To The Students Who Are And Will Be Affected By Peer Pressure
By Lawrence Crockett
Dear students, acquaintances, peers, and those alike,
I would like to say that I get it. School can be an extremely stressful time for anyone. You are expected to take several classes (where homework is given out every day), make the decision of a career want to pursue for the rest of your life, work at an awful job that pays minimum wage, somehow manage to gather up the money from that job to pay for an unreasonably priced college, figure out how to handle and drive a car that could fall apart at any moment, and somehow manage to still function properly when you are required to be at school at seven in the morning when you only had four hours of sleep because you forgot you didn’t start on an essay that was due tomorrow. So my fellow students I am here to assure you that, even though it doesn't seem like it, school is a very small portion of your life. So why would you set yourself up for failure? Why would you make your future harder than it needs to be? And most of all, why would you give into peer pressure?
When I was given the assignment to find a social connection that I can identify with in a book that is over 50 years old, written by a Russian philosopher, and has 700 pages I had to read in a month, I was slightly doubting my capabilities to do so. But as I kept reading the book and seeing the conflicts that occurred I started to build ideas, and connections that were relevant enough towards me to where I can have an open letter discussion about the issues that are relevant towards today. "The Fountainhead" is about the protagonist Howard Roark's philosophies and how the antagonist Ellsworth Toohey does everything possible to convince others how flawed people who are talented in their field like Roark, Domonique, Wynand, and Cameron are. Toohey convinces people the mediocrity is sufficient encourages the act stealing other's work, and makes sure that great work goes unnoticed by putting a spotlight on mediocrity.
My personal connection towards "The Fountainhead" is the topic of making poor decisions with the wrong people, or peer pressure. I specifically chose this issue within society because I have personal knowledge of peer pressure since it has happened to me before. I have been in situations where my friends were doing something that I now know is completely idiotic, and at the time I was at crossroads to go through with it or not. Now that I have been in these situations before, I see it everywhere around me; my peers going down a rough path all because of who they choose to be with.
During my reading I read several quotes that have connections towards the subject of peer pressure. The first quote I read is when Ellsworth Toohey is giving a speech to building trade unions going on strike, the words he spoke were mesmerizing towards the audience. He emptied their minds of thought and placed in words of that encouraged people to be just average or below-average. Pg. 109 "Keating stood, his mouth open…He felt no need to know the meaning, he could accept anything, he would be led blindly anywhere… Let us organize my brothers. Let us organize. Let us organize. Let us organize… There was no Catherine… It was something cold and impersonal that left her empty,". This quote in the novel is important because is it the one of the first pieces of evidence that there are individuals, like Ellsworth Toohey, who are in your life solely to hold you back. They tell and give you all these things that supposedly are beneficial towards you, but in reality it can truly put harm towards your future.
Another quote that I could connect to was spoken by the antagonist Ellsworth Toohey when he was pressuring a student to simply not be successful. Pg. 301 "No, I wouldn't go into law if I were you… A hysterical devotion to one's career does not make for happiness or success. It is wiser to select a profession about which you can be calm, sane and matter-of-fact. Yes, even if you hate it… No, I wouldn't advise you to continue with your music. That fact that it comes to you so easily is a sure sign that your talent is only a superficial one,". This quote in the novel is represented in the novel several times. Toohey takes an individual or a group and tells them that it is acceptable to not excel academically, financially, socially, and professionally. The victims have no clue what is occurring, they blindly make these mistakes that hurt them in future, like Peter Keating. That is how I see my peers who make these mistakes that set their future up for failure.
Towards the end of the book I found a quote that sparked my idea of making an open letter about peer pressure. The last quote I collected is a conversation between Peter Keating and Howard Roark who haven't seen each other in a few years. Keating comes to Roark after accepting to do the Cortlandt project, a project that would be impossible for Keating to do himself, and asks Roark for help. After confronting Roark with this Keating for the first time speaks truthfully towards Roark in this dilemma. Pg. 575, "Howard, I'm a parasite. I've been a parasite all my life… I have fed on you and on all the men like you who lived before we were born…And I came here to ask you to save me again." Pg. 577,"Well? Go on. I want you to give me a reason why I should wish to design Cortlandt,"…"You will love designing it,"…"Yes, Peter. Now you're speaking my language," I enjoy how this issue is represented in the story because after Keating was abandoned by Toohey and Francon retired, he was lost and couldn't survive on his own. He needs others to be success and survive and went to speak with Roark. But after having a conversation with him he finally realizes the mistakes he has made by being with Toohey.
But if you don't want take the words written by a Russian philosopher these are some facts researched by TeenHelp. According to the article Teen Peer Pressure Statistics & Facts Recent peer pressure statistics indicate that more and more teens are being pressured into using dangerous drugs on a daily basis. Every day 2,500 teens chose to abuse some type of pain reliever for the first time, about 1/3 of those respondents reported that they felt pressured into at trying them, and 2,500 teens daily for a year equals more than 900,000 teens every year that are trying a prescription drug for the first time. Reading these facts, I can say I bear witness to this in school. My personal observation of peer pressure is that it very rare for the victims to refuse peer pressure. They are put in a situation where they believe they may lose a friendship if they do not do what is expected. They would rather put themselves in danger rather than temporarily and slightly lose the respect from their peers.
So students, acquaintances, peers, and those alike, I need you to be more aware of who you hang out with and what you do can greatly impact you. Even though you see these things awful things happen to others, you still ignore it due to your "Superman Complex". This issue is too common within society; it is very frequent for students makes a possible life-changing mistake all for the sake of "popularity". Adolescents today need to realize that life in high school is so minuscule compared to the grand scheme of things.
