Broken Windows Theory Analysis

Behavior is often said to be associated with a person’s character. Character is defined as the way someone think, feel and behave. Character is also the set of qualities that are shared by many people in a group and those set of qualities is what sets the group apart from anther group. Gladwell uses fundamental traits such as attitude to explain how humans adapt to various circumstances and environment. According to Gladwell, character is not a “stable, easily identifiable set of closely related traits but is rather more like a bundle of habits and tendencies and interests, loosely bound together and dependent, at certain times, on circumstance and context” (Gladwell 160). In other words, the context, environment and circumstance evokes the
many side characters and feelings inside an individual. The individual shows these feelings by his/her behavior thus showing his/her character. One example of this would be when Faludi lay claim to Gladwell’s theory through her research of small communities which include the Citadel. Faludi supports Gladwell’s claim about character adaptation toward the habits and ideals of society, while also demonstrating a capacity for modification in these behaviors often caused by a “Tipping Point.” The tipping point is a reference used to describe the point at which a series of small changes becomes significant enough to cause a larger change. In this case, the tipping point is when the cadets have to act the way society wants them to – act masculine.
Gladwell also talks about the negative characteristics of habits that could potentially lead to further inappropriate behavior.
For example, a person walking down the street eating food and throwing away their trash on the street instead of a garbage can. Gladwell states that people who walk by this piece of trash will conclude that no one cares and no is in charge. This concept is known as the broken windows theory. The broken windows theory proves that children and teenagers are shaped and influenced largely by the environment they live in. Certain features also plays a huge role influence on who we are and what we do (152). However, Faludi suggests that one’s habit is influenced by their social heritage. She felt that most men “defend their inner humanity with an outer brutality” (Faludi 282). Most men feel as if there is a greater need to conceal their emotional state in order to avoid any ridicule against them. History has shown that men were always playing the dominate roles like being the breadwinner. Female were always portrayed as the stay at home mom that cooks and clean. Because men are always playing the dominant role, they feel entitled to inflict pain and harm onto women when they do not listen or behave. Did tradition and years of history lead men to think they are entitle to beat on women and mistreat them or is it simply just a bad habit learned from other men? According to Faludi, it is simply bad habits. Even without women being presence at the Citadel,
cases of mistreatment still occur between cadets. Cadets, despite being taught to become a male, still have motherly roles like taking care of one another. Although immediate context influence people’s behavior, it does not mean that people’s intrinsic tendencies are not important in determining their behaviors. In other words, one’s growth and educational habitat are also important in determining their behavior. One example of this would be the Bernie Goetz case in which Goetz, who was a resident of New York, shot and killed four teenagers in a subway car. According to Gladwell, the hectic environment of the subway station caused him to kill the teenagers. However, according to Rubin, Goetz’s bullet was “aimed at targets that existed as much in his past as in the present” (Gladwell 156). When looking in to Goetz’s past life, it was revealed that his living and growing environment caused this incident to happen. Goetz grew up in a family where he was always the subject of his father’s rage, and his neighborhood was filled with homeless people and drug dealers. The environment where the incident happened is not important due to Goetz’s upbringing. He learned from his father to take rage out on other people and the environment in which he grew up in could also have taught him bad behavior and solving problems with violence. Goetz’s experience tell us that the real reason in which a person behaves is almost always hidden, making the immediate context one of the reasons that cause certain behavior. Conversely, the immediate context at the Citadel is not the violence but rather it is the demand from society. Society is no longer dominated by males only. Society has become more diverse and integrate. One of the reason why men go to an all-male institution is to attempt to release the pressure unconsciously applied to them by society. Men have transformed the Citadel into their refuge. At the Citadel, cadets are able to create their small world and “feel called to defend those walls,” because some things in their lives are “endangered from without” (Faludi 103). For this reason, the cadets feel that the Citadel is a place where they can not only discharge their feelings but also feel better by earning the sense of becoming leaders and winners. Not only that, “The military stage set offers a false front and a welcome trapdoor – an escape hatch from the social burdens of traditional masculinity” (Faludi 210). The cadets felt as if they were a part of a family and often acted motherly toward other cadets. These acts include being involved with personal problems and helping each other out. The upperclassmen cadets hid their emotional side on the outside by hazing the “fourth-class system” cadets. However, from time to time, the burden at the Citadel makes the cadets fail to realize how and when to show their certain characters in certain circumstances, which may confuse the cadets and result in many profound problems.
Henceforth, the immediate context is just a trigger that gives opportunity for people to behave in a certain way.
The context is so powerful that many people’s behavior, like the cadets, are more susceptible to being influenced by it rather than inner thoughts. While one’s inner personalities are fundamental of their behavior, those certain behavior does not result from certain situations. If one is an absolute good person without deviant thoughts, he or she would never take out a gun and shoot another human or even think about hazing. Thus the growth and living environment are real causes that build people’s characteristics, which can lead to certain
behaviors.