness used his mind to get over the man with toughness. Many times these various men use their brain not their brawn. Individuals continually practice dumping and outwitting one another through card games and other types of gambling and they would test each others mutual con-ability. In the lower class the person with the focal theory of smartness has been considered more valuable than a person that just has toughness. Men who exhibit the quality of smartness normally participate in mutual insult interchange known as the dirty dozen. The dirty dozen meant that two people say increasingly provocative insults also they would make sexual insults about each other mother. For various lower class individuals life in their neighborhood becomes very stagnate and boring. They fall victim to everyday routine and repetitive activities. A lot of these people need some type of stimulation in their lives. This is why young men of the lower class look for some type of excitement or thrill. Hence, once or even twice a week men from the lower class would go out to different neighborhoods and they would start to drink and gamble and most likely start fighting with other people in the neighborhood. Furthermore, these practices where called nights on the town. Besides, the drinking and gambling many men found in this situation would be involved with picking up women. As a result, this caused many fights between the men in two different towns. At the same time, men who look for excitement will tend to lead into trouble. Many lower class individuals feel that they have little control over their lives. They believe in the concept of destiny or fate that controls their lives. A majority of the lower class will only show effort towards their goals only if they believe that luck is in their corner. They will state various things such as: “if the cards are right,” or “the dice good to you,” or “if your luck number comes up, things will go your way,” but if they feel that luck is going against them they will give up. Above all, this relives them of any responsibility they always state if it was not meant to be then it was not meant to be. For example, a man going for a job interview gets dressed with his shirt and tie. He stops to get a cup of coffee before going to the interview. The man spills the cup of coffee on his shirt. Hence, he feels that he going to have a bad interview that he is jinxed. The gentleman tries to get to the train but he misses it. Already he feels that there is a omen or that he his jinxed it is just not his day. The same man will turn around and walk back home because he believes in destiny. In essence, to avoid this many of these men lucky items such as: lucky pennies, rabbits foot. When living this type of life there is only two options a person has to be in luck or their jinxed. In other words, these individuals have no control of their lives and what is going on. Lastly, one of the six main focal concerns is autonomy. Autonomy is the idea in the lower class that no one can tell them what to do. They have to seem as if they are in total control. Many of these men do not like when authoritative figures such as: parents, police, employers give them commands. A lot of these men will commonly respond in various ways such as: “No one gonna push me around,” or “I’m going tell him he can take the job and shove it.” Men that display the focal concern autonomy tend to want to be completely independent. Even if they get advice from someone for example a girlfriend they would tell there friends on the street corner that they came up with the idea. In the movie Carlito’s way the main character displays many focal concerns. The main focal concern that he exhibits is smartness. When the main character Carlito just got out of jail and was with his little cousin in the barber shop he showed a great deal of smartness. His cousin was dealing drug with these guys. He told Carlito that he trusted them and they where good people. Carlito had a funny feeling about these guys and tried to warn his cousin that he can not trust anybody in the drug business. They both went inside the barber shop and the little cousion was talking to one of his so called friends. Carlito saw that they where getting set up when he saw someone in the bathroom peeping in and out looking at them. Furthermore Carlito descides to use his smartness and tells the other men in the barber shop that he wants to show them a famous trick shot. In addition to this, most of the men were distracted by Carlito trick shot. In the mean time the man that was in the bathroom comes out and slits Carlito’s cousin throat. Carlito uses the pool stick and hits the other guys and gets the gun and kills them all. Csarlito showed a great deal of smartness because he knew that they were about to get con and he figured a way out of a bad situation. In conclusion, all men in the lower class can relate to one of the six focal concerns. Each focal concern theory weather its trouble, toughness, smartness, excitement fate or autonomy show that America needs to seriously change its social structure and how it deals with the lower class. Men that have these values never amount to anything and it is a shame that society has to be this way. Furthermore, it’s hard for the lower class to show any upward mobility if there values and minds are shaped like this. To have true change one must seek the problem which is educating the lower and showing them that they do not have to follow these labels of focal concerns. References 1996 by Allyn and Bacon A Pearson Education Company Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458