Ours is a conformist society. Social media has made it even more so. The vast majority of us are afraid to appear different from our peers. Social media allows us to create and enforce peer standards that bind us to (locally) acceptable thoughts and behaviors. We do what we must to fit in. Woe to s/he who doesn’t.
The non-conformist exists primarily because there are still people so stubbornly independent that they cannot conform, and couldn’t even if they wanted to, which they don’t. This would be okay if society hadn’t organized itself to stamp out non-conformity wherever it appears. Society is very good at this because society is composed of individual people, each acting in accord with the belief systems of their peers. It’s as though society was a splintered mirror with millions of shards! The non-conformist finds that through their atypical thoughts or behavior, they have taken on an army of others who exist (seemingly) to make sure nothing is said or done that isn’t part of the group catechism of proper thinking.
Moreover, the views of society are built into its laws and institutions such that the non-conformist must pay a high penalty for any and all failures to conform — from not making enough to afford health insurance to preferring not to educate their children according to federal standards. And as Chuck Schumer famously said of the CIA, “they’ve got six ways from Sunday to get back at you.” All in the interest of making you safer, of course, code for “under control.”
There are other ways to fail to conform. Are you black or brown? The police will make you safer by stopping you or your car to find out if you’re dangerous. Are you foreign born? A whole array of federal agencies will attempt to repatriate you to your native land — whether you want to be there or not. Do you believe in metaphysical and/or spiritual things? You’re an enemy of science and must be silenced. It goes on…
Look at the STEM initiative in federally-mandated education curriculum. Now all our children are supposed to be scientists, technologists, engineers, or mathematicians, regardless of their natural skills and aptitudes. It’s nice that they later added the A for arts, but that’s just silly. Why stop at arts? Why not just admit that people are all different and we need them to be that way to provide all the things that society (narrow-minded, control-freaking society) needs. We need people with people skills, with verbal skills, with high level reasoning skills (outside of science), people who like to work inside and outside, with tools or without, on their own or in groups, doing repetitive tasks or not. Because contrary to the prevailing view that all people are pretty much the same, deep down we’re not.
And that’s the sad problem of socially-mandated, peer-enforced conformity. It’s not real. You can never make everyone the same, no matter how much you standardize the educational system or hammer people over the heads with media. People will remain different, even as they enforce their social rules on others. Until we can admit our fundamental differences as well as our shared humanity, we will continue to make life hell for those who won’t or can’t adopt the standards of their fellows.
