The Destructive Power of Peer Pressure

Peer pressure and acts of mass blind obedience are all too common occurrences in our everyday society. A person, who under any other circumstances would never act in such a way, will commit unthinkable acts when backed by a single person or even worse, a large mass of individuals. It’s almost always destructive, and the person or persons involved usually always end up feeling regretful and bewildered by their actions. When thinking about group peer pressure, there are several other words that come to mind such as; conformity, compliance, brainwashing and social influence. Group peer pressure can make a person with the purest morals and the highest values act in ways that are more than contradictory. Group peer pressure can turn a saint into a sinner, a leader to a follower, and an individual to a tiny speck in a large and corrupt mass.

This pressure is evident in the story titled “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell. In this selection, originally taken from a collection of essays under the same title, Orwell describes an incident where group peer pressure led him to commit the inhumane killing of an elephant. Orwell, who was serving as a member of the British Imperial Police in Lower Burma, is required to kill this animal after it came into “must” and ran rampant throughout the village. While some may argue that the killing was justified given the elephant had already violently destroyed property and killed one villager, Orwell still felt some degree of shame and regret over the incident. He states in the text of the people of Lower Burma:

They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching. And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant a...

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...wn life, peer pressure plays an enormous role in everyday society. People do unimaginable things when pressure is put on them by people that they admire. We comply and conform when brainwashed, influenced, and pressured. It creates huge and destructive problems and moral struggles as seen with Orwell, the victims of Jonestown, and the thousands of teens that fall prey to peer pressure everyday. The only way to combat peer pressure is for others to start being accountable for their own actions and for integrity to become a higher priority in day-to-day life. If society can begin to teach our youth this then we will be one step closer to eliminating the problem; however, complete elimination of peer pressure can only come when adolescents and adults alike stop being the problem, and start becoming the solution by resisting the urge to pressure and be pressured.