<p>All typos are intentional. I got an 11 on this essay…but I really don’t think it deserves it, especially reading it again.</p>
<p>ESSAY PROMPT
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment:</p>
<p>We are very individually oriented. We see everything in terms of personal independence, personal pleasure, personal fulfillment. “Do your own thing,” we say. The idea that people can actually do things for someone or something else–a community, a school, or any other group–is lost. It is important to realize, however, that all people are interconnected. We cannot survive without each other. Adapted from Willard Gaylin in Bill Moyers, A World of Ideas</p>
<p>ASSIGNMENT: Do people put too much emphasis on doing things by and for themselves? 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>
<pre><code>In modern times, everything is individual: school, jobs, wealth. Teamwork has been lost. But in other societies this is not the case because of their lifestyles. Western society does put an emphasis on the individual, but it is essential to the survival of society.
One example of the extreme loss of the individual is socialism, not Communism. In socialism, everyone, no matter who they are or what they do, gets to share and own everything. When this was attempted in small colonies in Europe, at first it seemed like socialism was a success. Later, the colonies discovered the truth: humans, as a whole, are selfish. Colonialism and imperialism shows that mankind is narcissistic. Europe put themselves above whole continents like South America. In the socialist colonies the people became lazy since work offered no rewards, nothing to get them above everyone else. The people wanted to feel different and special. If society loses the distinction of the individual, then society will fall. Productivity would be lost. Advances would not be made. Society will become like Rome when their empire fell with more holidays than working days. The individual is very important.
Ayn Rand, in her novel Anthem, develops the idea of the importance of the individual. The protagonist struggles to escape from a society that is ultraconformist. Society tells him that his job is to clean the streets. He tells himself that his job is to learn, to clean and remove his lack of knowledge. For this, society shuns him. They see him as the one misfiring brain cell in what seems to be fully functional organism. Society performs surgery to remove this irregularity. Not only does the protagonist survive, he thrives. Separated from the organism, society, he is able to achieve his whole potential. No one is holding him back. It is similar to a zombie movie in which the heroes try to kill the zombie. They chop off its arm, but the arm keeps moving. Once free, the protagonist makes many scientific discoveries like the different colors of while light. These discoveries could advance his society but they refuse to trust an individual. Again, the loss of the individual is extremely detrimental to society.
To the people of a certain society, their culture and lifestyle with that society is essential to their beings, like food, water, and air. If society crumbles, what is next? When a society loses sight of that fact that the individual is necessary to societys survival, they fall apart from the inside. Without key individuals like Newton, Einstein, Bach, and Beethoven, where would western society be today? Advances are made by the individual. Humanity is made of groups of individuals. To lose sight of that is a death sentence of death by slow, agonizing laziness and lethargy. People put the right amount of emphasis on doing things by and for themselves.
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