<p>Please score my essay and perhaps give me advice?
Here's the prompt:</p>
<p>We do not take the time to determine right from wrong. Reflecting on the difference between right and wrong is hard work. It is so much easier to follow the crowd, going along with what is popular rather than the disapproval of others by voicing an objection of any kind.
Is it always best to determine ones own view of right and wrong, or can we benefit from following the crowd? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and example taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.</p>
<p>An individual's choice to determine his own sense of right and wrong is crucial not only to his own but also his community's ability to make the right decisions; otherwise, a society in a moral inertia will be doomed to failure and hypocrisy. As demonstrated by various literary works, developing one's own sense of morality is invaluable.</p>
<p>In the novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, the choice of just a few individuals to develop their own sense of morality is crucial to their nation's survival. Before anyone chooses to speak out, citizens of the communist United states are living under a "Morality of Death" which claims that altruism and working for the common good are crucial to a community's success. But this sense of morality, Ayn Rand demonstrates, is horribly wrong. It is not until the selfish and even egotistical protagonists of the novel, John Galt, Francisco d'Anconia, Dagny Taggart, etc. speak out against the nation's system that the country can be saved. Their choice to develop their own sense of morality, to choose what Ayn Rand calls the "Morality of Life," is key to saving the dying nation. Hence, an individual's choice to choose for himself what is right or wrong can be the stimulus a community needs to turn itself to the right path.</p>
<p>Likewise, as demonstrated in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, an individual's choice to develop his own sense of morality is crucial to breaking the hypocrisy of a community. In the Puritan New England community, no one is willing to go against the crowd for fear of public condemnation. But when Hester Prynne choosing to follow her own passions by having an affair with Reverend Dimmesdale, she is the spark that causes certain members of the community to begin seeing the flaws in their sense of morality. By the end of the novel, Hester becomes a mother figure, providing comfort and wisdom to other women who have also struggled with their society's ideology. Hence, Hester's decision to determine her own views on morality allows both her and others to begin to see the true hypocrisy of their community and to begin to work against it.</p>
<p>Furthermore, in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Huck's decision to begin developing his own sense of morality is key to his discovery of a serious flaw in his nation's beliefs. When alone on the raft with Jim, Huck begins to realize that Jim, though black, is truly a respectable and perhaps even noble character. Gradually going against nation's notions on race, he realizes the truth; he realizes that blacks are in fact not at all inferior to whites. Thus, by choosing his own sense of morality, Huck realizes a major flaw in his nation that his community had simply accepted.</p>
<p>Through a careful analysis of Atlas Shrugged, The Scarlet Letter, and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it is indeed evident that the choice to develop one's own views of right and wrong is crucial to seeing the truth that one's community ignores. Without such free-thinking individuals, a community would be forever stuck in its flawed beliefs, fostering disaster, hypocrisy, or cruelty toward one race. Surely, the decision to think for oneself is always the truly moral decision.</p>