The System: You Can´t Trust It Essay

There are no men but only the great WE, One, individual and forever” (Rand 19). Similarly, in “2081” the government enforces strict equality through the use of handicaps that suppress any exceptional abilities or talents, ensuring that no one stands out from the crowd. Both works illustrate the suffocating effects of oppressive regimes that seek to control every aspect of their citizens' lives. Both governments try to create the “perfect” society, but instead create a tyrannical government. However, a notable difference between the two works lies in the protagonists' paths towards liberation and the resolution of their respective conflicts.

Many societies want to create an equal, hardworking, and collective environment, however, in almost all cases, they fail. In the society of “Anthem”, created by Ayn Rand, the world government attempts to make all men equal by removing almost all modern technology and by removing all forms of “I”, “my”, or “me” from their diction. The short film “2081”, based on the book “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, shows a society where they increase the amount of technology to hinder others as a way to make everyone equal. Despite people’s best efforts, a collectivist society will always go wrong. The people in both the society of “Anthem” and of “2081” were not allowed to work or learn to their full potential because of the increase in technology or the lack thereof.

Between the mid-1700s and the mid-1800s, the scientific revolution introduced experimentation, observation, and logic. At the same time a group of people, referred to as Philosophers, started to apply reason to propose a new social order which brought the Age of the Enlightenment. These people believed in the ideals of liberty and equality, which brought revolutions throughout Europe, and the colonies of North and Latin America. Before the Enlightenment, A major problem was that almost everyone was still in the medieval mindset. This consisted of the clergy and the king controlling large masses by using their lack of information and ‘blind trust’ in god.

During the 14th century, reforms in culture began developing and eventually led to the rebirth of society. In the Renaissance, people began to shift their focus on the advancements of the individual and human society as a whole. These secular views led people to becoming more educated and break off from the corrupt church. This is the spark of what led into the Scientific Revolution because people wanted to expand their knowledge in a greater procedure. People started to use empiricism in their scientific methods to reach a final decision. This is also known as the Age of Reason, even though people are skeptical of all things that are unproven by mathematics and science. Both religious and political institutions were led by supporters of the development and advancement of science, considering that it would benefit in furthering their position and political interests. WIthin reason, society still had limitations on the ability of people to speak freely of their ideas and be taken seriously.

The collectivist society in which Equality 7-2521 lives within is similar to the Nazi and Communists states of the twentieth century. The leaders of this society do not permit individual thinking, but to be like a fragment in a group whose purpose is to serve its needs. Equality 7-2521 states, “We are one in all and all in one. There are no men but only the great WE, One, indivisible and forever.” (Chapter 1, Page 19) Individuals have no identity of their own, and come to the realization in their society that they are just part of one, large group.

The collectivist society in which Equality 7-2521 lives is similar to the Nazi and Communist states of the twentieth century. It is controlled like the society in “The Giver.” The rulers of this society do not permit any individual to think freely. They must think they are nothing. “We are nothing. Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers are we allowed our lives. We exist through, by and for our brothers who are the state. Amen.”(21).

The individual must rebel against societal conformity. “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” (Emerson-quotesgram.com) People can’t just conform to what everyone else is doing and follow the path that is already made. They have to go where there is no path and make their own trail for others to follow if they want. It may be more difficult than just follow where there is already a path, but sometimes it is better to do things the hard way, because in the end it pays off in different ways. “Simplify, simplify.” (Thoreau 383) If we don’t want to conform to what the society wants, then we have to simplify our lives to make them easier on our own. If people can’t simplify their lives, then they will think that

Second, society teaches us to conform by not thinking for ourselves. We are simply told how to solve a problem or accomplish a task. We are never taught why

In today's day and age contemporary society's are built upon the thought of citizen conformity to a prescribed set of values and norms to. This idea of complies to social standards makes one think as to how these norms of fact society as a whole and an individual. The main driving component which draws people too conformity are the desire to be excepted in certain status groups. People fear that if they do not conformity is norms that they will be breaking the social contract therefore been shunned by society at not being able to achieve their personal goals. Further analysis of these forces for conformity in contemporary society it will be shown that these forces produced negative ethical conduct and

conforming removes conflict. Take away opinions, likes, dislikes, and everyone is happy. Tell the people

But conforming to what the majority is doing because it is deemed as cool is a whole different story. Instead of conforming to keep society running smoothly, we sometimes conform due to fear that we will receive hateful backlash for breaking against the norm or in fear that we will be wrong. Solomon Asch explains the latter reason when he conducted an experiment to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform. In his experiment, there was only one true participant and 4 other fake participants that will help prove his point correct. Cards were shown to everyone where there were lines of different length illustrated. They all had to choose which line was the longest. The first four people at the table were the fake participants and purposely chose the wrong answers. The last person was the true participant in the experiment and in all of the experiments they conducted, the last person always went with what the rest of the group thought even though he knew that the answer was incorrect. After the experiment was conducted, the real participants were interviewed and asked why they went along with everyone else even though they knew the answer was incorrect. “Most of them said that they did not really

Education and learning are important in today's society. It seems America has a wonderful education system, but if we think deeply, we can figure out that most part in American education is broken. This is a sad truth that the educational system is not working as is supposed to be. Now it becomes messy and it mostly became a business place where money matters. And people should do something to improve it again. This paper will continue to discuss on education in the United States based on the videos depicting the broken education system, the Common Core, and Dan Rather's analysis of the Detroit Education system.

Looking into criminal justice procedure, many administrations are at work. Starting with the police, to the courts and concluding in corrections. Though all these sectors have different tasks, their combined focus is processing the law. Regardless what the process is called criminal justice will continue to serve with discretion, conviction, and correction. When first presented with the question whether criminal justice is a system, non-system, and network I leaned toward a network. Throughout our discussions, lectures, and readings I felt the process presented itself as a network. Intertwined divisions working for a common goal. Further into my research and help from Webster, I decided that the criminal justice

For some, conformity is an unthinkable evil in American society. All individuals living within a community conform in some way to social norms, yet to label someone a conformist is akin to labeling them ignorant and unoriginal. However, conformity - and its associated impacts - are as integral to the functioning of society as the principles of nonconformity. Conformity is often positively utilised to induce positive social change nationally and internationally. It prompts dissemination of workload, provides protection (‘strength in numbers’), and encourages strict rule enforcement. Although less appreciated than non conformists, conformists and their resulting principles play a vital role in the smooth conduction of society.

To understand why we have a sense of conformity, we must first understand value. “Values are used to learn people’s culture, ideas, and what they want out of life (Henslin 49). Every culture has similar and different values. “Norms are the expectations a group develops concerning the ‘right’ way to reflects its values” (Henslin49). An example of a norm would be personal space and speaking quietly in certain places such as a library. When norms are violated people often begin to question the person’s sanity and well-being based on how extreme the norm violation was.