This blog post was originally written on 19 February 2006. It is reproduced here for archival purposes and your reading pleasure. It is reproduced as accurately as possible with no style, mechanical, or spelling corrections whatsoever.
I didn't realize that there was a catagory called School/College/Greek or my College blog would have been filed accordingly. Oh well. Hopefully this second blog for the day will make up for my ingorance of my blog over the weekend.
Tonight's Topic: Conformity
Conform or RebelA lot of teenagers claim to be against conformity. They feel like they shouldn't accept what society says is right or normal just because society says it. They want to think for themselves. They want to try things and experiment before they make an oppinion on something. Many of their peers, adults included, see this as a good line of thinking that will take them far in life. And in many cases it is. A popular cliche comes to mind: If all of your friends were jumping off of a bridge would you jump too? Countless parents have said this to their children encouraging them to think on their own instead of giving in to the persuasions of friends. Of course these same parents have probably said something along the lines of "That's your curfew because I said it is!" The parents are obviously sending mixed signals by encouraging the child not to give in to his friends, but also encouraging him to accept what the athority says as absolute truth. So what is the correct way to think? Is something true if almost everyone says it is? Or should we investigate things for ourselves.
There was a time when the general consensus was that the world was flat. If you sailed too far in either direction you would fall off. As we all know one man refused to conform to this teaching, and against the better judgement of his contemporaries, he sailed off to prove that the world was round. Of course we could look at it from another point of view. Albert Einstein is perhaps the most famous physicist of all time. He wrote many papers, most notably the theories of relativity. Of course this is not to say that everthing in the theories was thought up solely by Einstein. His ideas were founded upon the ideas of his predecesors. If Einstein had spent his time trying to first prove that indeed pbjects do consistantly fall to the ground when dropped, he would have wasted a significant amount of time. Instead he used his time building upon these theories that had already been proved, and were commonly accepted.
The issue is more than scholastics though. The option to conform or not is present in our everyday lives. ( not to say that scholastics are not present in our everyday lives) For example most of us were raised in a certain religion. Many of us chose to conform to the beliefs of our parents. Others chose to investigate the matter for ourselves. Of those who chose to investigate for oursleves, many found that they too belived what their parents had said in the first place. Would it have been better to take our parents' word for it? Or was it necessary to discover the truth for ouselves. Those of us who decided on a different religion than our parents would certainly say that it was crucial to investigate for ourselves.
So perhaps there are some times when it is good to conform to standards, and other times when it is better to think independantly. Or perhaps it's best to always think independatly, and come to the conclusion that in a given case conformity is the best option.
There are people, too, who think that the best thing to do is to simply do the oposite of the standard at all times in all cases; to rebel against everything. A perfect example is the following quote from Bert McCracken, lead singer of The Used:
"I've rebelled against all types of conformity throughout my life, not just Utah's conservative culture," he says. "I rebelled against the Mormon Church by going to other churches. I rebelled against my parents by not eating meat. I rebelled against my friends and myself by doing drugs. And I rebelled against everything that was holding me down by playing music with these guys."It is clear that Bert wants nothing to do with any kind of standards of thought or action, (It is also clear that Bert is mildly insane) but what is he really doing by rebelling against everything. Is he saying that he doesn't need anyone to tell him what he should do because he is independant? Probably. Or is he just conforming to a standard of disconformity? Is he really independant? He certainly isn't afraid of anyones criticism or judgement. But what would he do if there were no standard to conform to? (or rebel against as the case may be) Would he make a decision on his own? Would he decide that eating meat really was the best option? And what if everyone followed him? Would he then change to rebel against his own Idea?
This last example is obviously very paradoxal, and is not the main point of the bolg, but it does illustrate what happens when someone rebels for the wrong reasons. Of course it is important to consider that very similar things happen if someone conforms for the wrong reasons.
Thats all for now. As always please post any thoughts or Ideas as comments.
love, Joshy Woshy
Wow, that one kind of hit the nail on the head. I really believe that it is important not to accept an idea or rule as true or good just because everyone says to. We absolutely must think for ourselves! As I mentioned above it is not practical to rethink absolutely everything because if we did that we would make no progress. So I propose the following as a rule of thumb. Accept what is established as true until you have any reason to doubt it. The minute you have a reason to doubt it, investigate it thoroughly for yourself. If you find evidence that an idea or principle is wrong, investigate it. If you just have a feeling that it might be wrong, investigate it. And be sure you do enough day dreaming that you are able to be struck by spontaneous inspiration.
I also really believe that heeding / respecting / obeying authority simply because they are authority is wrong. It is that kind of thinking that leads to mass wrongdoing simply because otherwise sensible people were "following orders". And of course rebelling against everything is not a good choice.
The one thing that I do regret about this post is my inaccurate depiction of Columbus. I now know that in the fifteenth century it was well-established that the earth was spherical. I also now know that Columbus was a total dick to indigenous people in the new world. That being the case, I should not spoken so highly of him.
Post your thoughts or ideas in the comments.
love, Joshy Woshy
