CODE OF THE STREET

Code of the road, in writing by Elijah Anderson

Code of the Street, written by Elijah Anderson

In Relation to the Book “Code of the Streets “Life on the street is never easy. It has been said that a person can either be “book smart “or “street smart“and within that saying, the “street smart “kind of person is the one who usually survives. Survival and self preservation always has something to do with a personal view of the environment. If one sees his environment as comfortable, one tends to be more relaxed and carefree. On the contrary, if one sees his environment as dangerous, one will tend to be more vigilant and aggressive (Anderson, 1994).

In Elijah Anderson's essay on urban anthropology, he said that, “The inclination to violence springs from the circumstances of life among the ghetto poor--the lack of jobs that pay a living wage, the stigma of race, the fallout from rampant drug use and drug trafficking, and the resulting alienation and lack of hope for the future. “ This, coming from a social scientist, proves that violence in the streets can arise from the circumstances of life. It results in social alienation and lack of hope, which then triggers a feeling of depression, loneliness and confusion. He further said, “Simply living in such an environment places young people at special risk of falling victim to aggressive behavior.

The concept of Synergism finds application in this case. Probably the most well known saying affiliated with synergism is “the entire is larger than the addition of its parts“. A sociological delineation would be “the relative of parts, seen as an entire, creates or outcomes in something solely new in and of itself with a life of its own“. The import of this definition is that a whole is not merely ...