The Dangers of Conformity

Of all the ills that afflict the world…It is my opinion that not many are, perhaps, as damaging, stifling, and destructive as conformity…

How many of us are living the life that we have been “instructed to live? From an early age, and even through formal education, most of us are guided into various types of conformity. It is conformity that forces millions and millions of women across the world to wear burqas, and live by the laws of the Quran. It is conformity that keeps countries like North Korea marching in lock step…producing humans the way McDonald’s produces Big Mac’s. Is it not culture itself that can control our decision making, restrict our autonomy, and make sheep of us all?

Women have been taught to conform. Certainly in this country they are taught at an early age through advertising and pop culture that they have to look as attractive as possible. For many it becomes one of the most important things in their lives. They can’t escape for a second the constant portrayal in the media of what they need to be and look like. They need to start attracting boys. I don’t care what anyone says, women are still seen primarily as “objects” by the vast majority. Perhaps now, more than ever, pop culture is defining what a girl and woman need to look like to be desirable. Is not Kim Kardashian arguably the role model for most 13 or 14 year old girls?

Let’s talk culture. What would it have been like for a member of an Indian tribe to decide that they wanted to live a life outside the tribal constraints…it wouldn’t have happened. Conformity was mandatory. People romanticize about Native American culture but there was no way you could have lived outside of the code. As long as you were willing to live exactly like everyone else, and to comply, everything was probably great.

And, if you were a woman….you had one or two jobs…you were there to listen to the man. There were no independent ideas that flourished in those cultures. That is why they didn’t change over thousands of years. How about life in China, Japan, India? The gravity of living according to societal norms is overwhelming. In India they even have a “caste” system that puts you into different classes from which you can never escape. There is a very limited definition of what is appropriate behavior in the most cultures. Chairman Mao of Communist China was trying to make a country of automatons, free of independent thought, obedient to the code. It is that way in many cultures. The Hispanic culture has many codes that must be followed. If you are a woman, don’t expect to be treated like a man. Throughout our history, so many of the world’s problems have been rooted in conformity. Nazi Germany would not have had a chance at getting off the ground without an overwhelming wave of conformity. How many Germans in 1932 had any interest in hosting genocide and fighting for world domination?, yet, they marched in “lock step”. They turned their minds over to a mass movement.....how colossally regrettable.

From the time we are educated, how many of the ideas that we are asked to memorize will bring us to a place of conformity? How many of us are encouraged to think independently and critically?

Let me cite one example: In school we are taught that Abraham Lincoln is sacrosanct. It is almost as compulsory as vaccinations. Any lesson taught in school about Abe is going to be one of intense adulation and idol worship, no critical thought. O.K. that is one point of view, but why would you never hear a contrary viewpoint?, one that cites the glaring fact that the darkest period in United States history (by far) coincided exactly with Abe’s Presidency. 600 – 800,000 deaths when he was in charge. Lots of countries had slavery but no other country (except Hait) needed to fight a civil war to end it? Anyone can bring about their means through might and power and destruction. Other countries ended slavery peacefully. Was it preventable? Why did he trample on the Constitution repeatedly, suspend Habeus Corpus, etc..? Why didn’t he meet with the Confederate leader, Jefferson Davis, just for the fun of it? Why didn’t he just buy the slaves? Where was the diplomacy…? Instead, we got a level of carnage that would have made the Romans blush. Why destroy the country, leave countless crippled and homeless, civilians even. It is estimated that between 50,000 and 100,000 slaves died during the Civil War. Who publicizes that fact? Surely if the other 40 or so Presidents had been President during this time, a bunch of them would have delivered a less violent and destructive result. It certainly couldn’t have been any worse.

