Sociologist: Violence and friendliness are usually thought

Question

Sociologist:  Violence and friendliness are usually thought to be opposites. Congeniality, hospitality, openness, politeness, and warmth are often assumed to preclude aggressions and mayhem. What is frequently missed, however, is how often these two polar opposite seem to go together. The paradox of politeness is that violence and friendliness are not opposing forces, rather, in many cultures, these two forces work together and reinforce each other, creating societies where what is on the surface is vastly different from what is occurring underneath.
 
Which of the following can be properly inferred about the Sociologist’s point of view from his argument above?

A. Friendliness, congeniality, and politeness cannot exist in a society without some form of violence.

B. Violence, or threat of violence, eventually forms a society where friendliness, congeniality, and politeness are the norm.

C. It is not impossible, without some form of violence, to have a society where friendliness, congeniality, and politeness are the norm.

D. If it were not for violence, certain friendly, congenial, polite societies today may not have been so.

E. The societies struggling for friendliness, congeniality, and politeness must adopt violence or threat of violence in reaching their goal of bonhomie.

Source: Experts Global

jwang516 · Accepted Answer

Interesting question. In my opinion, the answer is D
Remember, this is an inference question. Therefore, what we read is the only information that can be used to find the answers

A. This is tempting. Note that the prompt says "in many cultures, these two forces work together", but the prompt does not say that this occurs in ALL cultures. Therefore, we cannot make the assumption that violence and friendliness ALWAYS go together.
B. Irrelvant. The prompt does not say that violence CAUSES societies where friendliness is the norm, but just that both violence and friendliness exists in socieities
C. Another temping answer. Wrong because of the same reasoning as A
D. CORRECT. Again, the prompt notes that "The paradox of politeness is that.....in many cultures, these two forces work together....creating societies". Therefore, without the two forces of violence and friendliness, some polite societies today may not have been so
E. Irrelevant. What is this "bonhomie goal" in the answer. I have no idea

Paulli1982 · Answer

IMO: A. 
Because the relationship between violence and friendship spelled out in A is in line with the Sociologist's view described in the paragraph, which is 'co-existence'.

B is wrong because the relationship is causal: Violence caused friendliness;
C is wrong because the relationship is irrelevant. Friendliness can exist without violence;
D is wrong because the relationship is causal: friendliness is for violence;
E is wrong because the paragraph didn't suggest to adopt violence.

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gmatexam439 · Answer

Sociologist:  Violence and friendliness are usually thought to be opposites. Congeniality, hospitality, openness, politeness, and warmth are often assumed to preclude aggressions and mayhem. What is frequently missed, however, is how often these two polar opposite seem to go together. The paradox of politeness is that violence and friendliness are not opposing forces, rather, in many cultures, these two forces work together and reinforce each other, creating societies where what is on the surface is vastly different from what is occurring underneath.
 
Which of the following can be properly inferred about the Sociologist’s point of view from his argument above?

A. Friendliness, congeniality, and politeness cannot exist in a society without some form of violence. - "cannot" is an extreme word.

B. Violence, or threat of violence, eventually forms a society where friendliness, congeniality, and politeness are the norm. - Only "a few" societies were formed because of the co-existence of violence and friendliness. This option makes violence a necessary condition for the establishment of societies.

C. It is not impossible, without some form of violence, to have a society where friendliness, congeniality, and politeness are the norm. - The argument is about those societies that have co-existence of violence and friendliness.

D. If it were not for violence, certain friendly, congenial, polite societies today may not have been so. - Correct. The argument introduces a paradox stating that in some cultures, if it weren't for violence then some societies wouldn't have existed.

E. The societies struggling for friendliness, congeniality, and politeness must adopt violence or threat of violence in reaching their goal of bonhomie. - "must" is an extreme word.

sobby · Answer

A- This is extreme , prompt says many cultures have both not all...
B-again too extreme 
C-again extreme, prompt says many cultures have both not all, we don't know the possibility that both exist in a society, or one is dependent on other... 
D-- ok keep it 
E--Nothing about this in prompt .

