Argument essay Our desire to conform is driven by the need for acceptance and it always come above respect for objective facts. It is very human of us to want to be liked, and conformity is a way for that to be achieved.
George Orwell talks about his own experience with conformity in his essay "Shooting an Elephant". Orwell, a British military officer working in Burma, was driven to shoot an elephant even though he had not originally planned on doing so. After bringing a rifle for his own self defense, George was cheered on by a local crowd to shoot the elephant. Orwell was faced with extreme internal conflict because he knew the elephant shouldn't be murdered, but the crowd pressured him into conforming to want to shoot the elephant. In the end, the elephant died a slow painful death and George Orwell's desire to conform trumped his respect for objective facts. In the time period 1890s-1920s the struggle for equality between blacks and whites was in the forefront of many American's minds. African Americans were fighting for equal voting, education, and social rights. Despite the fact that blacks are humans too, white americans refused to treat them as such. Much of this idea stemmed from conformity in the sense that white Americans just wanted to do what other whites were doing which was being extremely cruel. Many whites conformed to the idea of racism because everyone else was doing it despite the objective fact that it was wrong. The re-occurring theme of equality between races isn't over yet. In Baltimore Maryland, riots recently broke out after the death and funeral of a Black man who was abused by the police. These riots destroyed inner city Baltimore and put the city in a state of emergency. Even though these people saw what they were doing to their own city, they continued to conform to the idea that violence would be the solution. These people in Baltimore conformed to violence instead of looking at the objective fact that the riots weren't solving anything. |
Reflection |
I find writing argument essays challenging but also interesting. I am more interested in what I'm writing if I have the opportunity to be creative. The argument essays allow for more creative writing than the rhetorical analysis and the synthesis essays. In this particular essay, I think that i clearly stated my argument that the desire to conform comes above respect for objective facts. The most important thing to remember while writing argument essays is to clearly state your argument and then support it with evidence. An argument essay without good evidence isn't very persuasive and the argument often sounds unorganized. In this essay, I included pieces of evidence such as Shooting an Elephant, Martin Luther King Jr., and the riots in Baltimore. Each of these events/pieces helped me develop my argument further. In the beginning of writing this piece it was difficult for me to think of good examples that would clearly support my argument. Once I came up with the evidence I wanted to use, it was only a matter of being able to explain how each piece of evidence supported my argument. As the year went on, I began to develop my skills as a writer to the point where I was better at articulating the effect of each piece of evidence. Mastering argument essays definitely takes some time and hard work.
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