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"Our desire to conform is greater than our respect for objective facts." - Essay [15]
The prompt was:
Defend (agree with), challenge (disagree with), or modify the following quote, said by English author Margaret Drabble: "Our desire to conform is greater than our respect for objective facts." Use your experience, observations, or readings.I had to write this essay to get into AP English, so I'd like some feedback, thank you!
In 2001, The American Scholar printed an excerpt from a talk given by Margaret Drabble, an English author who claimed that, "Our desire to conform is greater than our respect for objective facts." In simpler words, we try so hard to fit in and be like everyone else that we ignore our logic and morals. Even when we know we should not be doing something, the desire to not stand out and make a scene can cause us do it. As a teenager who sees peer pressure and conformity every day, I wholeheartedly agree with Drabble's statement.
The legal drinking age in the United States is twenty-one. This is an objective fact- a fact that can be proven. However, this fact does not stop many underage teenagers from consuming alcohol. In fact, it happens so often that it's considered the norm in many places. It's "fitting in"; it's conforming. Peer pressure happens to everyone, teenagers in particular. A young girl who strives to be popular and become friends with the "in crowd" will go to a party, unaware of the illegal substances that wait for her. Even though her instincts are telling her it's wrong to drink, even though she's been taught right by her parents to "just say no," she won't say anything of the sort. She wants to fit in more than anything else, and she'll ignore her conscience and take a sip of the drink. She is conforming rather than respecting her own thoughts, or the law.
Conformity does not have to go as far as breaking the law. I've experienced firsthand conforming to something I didn't believe in. In middle school, my friends and I would talk behind other peoples' backs because we didn't like what they wore, or how they acted. I've always had a guilty conscience, and I would always regret saying the mean things I said. In the back of my mind, I knew the objective fact that my mom had taught me since I was little: "Don't do anything to anyone that you wouldn't want done to you." However, I shoved that little fact aside and continued to conform, simply out of fear that my friends would tease me or laugh at me for disagreeing with them. I didn't want to become the girl they ended up making fun of.
Often, we as human beings are afraid to make a big scene, or to stand up for what we believe in. One day in school, I noticed a boy who was getting beat up in the hallway. Looking around me, I saw many of my fellow classmates ignoring the scene, walking past it like it wasn't there. I found myself doing the same thing. No one stood up for that boy, no one tried to pull them apart, and no one called for help. Everyone was afraid of being the person that the bully picked on next, or of being teased by his or her peers for sticking up for the "weak." We were so afraid of standing up for that boy, even though we knew it was wrong to let that happen to him. It's this simple: your character is based on what you stand for, and your reputation is based on what you fall for. When we're young, we care much more about our reputation than our character. So, instead, we ignored that persistent thought in our head and we moved on, conforming once again.
People work so hard to be accepted that they do not care how they get there. To paraphrase Drabble's words, we conform to what society expects of us, rather than what our minds tell us. Ignoring the objective facts comes so easy when we're faced with a challenging situation that expects just the opposite. Most of the time, we choose not to do the right thing, but the "easy" thing...because sometimes, the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.
