Personal Choices it Is Understandable

Personal Choices

It is understandable that the movie Dangerous Minds might leave the audience doubtful that the average person really has significant choice in life. The movie is full of examples where external circumstances outside of the control of individual characters impose situations that they are powerless to do anything about. Specifically, Callie Roberts is LouAnne Johnson's most promising students but her academic hopes are cut short prematurely by her pregnancy. Similarly, the murder of Emilio Ramirez demonstrates that internalized attitudes such as machismo and personal pride or honor are also capable of undermining personal choice.

In Callie's case, it is not so much that her circumstances were the result of inability to make choices; in fact, it could be argued the exact opposite: Callie was, unfortunately, a victim of poor choices and the failure to make better decisions. In many respects, Emilio was more limited by the inability to make choices than Callie. By the time he found himself in mortal danger, his lifetime of socialization (much like that of Raul Sanchero's) had already led him into situations and conflicts that might be considered inevitable.

Frankly, to expect Raul or Emilio to completely ignore years of socialization into specific patterns of relationships, values, and mores of their society and their community suddenly in response to the first opportunity to pursue better alternatives when LouAnne showed up in their classroom would have been unrealistic. It is often difficult to overcome learned patterns of behaviors and expectations even when the individual is completely removed from the negative environment. Both Raul and Emilio were at a tremendous disadvantage to make productive choices without any change of environment.

In general, the question of whether or not the average individual can make meaningful choices to alter the course of his or her life sometimes boils down to the distinction between conscious choices and unconscious influences on our choices. Certainly, Callie, Emilio, and Raul could all have made different choices in their lives, but that perspective denies the influence of environmental influence and the strength of internalized patterns of behavior and superficial "choices."

By the time they were in high school, probably neither Raul nor Emilio could have done much to resist the influence of their environment in terms of how it shaped their ability to make beneficial choices such as not getting sucked into confrontations over perceived slights or insults to learned concepts of masculinity.