Society is the End of the World

As great as this country is concerning freedom and all, the society side of it really sucks. Everything is based on money. Popularity especially. If you want to get some where in life then you have to be good looking or have a load of money. It is really sad to say, but it is the truth and everybody knows it. Those who do not are either in denial or they just do not understand it.

I grew up in a middle class income situation. My parents made a good amount of money, but because of the debts they owed when we lived in Texas, I did not get all the designer clothes that I wanted. I did not get to wear Nike, Adidias, Ralph Lauren Polo, Calvin Klein, or anything like that. And kids are cruel, so I, of course, was rejected from the popular cliques. To have your popularity determined and based alone on looks and/or wealth feels really crappy. It is as though your personality counts for nothing, unless you are at the top of the scale. After growing up feeling like an outcast, feeling weird and inadequate among your peers, you begin to believe it yourself. If most of your peers feel this way then it must be true, right? Ultimately your self-esteem is crushed and you spend the rest of your life trying to fix what was never broken. As a freshman in college I still feel inadequate. As a consequence to all this you usually end up hiding your true self because of what other people might think. I know that is the way I am. Our social system affects my life a lot, but so did school.

School itself really did not affect me; it was the students at the school and the school system that basically protected it. There was really only one popular clique and then smaller divisions inside that. There were small groups of friends varying in popularity, but all more popular than the middle class and the lower class. The groups were connected by "floaters"-people who belonged to two or more groups and would move back and forth between the groups. The thing was to wedge yourself into one of those groups and become a "floater" yourself. That was a difficult thing to achieve and very few people at my high school were able to pull it off successfully.

As a Caucasian, race and ethnicity do not really apply to me much. I am not a minority. I am by no means racist or prejudice, but I feel as though other races will think that I am just because I am white. I know it is wrong to assume, which is why I do not do that. I am just afraid of that one in a million chance. I do not want people to think that they know me when they do not. I grew up in a primarily white community, which makes it hard to adjust. I think that diversity really does help. Although I do not have too many problems with race, I do have problems with gender.

I have not experienced too many problems with gender, but as I get older, there will be more, I am sure of it. We all know that white males hold all the power and as a female I have it harder and will continue to have it harder. Most guys think that they are superior and they think that have to prove it too. The difference between men and women is that men want to be the best and women just want to be equal. In our society women are usually treated one of two ways: like meat or like property. It is rather sickening. Although it is something I have not really dealt with first hand, it is displayed everywhere, especially in music, movies, and television. A prime example is "The Man Show" on Comedy Central. The day that men and women are equal is the day that a woman is elected president, and even then there will still be some jackass out there that still thinks a woman's place is barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.

I have very strong feelings about women's rights and over dominant men. For instance, if my husband were to ever hit my children, or me I would probably kill him, or at the very least injure him severely. I absolutely will not tolerate abuse and I will not tolerate him, or anyone else for that matter, trying to tell me what to do. (I am a very independent person.) I have not had to encounter either of these atrocities in my family life, but I still have the beliefs. I am not sure where I got them from, but they are there nonetheless.

Age is a rather irritating thing, especially for my age group. Adults treat us terribly. Young people are presumed incompetent. They figure that since you are not as experience as they are you must be stupid, and you are too stupid to learn it. Despite all of this, they expect you to treat them with respect. I say that you only deserve respect when you first give it.

It took me a long time to write this paper. It is hard for me to talk about my problems or myself. I do not like to do it, especially to people I barely know and even to people that I have known for years. However, since this is an assignment I do not have much choice. My problem stems from school and the whole inadequacy issue. Nobody understands the full extent of the damage that can be done from this sort of treatment. Very few people seem to understand the concept that what happens to you high school will follow you into your adult years, especially if it is bad. You never forget it.

To summarize, our society will probably kill us. Our country is great, but our society will probably be our downfall. If our world comes to an end, the cause will not be a natural disaster. Our fall will be internal; we will kill each other and ourselves. Our expectations are too high and we treat each other too badly. It is sad to think that we do not have enough tolerance to deal with our own people. It is sad that after all these years mankind is no better than when we first began.