Debate Conformity

I was mostly joking but serious post: the inexplicable need to be an individual is something heavily cultivated by our consumer culture. Businesses have spent obscene amounts of money transforming our identity so that we think of ourselves as individual consumers and not pieces of a larger collective.

So instead of concerning ourselves with worthwhile affairs we obsess over useless goods that nobody actually needs because "lol I'm just one person, not part of a greater whole, what can I do, where is my new ipod?" This manufacturing of individualism is especially hilarious and apparent in teenagers who all wear their cynical, screw the world attitude proudly on their sleeve and fail to realize that they are playing perfectly into the hand's of business.

Our uniqueness is then sold to us by these businesses. Just look at the OP's original post, how telling is it that he used clothing as the barometer in which to gauge individuality? How utterly unimportant. Look at myspace and you'll see pages of people who define themselves using only the things other people have created. Most people's sense of identity only exists in relation to what they consume.

This great collective whine for for individuality is obviously hilarious because each unique snowflake is behaving exactly the way our culture expects. As funny as this all is our false desire for individuality is tearing apart society by isolating everybody. The sense of powerlessness that goes along with this isolation is deeply depoliticizing, no greater good can be accomplished because the natural healthy state of society has been dismantled and destroyed.

 

Can you guess how I feel about this debate?

 

Honestly, I don't really see the huge problem with conforming. It may be great for each person to be different, but conforming can be a good thing. For instance, I conform to many laws against things such as murder and theft. If I was a non-conformer, I would non-conform by murdering and thieving. As you can see, some things just need to be conformed to. In that situation, non-conformity is dangerous. I understand you may not be thinking about this sort of conforming, but that's what it is.

As for a debate more closely to the type of conforming you are discussing, it is not a problem. This is because conforming will bring people together rather than spreading them.To be "original", you would either be in a group (which would be conformity in itself because you are conforming the other by meeting etc.) or be alone. Humans will naturally be drawn toward others. So if wearing the same clothes, having the same hair style, or acting similar cause this, people will tend to do it. Also, conforming in that sense would be a characteristic of a group. In some situations, manipulative people may control others by this, but the problem there lies in the individual(s).

Now that the literal has been analyzed, we can endeavor to study the paradox conformity is. If someone non-conforms, he/she is conforming to non-conformity. Basically, a non-conformer conforms to nonconformity. As you can see, non-conformity is impossible.

 

In other words, OP is being a conformist by being anti-conformist. Next on the news: paradoxes strike the world; the world strikes back!

About the reading thing:
I'd argue that not only are kids not reading less, they're actually reading more. Look around. Kids texting on their phones, IMing, posting on forums about subjects they care about, etc. As the Information Generation, we have the highest rates of reading since the invention of the printing press. The only reason that critics say that we read less is because we don't read as much classical literature or more modern novels. But there's a reason for that. Older stories are just too ancient for us to relate to anymore. The World Wars were decades ago. The Civil War, generations. I once had to explain to a guy I was tutoring why the car had such a profound effect on the world (proliferation of suburbs for an example), and he said, "Really? I thought it was always like that." It is difficult for our generation to relate to books like Huckleberry Finn, To Kill A Mockingbird, and practically anything written by Shakespeare, because even though those themes and motifs inside them were universal, they live anachronistically in these times. As for modern novels, we have series like Harry Potter, Twilight, etc. (transcending individual tastes; whether you like the original book or not, additional sequels to the book almost always ruins the series for many fans. Or maybe that's just my perception; in any case, I don't think I've liked any series. You are free to happily ignore this bit if you wish.) clogging up the mainstream; hardly ever do we stumble upon any epics.

Kinda going off a tangent with that, but sure.

Edit: Going to add more on non-conformity.
Non-conformity is the act of rebelling against conformity (by not conforming). But if you're always in a state of reaction to conformity, you're heavily dependent on conformity.

If you really weren't conforming, you wouldn't be saying that you don't like conformism. Individual tastes are fine, but you're trying to conform others to your idea as well.

Random:
Conform is a funny word. Conform. Doesn't "con" in Latin mean "No" or "Not"? So "No Form"? And if you're a non-conformist, you have no "No Form"?

 

With your points about kids reading a lot, I don't think that some websites and mobile phone texts count. Because they both use poor language and substitute with numbers. Not always, but in the average teenage texts, they use both. And many teenagers rarely read books, (at least boys, I go to an all-boys school) and the few websites they visit they typically take the time to read and absorb information, as one would just write out the answer once it is found. Or copy and paste.

I know that this is not related to the main topic of debate, but I was correcting Nemi.

My views on conformity. It's gay. People are always following the dominant person (see Alpha male) and rarely having their own ideas in a social environment. not entirely true, i know, but that's my general view. I try to be different. If that annoys, disturbs or makes people hate me, I don't care.

 

My main point is that people watch TV now more than ever! The media has a huge impact on people's lives. Kids decide to watch Family Guy or pretty much anything on Fox... mainly because it's interesting. However, they don't realize how much of an effect it has on their lives, and then go to school talking about the things they feel they can relate to. Those captivating TV shows, those mind-boggling reality shows, those intense celebrity shows where every little detail is drawn out.

Just think if they put the crew from E! in the Congo.. Wow, I'd like to see that TV show.

 

I'm reading over all of these comments and I think What's a Scope has gotten closest to how I think about this topic. I'd like to take it a bit further, though. What we refer to as conformity is a completely natural instinct to humans, as it is to many great apes and other mammals. We are social animals for the same reasons as other species. The difference is that with our super crazy brains, we sometimes look around and see the bigger picture from time to time, and question why we do things. This can lead to a certain disgust with the larger group, and an impression that no one else is questioning things (sometimes true, sometimes not true.) Even when an individual makes attempts to act on this, he will inevitably, 99 times out of 100, simply fall yet another group that will still satisfy his social urges, although the group may be more specialized to his tastes.

If we were more reptilian in our instincts, absolutely everything about our society would be different.