Cliques: A Social Heirarchy
There are those people who argue that high school has and always will remain the same: a social hierarchy where the strong thrive and the weak suffer and parish. However, this is not exactly “Darwinism” we are discussing, because in high school, the term strong is often severely misused. In the life of a teenager “strong” doesn’t necessarily mean the most intelligent or hard working. No, instead, this word is reserved for the most beautiful, or even the wealthiest. Now I ask you, are these people the fittest? Should so-called “weak” people give up their individuality and morals to play follow the leader and become yet another sheep following his or her herd? The answer is no. This essay is being written to prove these people wrong, and show that cliques are not necessary to make high school the best years of your life. And to show that often, forming these “exclusive” groups of people helps to do just the opposite. Our own school is no different. All cliques succeed in doing is robbing many of the people at Harbord Collegiate of their identity, as well as make those outside the groups feel isolated and unappreciated. The cliques that exist at Harbord are not easily recognized. Actually, those people insid
Another major problem, and often the one most often associated with cliques is teasing. As people have their identity stripped away from them, they become more susceptible to dishing out cruel punishment on those who are somehow “beneath” them on this so-called social hierarchy. This is a negative consequence can be seen at a startling extreme in incidents such as the Columbine shooting in America. The two boys who killed those students were not unforgiving human beings. They were students who had been made fun of so cruelly, as well as on such a long term scale that they finally saw the need to take action. It was an event that forced people to wake up and realize that some people are truly affected by a persons “light-hearted” teasing. Some may say that violent media affected those boys, but that is just a ridiculous scapegoat. If that were true, then why isn’t every person a walking serial murderer? Every one of us has been subjected to violence, whether it is on the news, or in a scary movie. Television is not a babysitter, and should not be blamed for a tragedy such as Columbine. Those young men did what they did because they were made to feel absolutely worthless by their classmates. Words can tear away at a person’s self-confidence, and can make a person feel so insignificant that they no longer feel a need to live. And although this is a severe case, it did happen, and it could happen again. In conclusion, maintaining an elite group of friends does not exhibit positive behavior. In actuality, it does just the opposite. Cliques exhibit a long list of negative consequences, including negative peer pressure, the insistence to stay within a single group of friends, and because of this the limiting of an ability to have a broad friendship base. Our world continues to be so wonderful because of its diversity. This is not a fact that should be taken for granted. We have a restricted amount of time on this earth, and we should try to meet as many people as we possibly can before we go. You never know who is g
Some topics in this essay:
Harbord Despite,
,
Harbord Collegiate,
social skills,
outside clique,
broad friendship base,
social hierarchy,
ability broad friendship,
people outside clique,
people outside,
ability broad,
negative consequences,
broad friendship,
follow leader,
step outside,
cliques exist,
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Approximate Word count = 1380
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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