"Our desire to conform is greater than our respect for objective facts." - Essay

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.

An excellently written essay, except that most of your examples of objective facts are, well, wrong.


This is indeed a fact. However, underage drinking doesn't necessarily show disrespect for the fact, so much as disrespect for the law itself. An 18 year-old who can be drafted to serve in the military to have the honor of dying for his country may believe that he should be allowed to enjoy a bottle of beer. This is not to say that someone might not drink only to conform, but if they do so, they are not necessarily ignoring some objective fact about drinking, or, if they are, that fact is not the legal drinking age.


This isn't a fact at all, it's a rule. In fact, it's not even a rule, more of a guideline. There are plenty of exceptions. If I am suicidally depressed, and see a man in danger of drowning, I should try to save him, even though I wouldn't necessarily want him to save me if our positions were reversed.


So your decision was based on your awareness of certain objective facts -- that children are cruel, that bullies target those who interfere with them, that it is better to watch someone else be bullied than to be the victim of bullying. One can argue that you made the wrong decision, or that it would have been better if you had taken the risk, but the actual decision was made on a perfectly objective analysis of your own self-interest.

So, I'd say you need better examples. You might look at the Milgram experiments, esp. the Theory of Conformism. Even then, though, you will be have to be very careful to isolate objective facts from subjective moral judgments. Your thesis is defensible, but it will require a lot of effort, precisely because so often the desire to conform is the desire not to suffer social repercussions. That those repercussions will occur is often an objective fact in itself, so the decision to conform really amounts to the decision that one set of facts outweighs another in importance, rather than a decision to ignore one set altogether. Still, as I said, you can make the case you are trying to make, if you really think about your examples. Good luck.

With this example, you are confusing respect for objective fact with respect for rules. This quote implies that we are willing to use self-deception.

So, a better example would be to say that... Statistics show that driving after drinking increases your chances of getting squished in a car accident, but people do it anyway in order to conform to what their friends are all doing.

Another example: Cigarettes are made of carcinogens, but people smoke them anyway as they conform to what others are doing. If you were the only person in the world who smoked, you would probably quit. On the other hand, if all your friends were jumping off a particular bridge, you just might do it.

I thought of another example: Many kids sign up to be in the Army, even though it might lead to being shot at -- with bullets! They all do it together, but you rarely see one kid playing Russian Roulette alone!

Anyway, you write very, very well. I just think you should write about SELF-DECEPTION. I am noticing something similar to what Sean is talking about.

Ooh, thank you for those ideas! I was having some trouble completely figuring out the quote, to be honest, so your ideas further helped me understand it. Thank you so much!

P.S. Ha, loved the Russian Roulette example! :)

Awesome, I hope it works out well for you. I think that "Respect for objective facts" is like a way of saying "determination not to use self-deception."

Great examples, Kevin. I was finding it hard to come up with decent ones myself. They still tend to boil down to people valuing the immediate and often relatively certain consequences of fitting in over the delayed and often uncertain consequences attached to behaviors that seem objectively foolish to someone outside the situation. So, cigarettes are full of carcinogens, but they take years to manifest their effects, and some people may never suffer noticeable health problems after decades of smoking. Whereas, refusing to smoke, for an adolescent, may lead to instant mockery and increased incidents of bullying. And so on. But of course, it isn't necessary to go into that sort of detail. If you just state the case as simply as possible, then the example addresses the prompt quite nicely.

I have been mulling over this essay (in fact, I am *still* mulling it over). I think that it is well written (there are just a few issues with the grammar, but I will come back to that after school), but I love Sean and Kevin's suggestions. The Russian Roulette example is right on the money.

There was something about this essay that was bothering me, and I finally figured out what it was! I was having a feeling of deja vu when I finished it. It is because the last line is a lyric from the Fray:

We'd never know what's wrong without the pain
Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same

Did you get into AP English? I gotta tell ya, I didn't even try. I am a wimp. I didn't feel like I had the time to devote and the workload scared me. I am hoping that I won't regret my decision. Good luck with it!

