We should not let society dictate our lives and control how we think and feel. We have the power to make our lives free and express our opinions and should not seek approval of others. We should simply be ourselves. But it is not that easy and often is not the case. Many people are afraid of acting or thinking differently. There have been many instances where many people have been criticized or suppressed over stating an unpopular opinion. Many people who have criticized America and its imperialist actions were called “unamerican” or “an enemy of the state”. For example, there was a 1966 Gallup Poll which showed that almost ⅔ of American citizens had an unfavorable opinion of MLK Jr. He advocated for African American and minority rights and often criticized the actions of the US government.
He expressed greatest disapproval with the US government’s involvement in the Vietnam War. King argued that the US was testing weapons on the Vietnamese, similarly to how Germans performed tests on Holocaust victims. White Americans disagreed with King’s stance on the involvement and during the Marquette Park March, “King was met by white counter-protestors who threw rocks, bottles… One protester held up a sign that said, “‘King would look good with a knife in his back’” and this is just an example of a national level of how society tends to suppress freedom of speech and expression. There have been cases where teachers have been fired for teaching the truth about American history and oppression of minorities. A third grade teacher, Marilyn Zuniga was fired for teaching her class the injustices during the Civil Rights movement and how journalists and civil rights advocates were brutally treated.
She said in an interview after being fired, “Students deserve to be taught the truth.” Bree Picower, a NYCoRE member and education professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey, stated “There’s absolutely a pattern of teachers being targeted when they’re teaching from a social justice view”. Societies have a set way of thinking and their traditions and when someone challenges it, the reactions are often negative resulting in misunderstanding and backlash. People try to silence those who have their own different views. The narration in “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” by Thoreau revolves around the theme of living your life for yourself and doing what you feel is right. Individuality, like conformity, is essential to life even though modern man may not appreciate its value. At one point, we want to be different from society in one way or another so we pursue our own hobbies or we might form our opinions based on what we truly believe, but eventually we are forced to readjust ourselves so that society does not label us as eccentric or “unique”, merely to not feel excluded.
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If people let society dictate our actions, it can destroy our sense of individuality and ourselves. In “Hands” by Sherwood Anderson, Wing Biddlebaum is telling George, “‘You are destroying yourself… you have the inclination to be alone and to dream you afraid of dreams. You want to be like others in town,’” (5) which is essentially Biddlebaum accusing George of his shortcomings which is in fact pointing out his own shortcomings of not pursuing dreams despite the obstacles in the way. George represents what Biddlebaum’s hopes and dreams were if he had not been misunderstood. Anderson also uses “hands” to symbolize Biddlebaum’s “tool” of how he expresses himself. Hands are an important tool because it is how people establish connections, create, destroy, and communicate. According to Aristotle, “the hand is the ‘tool of tools.’ It generally represents strength, power and protection and can just as easily mean generosity, hospitality and stability. Laying hands on someone or something vary in symbol, anything from blessing to honesty to love. He used his hands to establish a link with his students and he loved them very much because he was able to create , but it was misunderstood as an inappropriate gesture and got him fired.
Due to the accusations, Wing hid his hands from the world in his pockets which symbolizes him suppressing his true self and not expressing himself to the world. Biddlebaum was sure “that the hands must be to blame”(4), and he perceives his hands as a manifestation of his fears which was getting judged and ridiculed. For Wing Biddlebaum, his hands represented his hopes and dreams which was to help encourage his students to grow as people and to help them pursue their dreams, but now he is afraid to integrate back into society because he fears other people may find out about the accusation. He is so afraid of another misunderstanding, he chooses to lock himself up in a box (figuratively) and destroys his life. Similarly, in Emerson’s “Self Reliance”, he constantly reiterates his point that thinking for oneself rather than meekly and submissive accepting the general societies opinion or beliefs, the way Biddlebaum did.
Emerson starts off by writing, “Whoso would be a man, must be nonconformist” (371), and is essentially saying that to be a man or a successful individual in general, one must go against the traditions that go against one’s own beliefs. He focuses a lot throughout the text on the importance of resisting pressure to conform and that the so-called process “maturing” is just another process of submitting and erasure of one’s own personality. “Maturing” is described as submitting because in essence, when one matures, they adjust their opinions, beliefs, behavior to fit society’s standards, which usually results in a loss of creativity and individuality. Emerson writes, “Society is a wave. The waves moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not” (2), and he describes society as waves because a wave moves further and closer to the shoreline, but the water which makes up the wave, never changes.
The waves represent how society throughout time may change in certain aspects and progress forward (rights for African Americans,gay marriage), but always stays the same in tradition and mentality (racism, blue collar jobs for minorities, etc). In the same paragraph Emerson writes, “The same particle does not rise from the valley to the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a nation today, next year, die, and their experiences with them’” , where he metaphorically compares society, waves, and particles. When we think of society, we think of a group of people, but in reality it is just a collection of particles (representing people’s brains) and society has a cycle like nature. The ideas manifest themselves in the form of people which forms societies which in turn, forms the people. Those ideas are not able to flourish on their own and instead get conformed into society’s ways and when they die, everything unique about them disappears from the world, leaving society unchanged.Government greatly shapes society’s opinions which results in society having a controlling attitude.
