Nonconformity is an important ingredient - essential - for a life well-lived.
So what is conformity?
Conformity can be defined as 'the imitation of behaviors
beliefs and values which are considered socially acceptable'
Nonconformity , however, is not just the rejection of the social norms.
A person who rejects things simply out of the desire to be different still conforms.
Non conformity is not a desire, but a state of being.
It's not reliant on the external, to validate or invalidate, their internal position. (non reliance on 'the crowd').
True nonconformity is displayed to the degree that one's life path - and thus character- are shaped by behaviors, beliefs, and values which are chosen for personal - or authentic reasons.
This can entail the adoption of things that are considered socially acceptable, but the nonconformist consciously adopts them because they understand the utility value , while the conformist adopts them merely out of the desire to be accepted, to 'fit in'.
There are many reasons behind the tendency to conform.
Genetic survival being among them. (see my previous post).
A fear of one's own physical death has also been posited as one of the most influential factors towards conformity.
Ernest Becker(denial of death) describes this existential fear as:
...this is the terror. To have emerged from nothing to have a name, consciousness of self deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression and with all this yet to die - it seems like a hoax, what kind of deity would create such complex and fancy worm food'?
The logic is as follows...
...we cannot face up to the reality of our own death without experiencing debilitating anxiety.
...And so we attempt to quell this life crushing anxiety - by denying death itself.
Denial of death is achieved by what Becker called 'striving for the heroic' or in simpler terms - attaching ourselves to a purpose in life - a cause or creating something - which we can then go on to believe will outlive our physical existence.
It grants us a form of immortality.
These 'paths to heroism' are both the path of the nonconformist or personal heroism and the path of the conformist - or cultural heroism.
The path of the nonconformist consists of cultivating
one's uniqueness and potential, by using one's own talents and skills in the creation of something meaningful.
It's about how he can express this uniqueness.
By giving it some kind of form, it now becomes something beyond himself.
It lives on - past one's own physical existence.
Whether it's a work of art or a scientific discovery or an entrepreneurial endeavor - It endures.
This is the form of personal heroism.
Personal heroism helps to 'deny death' in a way that's conducive to one's own psychological health and vitality.
Conformity.
By the time many of us reach adulthood, we have been 'educated' to view our uniqueness, not as something to be cultivated, but as something to be shunned. (yet one more way that 'the leftist collective ideology' is so cancerous to a human's health and psychological well being).
After a decade of state indoctrination camps (which shun the individualistic perspective and extol the collective), very few people, growing into adulthood, see themselves as even capable of bringing forth anything of significance into the world.
They become incapable of engaging in 'personal heroism'.
For such people, an alternative route to the 'denial of death' anxiety issue, is required.
They run the very real risk of being overwhelmed by anxiety and nihilism - A life crushing despair.
An alternative route is found - through conformity.
The adoption of predetermined social roles. Or Cultural heroism.
...This path limits the expression of one's uniqueness.
...The is the precise 'opposite' of the personal heroism, route.
Conformity leads to a life dominated by repetition and routine.
It provides people with perceived security and comfort.
It makes them feel as if they are participating in something
significant.
Like incarcerated prisoners, they're comfortable in their limited and protected routines. (...and the idea of 'parole' - into the wild world of 'chance' and 'accident', and 'choice' - terrifies them) .
This self imposed prison, becomes one's own defining character.
In this tiny mental space, they can pretend, and feel, that the world is manageable.
There, they can find a reason for one's life - an easy justification for one's actions. (or inaction's).
To live 'automatically' and uncritically - of the self- is to be assured of at least a minimum share of the programmed 'cultural heroics' that everyone else has agreed upon.
Consensus matters to the 'cultural hero'.
Cultural heroism is effective as a way to assuage personal fear.
It serves in a 'quasi religious function' in a modern secular
society.
Just as Christianity in the Middle Ages (in the West) it provides a meaning to their existence. A set of values by which to shape their lives.
The cultural hero.
It's not difficult to see how this cultural heroism fits very neatly into our secular world of today...
Society now plays such a role.
Society itself is a codified , conformist, 'cultural hero', system.
Every society becomes a religion, of sorts.
Soviet religion.
Communist religion.
Scientific religion.
Consumer religion.
They may try to disguise themselves as something different - simply by omitting religious and spiritual ideas.
But just like all religions, it becomes easier to believe in, as more and more people within that society, worship it.
(covid, lockdowns, climate change...)
This is why the non conformists are so feared by the masses.
(....expressed through hate and ridicule...)
The unique-ness of the individual expressing themselves, plants seeds of doubt into the minds of the conformist.
It makes them think.
It makes them uncomfortable (cognitive dissonance).
It forces them to question the significance of their social roles - and thus, the significance of their very existence.
The masses will actively discourage the cultivation of one's uniqueness. (and reinforce their perspectives through 'education camps' - schools and universities).
They will ridicule and ostracize the nonconformist.
They will also try to pressure them into conformity.
These are things that they MUST DO.
Their very existential significance is on the line here, and under threat.
Of the two paths to heroism, the one less traveled- or the one that is the cultivation and expression of one's uniqueness, is seen throughout very different cultures, as the superior of the two.
The conformist existence, while comfortable, is largely a robotic state.
Such people are always looking to others (external affirmation) in order to determine how to behave, and in what to believe.
In effect, conformity amounts to living one's life for others, and not for oneself.
Virginia Woolf :
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.
One becomes all outer show and inward emptiness, dull, callous and indifferent. (narcissistic).
This stultifying effect of conformity behooves the individual to look inwards - To understand the importance of striving to follow a life path which is personally chosen.
A conformists 'existence' can barely be called living at all.
'Cultivating one's uniqueness is like riding a wild stallion while conforming is like falling asleep on a moving hay wagon'.
(Kierkegaard's words, not mine).
....as he wrote
..."surrounded by hordes of people busy with all sorts of secular matters, more and more shrewd about the ways of the world, such a person forgets himself, forgets his name, does not dare to believe in himself , finds it too risky to be himself.."
(The narcissist emerges. Political, manipulative... scared.....) My words, not Kierkegaard's..
It's far easier - and safer - to be like 'all the others'.
To be a number in a corporation, to be part of the unthinking crowd.
BUT....
...while most people conform almost without reflecting on why they do so - others have a nagging feeling that there is 'more to life' somehow, more than the social role that they've adopted.
A sense that in the short time they have between life and death, they should do something strive to cultivate their uniqueness and to find out what they are personally capable of.
Why are so few people capable of breaking the powerful
chains of conformity?
What makes it so difficult to be a nonconformist?
In their hearts, every person knows, quite well, that they are unique...
They know they will be in the world only once.
There know there will be no second chance.
They also know that if they hide from themselves - because of a fear of his neighbors opinions (the one who demands conformity) this forces the individual to fear his neighbor. To live in a state of fear.
To think and act like a member of a herd, to have no real joy in being himself, is laziness.
Real laziness.
And that laziness all starts with self deception - on many different levels - and that's the subject of the next post..
Know thyself, before anything.