My point here isn’t to convince you of Lincoln’s shortcomings, but instead to point out that a very valid side to the Lincoln legacy is never discussed, debated, etc.? Instead, we raise our children to think that Abe embodied all that is righteous…we are programmed, not through critical exploration, but through conditioning and conformity, to just accept. Why do muslims accept the breathtakingly violent language in the Quran? Why is there largely no critical analysis of this by muslims. Should we really be surprised at all the violence that is being wrought in the name of Islam? The same can be said of the Old Testament. Why aren’t questions being asked? I know it is easier to not challenge the “authorities” but is it even remotely serving the interests of “Truth” to simply follow? Is it even safe?

Look at probably the two most innovative and imaginative American thinkers of our time…Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Their worldwide contributions are immeasurable…their brilliance was born, not from an Academic Institution, steeped in conformity and tradition, and caution, but from an independent, free thinking, enterprising and boundless attitude and spirit. They both quit college very early on…seeing it as an impediment and the wrong milieu to the kind of education they were seeking.

Thomas Edison stormed out of school when he was 7 years old. “His mother, Nancy Edison brought him back the next day to discuss the situation with the teacher, but she became angry at his rigid ways. Everything was forced on the kids. She withdrew her son from the school where he had been for only three months and resolved to
educate him at home”

Thomas Alva Edison became America’s most prolific inventor-1,093 patents for such wonders as the microphone, telephone receiver, stock ticker, phonograph, movies, office copiers, and incandescent electric light-despite his lack of schooling.

As for my personal story…most of what I do in my chosen career I did not learn from the government sponsored Institutions I attended. IMO, Those were very incomplete and absent of so many crucial aspects of my field that I went elsewhere to fill in the large gaps….We were taught to be duplicates of one another…we weren’t, largely, taught to think independently. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for my education, but it could have been so much more….it could have hastened my search for “truth”. Such are Institutions in general.. they are very slow to react to, or accept, if ever, new information. They are entrenched. They smoke “pipes”. I doubt highly that it was an Institution that first declared that the world was not, indeed, flat.

And what of religions? There probably aren’t any institutions with more ability to promote conformity….

Religion can even promote the idea that conformity is good, that it is a virtue. Conformity isn’t just compelling people to grow beards, it is getting people to take up arms against one another…and it has been doing it for millennia. In fact, there are many who believe that “scripture” was concocted simply to bring control to the masses.

Society in general, certainly, has countless unwritten rules as to what is and isn’t “normal” behavior. I would say that society gets it wrong a lot of the time. I am not saying that we are all going to agree on what acceptable behavior is, but let’s, at least, make the world a safer place for diversity.

Fashion? Has anyone seen my ”Air Jordan’s?”

Food for thought...

I welcome any challenges to my opinions

below are some quotes that may encourage the non conformist in you....

Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of ‘crackpot’ than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost.

Chauncey Depew

“The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.”
― John Kenneth Galbraith

“If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.”
― Maya Angelou

A prison becomes a home when you have the key.”
― George Sterling

“If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good.”
― Thomas J. Watson Jr.

“The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.”
― John Kenneth Galbraith

“If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.”
― Maya Angelou

A prison becomes a home when you have the key.”
― George Sterling

“If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good.”
― Thomas J. Watson Jr.

“The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it’s conformity.”
― Rollo May

“We are not here to match and homogenize and agree on every point. One size of spirituality does not fit all. We are here to be our divine selves, boldly, passionately, respectfully, to the absolute best of our ability — and this, this is more than enough.”
― sera break

Whenever you find yourself in the majority..think again..Mark Twain

Who were you before the world told you what you were not?”

“So you’re a little weird? Work it! A little different? OWN it! Better to be a nerd than one of the herd!”
― Mandy Hale

The human spirit lives on creativity and dies in conformity and routine.”
― Vilayat Inayat Khan

“Once conform, once do what other people do because they do it, and a lethargy steals over all the finer nerves and faculties of the soul. She becomes all outer show and inward emptiness; dull, callous, and indifferent.”
― Virginia Woolf

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life. ~Winston Churchill