The Villain We Call Society
Samiya Majid
Ms. Watkins
Block 2
2-2-2016
The Villain We Call Society
There is no escaping society and its impact because it is naturally an aspect of every human being’s life from the day they are born. The type of society a person grows up in makes all the difference. Different societies play different roles in different people’s lives; consequently reflecting through behavior. In a modern-day era, the idea of society is frowned upon and seen as something that is merely only a possessive and demanding surrounding. Society can affect a person’s behavior positively and negatively due to pressure and expectations, hierarchy and status, and the social environment.
Pressure in society can come from peers, family, or anyone a person chooses to associate themselves with. These people set expectations on the people they are influencing and they can feel pressured to agree and give in. “Society have mercy on me/I hope you are not angry if I disagree,” (source 1). As mentioned in this song, fear of not being good enough or causing disappointment can lead someone into agreeing with everything they are pressured with. This pressure can be directed at doing good or bad things but it affects their behavior because now they want to change themselves to better suit certain standards. Changing personality or a lifestyle definitely counts as a change in behavior. These changes come from the desire to please the people around them and meet society’s expectations. “If there's one thing I learned from Rodrick, it's to set people's expectations real low so you end up surprising them by practically doing nothing at all,” (source 2). This is a middle-school boy’s perspective on societal expectations. Society holds many expectations most of the time and it affects people in different ways. A person can choose to succumb to society’s expectations or to reject them completely. Society however will always be an endless array of expectations and there is no escaping it. But that is not the only characteristic of society that can affect a person’s behavior.
Hierarchy and social status are usually seen as concerns of the past but in reality they still exist. Living in America, this might not be very obvious because it is very mildly present, but it is still there. Class structures exist from differences as big as racial groups, to as small as high school popularity. In Michael Jackson’s hit song he sings about how “They're throwing me in a class with a bad name/I can't believe this is the land from which I came,” (source 3). There are times, and have been multiple times, when racism can determine social hierarchy. But on a more relatable level, roles that people play in society can also determine how they are treated. A well-off person is respected more than a homeless person, and often on a global scale, lower class individuals are frowned up. When it comes to roles in society, Shakespeare’s view is that “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” (source 4). Everyone plays their own roles and this ultimately decides their social status and significance in society. There are different types of social status. Positions in a school, at work, and at home are examples of different types of these social ranks. This can alter an individual’s behavior depending on what level of the scale they are on, and how society treats them about it.
The most important of all the previous mentioned aspects of society, is probably the environment a specific society offers. Some societies are unsafe and threatening. For example, “Ninth graders with machine guns: it’s hard to make that a happy story,” (source 5). In many places of the world today, societies are collapsing or are undergoing constant turmoil. This book provides a fictional example of that and how the people affected by it react. A threatening environment will lead people to doing different things that they never though they were capable of. This ultimately means committing murder or causing destruction. “On Tuesday night, what began as a peaceful night of protest shifted into yet another street battle as some protestors began launching bottles in the direction of police officers, Strassmann reports,” (source 6). This ties back into how racism in society can affect people’s behavior. But an environment that promotes hierarchy can affect how people react, and usually this leads to a more unstable society because everyone wants equal rights and are willing to fight for it. Therefore, a more stable society provides a more decent environment and this affects a person’s behavior positively.