KarishmaB · Answer

Note that the entire argument talks about how violence and friendliness are though to be opposites but they OFTEN go together. In MANY cultures, they reinforce each other.

Which of the following can be inferred?

A. Friendliness, congeniality, and politeness cannot exist in a society without some form of violence.
"cannot co-exist" - we cannot infer this. the argument says "often" and "many". That doesn't mean impossible.

B. Violence, or threat of violence, eventually forms a society where friendliness, congeniality, and politeness are the norm.
Not given in the argument. The argument says they reinforce each other.

C. It is not impossible, without some form of violence, to have a society where friendliness, congeniality, and politeness are the norm.
Again, we don't know. Is it possible to have a friendly society without some form of violence? We don't know. All we know is that in MANY societies, violence and friendliness reinforce each other. Our data is only about MANY. It could be ALL, it may not be all. Data is not sufficient to establish this.

D. If it were not for violence, certain friendly, congenial, polite societies today may not have been so.
Correct. This says - "CERTAIN friendly societies may not have been so had it not been for violence". This is what the argument says.

E. The societies struggling for friendliness, congeniality, and politeness must adopt violence or threat of violence in reaching their goal of bonhomie.
Not correct. Is it a MUST to adopt violence? Not known.

Answer (D)

shaldor · Answer

Hi,
Can someone please tell me why C.) is wrong. Since it is mentioned that "many cultures" have both together and the option says it is not impossible to have 1 of them.

All-many would be the scope of this option. Should 'many' be considered 'all' in some cases and is that the reason this option is wrong?

neha283 · Answer

Hi, 
The author concludes that violence and friendliness work together in many cultures, where what's on surface is different from what is underneath. 
Essentially, this means that these "many cultures" may seem polite and friendly on the surface but there may be underlying forces of violence which might have reinforced this superficial friendliness. We have to find an option which infers the same.
Let's look at option C and try to break it to make out what it is saying.
It is not impossible, without some form of violence, to have a society where friendliness, congeniality, and politeness are the norm.
not impossible = possible (in crude form)

It is  possible , without violence, to have a friendly society.

This is completely opposite of what author is inferring. 
Hope it helps.

shaldor · Answer

Thanks Neha!

However, if there are 100 societies in total and according to author, "many" (let say 99) societies have both violence and friendliness, but there would still be 1 society which has only 1 of those right? am I understanding this wrong? My main confusion is the scope of the word "many". I just felt that option C is not extreme and hence marked it as the answer.

neha283 · Answer

Hi  shaldor ,

Many is not equal to all. But the author is not concerned about that 1 off scenario here, what he/she is trying to infer is that in "many" societies violence and friendliness go together. That is his focus and that is the inference which should be drawn out of this argument. Which is pointed out in option D.

Pankaj0901 · Answer

I have the same doubt. It is not perfectly clear why is C wrong. Can someone please elaborate this more? Thanks

Posted from my mobile device

Gemmie · Answer

D. If it were not for violence, certain friendly, congenial, polite societies today may not have been so.

This inference aligns with the sociologist's view that violence and friendliness are not opposing forces but rather work together to create societies. The sociologist suggests that the presence of violence might be an underlying factor in the formation of outwardly friendly and polite societies.

mbaprepavi · Answer

The best inference about the sociologist’s point of view is:

D. If it were not for violence, certain friendly, congenial, polite societies today may not have been so. 
Here’s why:
The sociologist argues that  violence and friendliness often reinforce each other , suggesting that in many societies, what appears to be a friendly, polite surface can coexist with underlying violence. This means that, in the sociologist's view, some societies that are characterized by politeness or friendliness might not have achieved or maintained these traits without violence or the threat of violence playing some role. Therefore,  D  can be properly inferred, as it aligns with the idea that violence may have been essential in shaping certain polite or friendly societies.

A : This is too extreme. The sociologist doesn't argue that  every  society must have violence for friendliness to exist, just that violence and friendliness often work together in many cultures.

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Sociologist: Violence and friendliness are usually thought

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