In the text by Henry Thoreau, “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience”, Thoreau writes how the government impacts daily lives and how for their to be a true democracy and freedom within society, citizens should learn to think for themselves and not get brainwashed. At the start of the text he writes,”That government is best which governs least” (1), meaning that government, although created ensure individual freedom for everybody and maintain order and peace, has become corrupted and is now a tool for the corrupt people who run the government. It’s used for power, greed, and is based on the exploitations and expense of others lives. The purpose of the government has changed and is now used to create soldiers and a society that all thinks the same, for its own gain. In the same paragraph, he writes, “The government is best which governs not at all” (1), elaborating further on what he said before. When the individual is completely accountable for themself, they won’t need any government at all because the government is there to simply keep things in order and maintain harmony, not dictate and control minds.
He continues further and elaborates, “The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war; is applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards” (5), saying soldiers are nothing but an expendable tool for the state and those who can break free of the mental chains the government has created, is applauded. Soldiers are a weapon for power and wealth, but it is dirty wealth based off of the exploitation of others. Soldiers are manipulated into believing what they do is for a worthy cause, but there are those who understand what they do is wrong and think for themselves and break free from the bonds. He continues on later to write, “Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? …Why does it not cherish its wise minority?” (5), explaining that just because there are laws set by the government, doesn’t make them justifiable and they should be reformed.
At the end, he says why doesn’t the government cherish the minority who speak out and try to fix the flaws, keyword being minority. He mentions that the majority of the citizens have accepted what their government and does not try to change it, “Children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets and say that they do know what to do” and this is a result of indoctrination and society has become a bystander so to say, of the injustice. Those who do speak out are afraid of backlash because Thoreau writes, “Men, generally, under such a government as this…think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil”(5) explaining that the minority who recognizes the wrong doings can also be afraid to speak out in fear of their lives. The remedy Thoreau speaks of is too silence the minority, one way or another.
Shows how much society despises free thinking. In society, there is a lack of ability to truly express oneself without getting silenced. Many people are afraid to speak what is on their mind and instead comply to other’s opinion. “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Elliot illustrates how a man becomes so consumed from his own thoughts and not being able to share them for cream of ridicule, he becomes extremely anxious and depressed. Prufrock talks about himself in a depressed tone , “… I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed/ Though I have seen my head grown slightly bald) brought in upon a/ platter/ I am no prophet” (81-84), describing himself as a pious man and trying to stay away from society emotionally, which is also harming him because society would ridicule him. The praying and fasting is an allusion to the temptation of Christ in the desert and Christ’s passion and connecting Christ’s compassion for the world and his praying for remission of humanity’s sins to the narrator’s own behavior and hopes for society to open their eyes and realize the constant injustices and stop accepting whatever they are told by the government.
The bald head refers to the Biblical story of John the Baptist in which the king of Galilee’s daughter, Salome requested John’s head on a platter which represents how Prufrock gets rejected by women. Prufrock feels irrelevant to society since he isn’t able to relate to them because he is political and ‘awake’ about all matters while society is ‘asleep’. Throughout the poem, Prufrock mentions different people that he is not alike: John the Baptist, Lazarus, and Hamlet and he feels he will die without a purpose in life. The poem illustrates how conforming to society’s standards will lead to having acceptance, but show how the narrator ends up suffering because he is unable to speak about topics he is passionate about.
He also becomes ostracized. Prufrock later says, “We have lingered in the chambers of the sea… Till human voices wake us and we drown” (129-131), which gives the idea that people won’t notice the mistakes of ostracizing those who do not conform to their standards until it becomes too late. The “we” in this stanza is referring to the “you and I” in the first stanza, which means he is speaking to the reader. The chambers he mentions that “we” are lingering in denote that he feels stuck in a cage or claustrophobic since no one listens to him and he feels trapped not being able to release and share all his thought and opinions. The sea represents the vast open world and freedom which expresses the idea that he isn’t free in a world that is mean to be liberating.
At one point, we want to be different from society in one way or another so we pursue our own hobbies or we might form our opinions based on what we truly believe, but eventually we are forced to readjust ourselves so that society does not label us as eccentric or “unique”, merely to not feel excluded. Individuality and conformity are essential aspects of life and everyone conforms in certain aspects. For example, where my parents come from (the Middle East), they have strict beliefs on what a woman’s place is. She is meant to be the one who cooks, cleans, takes care of the children, and keep things in order in the house. I personally disagree with that and I have made it known to my parents that is not what I want for myself and it has often resulted in many arguments. If I were to live my life and make decisions based on what they want, I would not be content with how my life will turn out. It is important to do what you feel is best for yourself and not be afraid or conform to what others feel is “proper”.