I'll be back after school with some grammar.

Eric, are you still in High School? I thought you were way older than that, so it was weird to read you talking about AP English.

Sean, your comment made me think of the reverse of the phenomenon at question -- about the urgency. Smoking hurts later but serves a purpose now, and the other side of that idea is that I never get around to starting a business, because it is never urgent -- even though perhaps I really want to do it!

So, let that be a lesson to us, ha ha. We should attend to the harm that is not urgent and the aspirations that are not urgent.

Well, I don't find out if I got in until next month, but my English teacher let me in on the fact that as long as she gives a recommendation, the AP teachers who look over the applications don't even bother reading the essay. That's why I wanted some feedback on how I write and all that jazz, so thank you for pointing everything out, it really helped!

If you revise the essay, feel free to post the new draft here -- I'm really quite curious to see how it turns out.

Home from school! Yes Kevin, I am still in high school-I'm just finishing my junior year. I have to admit that I am glad that I come across as a little bit older. It must be because I am so apt, astute, discerning, perceptive, perspicacious, sage, and all the other words I can look up in a thesaurus, *grin* I am a bit of a "word nerd," but I am still learning English (aren't we all?). I enjoy the well-turned phrase and I am trying to master the comma (and the colon, ellipsis, em-dash . . . ). I am enjoying this site. It is wonderful how everyone plays so nicely together. Ummmm . . . did I say that right? Is it "nice" or "nicely?"

xOvicksz . . . Here are the only things that I would change. It is a very well-written essay. If the AP teacher does end up reading it, I am sure you won't have an issue being admitted to the class:

"fitting in"; all punctuation (assuming you are using American English and not British) goes inside the quotation marks. It seems counter intuitive-especially here-but you gotta tuck that semicolon inside the quotation marks.

that wait for her that await her . . . I was thinking that there was a bonafide reason that I would use await instead of wait. There isn't. Not in this case. There are rules that spell out when to use "wait for" with an intransitive verb, blah, blah, blah, but you are fine here. I like the way "await" sounds better. Don't consider this a correction. Hey, I had to say *something,* It isn't exactly like your essay is rife with errors.

I've experienced firsthand conforming to something I didn't believe in. I must ask you to forgive me. I am being a brat. In this sentence, I would take the word "firsthand" and move it to the end of the sentence. Again, it isn't wrong. I just think it breaks up the words "experienced" and "conforming," and I want to see them together.

Okay, one other thing I thought of (are you sick of me yet?) . . .

they wore, or how they acted. The comma isn't necessaary

how everyone plays so nicely together. Ummmm . . . did I say that right? Is it "nice" or "nicely?" You are probably joking, but in case you're not, it's so simple: the adverb form modifies verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. "Nice" has to modify a noun.

Here is a little preview of the Stephen King book On Writing. He says to kill your adverbs. They are little parasites that suck the life out of writing. Every sentence seems to be punchy and powerful after you take out the adverbs (and adjectives, too, to some extent.) I assert that tentatively, because sometimes the adverb is important for the sentence's meaning, like in this one.

Hold on there -- if you just take out the adverbs and adjectives, you'll make most sentences worse. They key is to replace the (usually) weak verbs tied to the adverbs with more descriptive, accurate ones as you are killing the adverbs. If you just kill the adverbs and leave the weak verbs, then the sentence will be even less descriptive than it already was. Also, I imagine this is a rule mostly true of English, which has so many different verbs that you can most always find one that will do descriptive work better than a vague verb modified by an adverb. In a lot of languages, the use of adverbs would be necessary, because the number of available verbs is much less. Also, even in English, in some situations, adverbs can be quite strong: Still, the overall point is well taken.

Yeah, I know what you mean. They have their purpose. Still, I am often surprised at how much better a sentence seems after chopping an adverb -- even if it is less specific. Adverbs often are unable to justify the space they take up! :)