<p>It’s from the December SAT. What grade what you give? I’ll tell you what I got after:</p>
<p>PROMPT:
The pressures to conform in a modern free society are not as drastic as they were in the past, when failure to conform meant imprisonment or worse. Such influences are, however, more dangerous because they are hard to detect. These are the pressures to live like our neighbors, to think like our community, to reshape ourselves in the image of someone else. The appeal of belonging to a group is attractive, but doesn’t such conformity destroy our individuality? Adapted from Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn By Living
ASSIGNMENT: Is it always harmful for an individual to think and live as other people do? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.</p>
<p>ESSAY:
In the past, being a nonconformist led to imprisonment or even death in the most barbaric ways. However, in a society like we have today, feeling a need to live as other people do, imprisons the most important thing, your individuality. it is important to value your ideas regardless of what the majority insists. There have been many people in history and literature who take the same stand on this issue.
Walt Whitman, a writer form the 1700s strongly believed in individuality. Although his peers viewed his poem negatively, he persisted. Despite this, he grew to become very annoyed of society. In one of his most famous poems, he writes that he would rather be imprisoned, than have to conform to the norms of society. He tries to illuminate the idea that he is more free in prison because he is there for being a free man and not a conformist to laws. It would have been harmful for him to compromise his values to live as others.
Another example in history is the Civil Rights movement. Despite the fact that the United States had set a normal precent of slavery, popular and courageous activists like Martin Luther King Junior and Rosa Parks did not have to agree with it. They each used civil disobedience to accomplish their goals. WIthout people like King and Parks, all colored people would have suffered. They proved that if they lived like others, their lives would have indeed been in harm.
In the novel, Animal Farm by George Orwell, the characters (the animals) prove that you must face adversity and overcome it. Although their owner, the farmer, has set strict laws that were disadvantageous to some animals, they did not all have to live like that. Instead of living like all the other animal in neighboring farms, these animals refused to live in danger of their despotic owner. They valued their individual ideas and did what they thought was best, bettering their lives.
It is important never to compromise your ideas to simply conform. In a recently released study, people on their death bed stated they wish they had, among others, stayed true to what they believed in, regardless of what other people said. It is hard to go against the current, but it is harmful to follow like sheep.</p>