Mankind’s Enemy Is Itself: The Effects of Peer Pressure on Morality Without guidance, people always seem to lean towards decisions that they view as “morally correct.” However, the temptation to give in to the will of others often overpowers a person’s sense of “right,” and distorts what humanity considers to be the right thing to do in certain situations. Authors like Norman Cousins in “Who Killed Benny Paret?,” George Orwell in “Shooting an Elephant,” and Arthur Miller in “Get it Right: Privatize Executions” all repeat the same theme: a person’s sense of morality is not only defined by their inherent nature, but also by the desire to please other people. In his essay, “Who Killed Benny Paret?,” Norman Cousins focuses on the Paret vs. Griffith
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In George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant,” Orwell kills an elephant not by his own volition but by the crowd of excited people waiting to see an elephant get its brains blown out. Orwell had no fondness for the people within the mob, and even said, “I had no intention of shooting the elephant,” (Orwell 136). Orwell knew it is not right to kill the beast, and even though the elephant killed someone during its blind rampage, the owner could have made better precautions to prevent the elephant from breaking free. It was not Orwell, the shooter, who wanted the elephant dead, but the audience with their excited chatter and superior numbers wanted to be entertained by the killing of such a large creature. The law justified Orwell’s decisions as right because of the elephant’s mauling of the man, but Orwell knew he killed the elephant just to keep the little respect he had from the crowd. Similar to the killing of Benny Paret, the elephant was killed in order to satisfy the desires of a large group of …show more content…
Publicly executing criminals provides an audience with the powerful emotions related to death, and it was even used as a form of entertainment during some time periods. In the short, satirical piece “Get it Right: Privatize Executions,” Arthur Miller makes the radical suggestion of allowing independent businesses to execute convicts, and public executions should be held by these companies in large stadiums to generate revenue. Miller provides readers with several benefits to the privatization of public executions like the prevention of crime and the money made from ticket sales being used to help the families of the convicted. Miller abruptly ends his satirical rant with a criticism of the push for the death penalty. Miller argues that the death penalty only produces more unnecessary death, and people would view the execution of criminals in a negative light once the excitement of witnessing the death of a criminal has faded away. Like in Cousins’ and Orwell’s articles, the views on what is “right” are dominated by the feelings of the general
In George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant,” Orwell kills an elephant not by his own volition but by the crowd of excited people waiting to see an elephant get its brains blown out. Orwell had no fondness for the people within the mob, and even said, “I had no intention of shooting the elephant,” (Orwell 136). Orwell knew it is not right to kill the beast, and even though the elephant killed someone during its blind rampage, the owner could have made better precautions to prevent the elephant from breaking free. It was not Orwell, the shooter, who wanted the elephant dead, but the audience with their excited chatter and superior numbers wanted to be entertained by the killing of such a large creature. The law justified Orwell’s decisions as right because of the elephant’s mauling of the man, but Orwell knew he killed the elephant just to keep the little respect he had from the crowd. Similar to the killing of Benny Paret, the elephant was killed in order to satisfy the desires of a large group of …show more content…
Publicly executing criminals provides an audience with the powerful emotions related to death, and it was even used as a form of entertainment during some time periods. In the short, satirical piece “Get it Right: Privatize Executions,” Arthur Miller makes the radical suggestion of allowing independent businesses to execute convicts, and public executions should be held by these companies in large stadiums to generate revenue. Miller provides readers with several benefits to the privatization of public executions like the prevention of crime and the money made from ticket sales being used to help the families of the convicted. Miller abruptly ends his satirical rant with a criticism of the push for the death penalty. Miller argues that the death penalty only produces more unnecessary death, and people would view the execution of criminals in a negative light once the excitement of witnessing the death of a criminal has faded away. Like in Cousins’ and Orwell’s articles, the views on what is “right” are dominated by the feelings of the general