The Myth Of The Ant King Analysis

When you are asked to describe the developments of one’s personality, you would acknowledge that childhood experiences and surroundings shape who they become. One’s character is built throughout their entire life, carrying different experiences and ways of thinking with them. Malcolm Gladwell, in “The Power of Context,” emphasizes the theory that the roles of the environment can impact the decisions and behaviors of human beings. And this is shown in, Steven Johnson’s, “The Myth of the Ant Queen” and Karen Ho’s, “Biographies of Hegemony,” where the individual’s surroundings affect their behaviors. It is said that, a decision to commit a crime is more likely to emerge in a disordered and a vandalized environment (The Broken Window Theory), …show more content…
Similarly, Ho suggests that due to students attending an elite status university, it can cause students to alter their interest and personality. For example, during the entire recruitment process of obtaining a job on Wall Street, elite students often found themselves trying their best to impress the recruiters, in hope to surpass their competition. Within the top universities, the recruitment process saturates itself, in almost every aspect of campus life since, “students become walking advertisements” (Ho 171). Due to this, the college life atmosphere shifts; Wall Street firms come to elite university campuses, giving off the impression that this is what elite students should strive for. Often times, students reflect themselves off of their surroundings, such as other students. The power of context is applied here, this small-scale context affects these individuals greatly. For example, a student who had no interest in investment banking suddenly realized their senior year of college that this is what they wanted to do their entire life. It is shown that the surroundings of these individuals start to affect them without realizing it. Johnson presents the power of …show more content…
In the case of Bernie Goetz, it seemed like the shooting was inevitable because four black men confronted a man with psychological problems. Due to Goetz’s stiff upbringings, he became obsessed with the idea of cleaning up the neighborhood. He constantly would shock people by saying, that “the only way we’re going to clean up this street is to get rid of the spics and niggers” (Gladwell 155). This demonstrated a man who seemed to have every means to want to shoot those four black men because there was something crazy going on in his head. However, Goetz surrounded himself with this environment. He could have easily moved away from the individuals he disliked; but he chose to live in the apartment where his doormen was attacked and robberies constantly happen, the environment itself caused him to go crazy. The Power of Context demonstrates that an individual is reflecting themselves off of the environment they surround themselves by. It does not sound easy that rubbing off the graffiti in the streets and the police department being on constant alert on the petty crimes will actually clean up the city, but it does. By catching criminals who commit petty crimes, the police department found themselves catching individuals will

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