Factors that Lead People to Criticize their Society | Teen Ink

Factors that Lead People to Criticize their Society

May 17, 2022
By Anonymous

Imagine hearing about a case of abuse between and wife and a husband, and you find out that the husband was found not guilty on all charges. This piques your interest, so you do some digging, and you find that not only was the husband friends with the judge that dismissed the charges, but that the husband was a wealthy politician who has many connections. After some more digging, you find that this ruling is more common than you thought. Now you have a choice, one, to just stand idly by and accept this trend in society, or to start a conversation and criticize the system. This is just one example of a wrong that occurs within the public people. Witnessing a wrong or injury done in or by society often leads criticism within said society. Criticization of society can be seen through literature, art or protest. Some factors that lead people to criticize their society rather than simply accepting it is inequality, societal misconception, and injustice.

            To begin, one factor that leads people to criticize their society rather than simply accepting it, is inequality. Inequality has been a trend among various societies for years, and when realized by the right person, the condemnation commences. An example of this is in Shakespeare’s Sister by Virginia Woolf. In her essay, she discusses what it would like for a women born in the same era as Shakespeare with Shakespeare’s same intellectual creativity. With this, Woolf expresses her denunciation of society and its inequality toward women through the experiences of Shakespeare’s theoretical sister if she had his same ambitions. For example, at the end of paragraph one, Woolf writes, “At last – for she was very young, oddly like Shakespeare the poet in her face, with the same grey eyes and rounded brows – at last Nick Greene the actor-manager took pity on her; she found herself with child by that gentleman and so – who shall measure the heat and violence of the poet’s heart when caught and tangled in a woman’s body?”. This shows the imbalance between men and women and the different ends in which society navigates them toward. Through her writing, Woolf not only questioned this societal norm and disparity, but condemned the fact that this factor lives within the world. So, inequality is a factor that leads people to criticizes their society rather than conceding to acceptance.

            In addition, another aspect that leads to criticism of society is societal misconception. One example of questioning society through societal misconception is in the essay, On seeing England for the First Time by Jamaica Kincaid. Jamaica Kincaid grew up in Antigua, in the Caribbean where she was convinced about England and all its glory. The very England that colonized her mother land and brought Africans to the island for the sole purpose of enslaving them for work. This misconception of England being this great and wonderful power bled into all aspects of her life. From what she was taught in school, to what she wore, and even to how she ate. It was not until she was older and able to visit the place with the people that were once so glorified for her to question her society and all it represented. For example, “And a great feeling or rage and disappointment came over me as I looked at England, my head full of personal opinions that could not have public, my public, approval” (Kincaid, paragraph 16). This realization led her to criticize her own society and all that shaped her young mind.  It made her realize all that was wrong with what she learned and witnessed as a young child in Antigua about England and what it truly meant to her mother land. So, societal misconception can lead to criticism within a society.

            Furthermore, injustice is another element of society that leads to criticism. For instance, Tarana Burke and her creation of the MeToo movement in 2006. Tarana Burke created the MeToo movement with the hopes of giving a voice to survivors of sexual assault and to shine light on their injustices. The movement did just that when it was globalized eleven years after its creation. The organization allows survivors to call for action and for members of society to demand of justice form the once silent victims. This movement has created widespread awareness for women and survivors of sexual abuse. Tarana Burke was able shine light on one of the many injustices within society and used her voice to criticizes the bigger figures within the world. So, injustice is a component that leads to criticization of society.

            Whether it is through self-observations or through the observations of others, the issues within a society seem to always find their way to the light. There are many factors as to why one might criticize their society. A few include inequality, societal misconception, and injustice. All these items are reasons people do not just stand by and accept the problems that lie beneath the surface of societies. The only way for a society to grow and flourish is if people continue to take a stand against the things, they find unfit within the world that need change. The world is in a constant state of technological evolution. There is no reason why people can not evolve enough to improve the problems that live within society. Without criticization, light will not be cast upon the to problems in the world, and the state of society will never change.


The author's comments:

This is a piece that I wrote for my creative writing class in the form of a explanatory essay. 


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