Top 4 Formative Influences

Throughout history, there have been many things that shaped people and caused them to become who they were. Formative influences have always existed, many of which are the same now as they were in the past. Writers such as Mary Wollstonecraft and Plato, as well as more modern writers like Ta Nehisi Coates, have given many examples of these formative influences that have helped shape people.

1. Education/School (both as an institution for learning as well as a place of community)

Education is very different depending on where you receive it. Education has a huge impact on who you become as a person. I grew up in a fairly liberal community and was taught in a very liberal school. I gained many of my ideals from my teachers as well as my fellow community of students. In Ta Nehisi Coates’ novel Between the World and Me, he talks about how his life changed forever when he began attending college at Howard University. Coates even compared Howard University to Mecca, stating that it was a place where black people from all walks of life could congregate. He learned a lot from this education at Howard as well as from student community. All of the people who had different life experiences were able to teach him about what the black world was really like. “The black world was expanding before me, and I could see now that that world was more than a photonegative of that of the people who believed they are white” (42). Coates was influenced by his education experience and was able to form a broader knowledge and opinion. Thomas Kuhn also explains how education plays a large role in influencing what people believe. In Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn talks a lot about how schools will teach things according to their own beliefs. This causes people attending these schools (usually people who are very impressionable) to also begin to share these beliefs. “Paradigm schools, which, because of its own characteristic beliefs and preconceptions, emphasized only some special part of the too sizable and inchoate pool of information” (17). This goes hand in hand with a very modern debate. Some schools are teaching evolution while others are teaching the bible. Those who attend the school that teaches evolution are likely to share that belief while those that are taught the bible will not.

2. Stories

Growing up, I always fantasized being a superhero in real life. I would always pretend to be like one of the superheroes that I had read about in comic books. These stories had a large impact on making me who I am today. Many of these stories, from Superman and Batman, to Thor and Captain America, have inspired many people to do the right thing and be virtuous like these heroes. In Plato’s The Republic, Plato discusses how when a God is portrayed in stories, they should be shown as being virtuous beings, otherwise people might feel justified in not being virtuous. The Gods’ actions as told in stories would influence the way people in society acted. “Nor that any other child of a god and hero dared to do any of the terrible impious deeds that are now falsely attributed to them” (71). In Ta Nehisi Coates’ novel Between the World and Me, Coates states that "Historians created the Dream. Hollywood fortified the Dream. The Dream was gilded by novels and adventure stories" (102). The "Dream" that many wish to achieve is formed and glorified through the stories that we hear and see. These stories have a major influence on what we think is "good," and it also influences what we do to achieve the Dream. In more modern times, it is widely criticized that stories told in violent films and video games are negatively affecting people, making them more violent. Evan Ramsey, the attacker in the only high school shooting in Alaska, has stated that he never actually believed that his actions would result in anybody’s death. He claimed that in a video game, it always takes several shots to kill someone. He did not think that a single shot would be fatal. The video games that he played a large role in his attack.

3. Wealth and Class

“You have to work twice as hard to get half as much.” This is a phrase that is often heard in communities of color. But does this have to do with wealth and class, and how does it play into who you are as a person? The reason for this needing to work harder is simple, many of these people of color have been thrust into a lower class. Those that are in a lower class are likely to endure more suffering than those in a higher class. In Between the World and Me, Coates tells his son about what can be learned from suffering. “The struggle is in your name, Samori -- you were named for Samori Toure, who struggled...for the right to his own black body...the struggle in and of itself, has meaning” (68-69). Coates states that there is meaning and wisdom that can be learned from suffering. This wisdom has helped people become who they are today. Plato also discusses how various levels of wealth influence how people perform their jobs in The Republic. “When a potter becomes rich...he becomes more indolent and careless...But on the other hand, if he has no money, he cannot provide himself with tools or instruments, he will not work equally himself, nor will he teach his sons or apprentices to work equally well” (276). A person’s level of wealth has a direct impact on how they work and who they are.

4. Parenting

Parents play possibly one of the largest roles in influencing people. Their influence is similar to that of a school. A study was done by Gallup News that revealed that roughly 71% of youth grew up to share their parents’ political views. Parents are usually the first to teach you anything, and they do it when you are young and at your most impressionable. They are likely one of, if not the most, influential people that are ever in your life. Mary Wollstonecraft discusses precisely this argument in her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. “Women are told from their infancy, and taught by their mothers’ example, that a little knowledge of human weakness, softness of temperament, outward obedience, and scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of property; will obtain for them the protection of man” (13). She is illustrating how women are heavily influenced by their mothers to continue this “tradition” of being ignorant and submissive to men.