So, in some sense, we can totally neuter the concepts of both conformity and nonconformity with the simple concepts that we all put our pants on one leg at a time (if we wear pants, that is, but the truly universal examples are more biological) and that we’re all separate, unique individuals, like it or lump it.
But if we actually want to make use of language in a meaningful way, we have to accept that “everything” is not “nothing” and “nothing” is not “everything”.
Conformity is obedience to dictates from outside the self. Whether it be one’s mother urging them towards that girl/boy that she thinks is perfect for them, their friends encouraging them to try some of this shit, or wearing a suit and tie to work, (or jeans and tiedye, depending on them place of employment), the essence of conformity is marching to the beat of a drummer somewhere, anywhere out there. You are conforming to something.
Nonconformity, by the same token, is disobedience. But most of the time when we’re disobeying someone, we’re obeying someone else. Smoking a joint with your friends may not be conforming to Nancy Regan’s or the DEA’s mandates, but it is probably conforming to your friends’ urgings and/or expectations. Playing the game that way renders “conformity” equally ‘meaningless’.
“Nonconformity” is usually used to mean deliberate nonconformity to the dominant social values. As a straight-edge vegan, dick sucking, collectivist, used clothes buying, computer nerd, I am [mostly] not conforming to the society’s general animal eating, aspirin swilling, alcohol drinking, heteronormative, pro-corporate, hierarchical, capitalist, anti-intellectual tendencies, and thus nonconformist, despite my ‘obedience’ to the dictates of veganism, etc, etc.
Issues of whether one is conforming to the punk movement, some guy they saw on MTV, or their own internal sense of self is another matter.
black white and the grey spaces in between
I have issues with conformity vs noncomformity when the people who parade their noncomformist attitudes and beliefs are somehow doing so in the sense that this makes them better people. There are probably aspects of my life which would fit in either category. It’s life. Really it’s just about living it, enjoying it, and making the most of it. Everything doesn’t needs label, and usually the labels imply more restrictions than are actually possible for said label and don’t wind up really defining things at all.
just the $0.02 of you’re average general animal eating, aspirin swilling, alcohol drinking, occassional pill popping, somewhat homonormative, pro-corporate at times, definitely capitalistic, though hopefully not anti-intellectual, ex-punk rock/goth boy turned semi near cookie cutter castro queer. Really, you could bury yourself in labels in you try hard enough.
Sorry, couldn’t resist. 🙂
Re: black white and the grey spaces in between
lol
you rock, jim. just thought i’d share. 😉
Pants
I’d just like to state for the record that I, when putting on pants, generally sit on the bed, and pull them up, both legs at the same time. I’ve always done this. I think whoever thought of that expression needs to come up with a better one.
Re: Pants
I once had this discussion with my boyfriend – seems he’s never hopped around while putting on jeans, which I have. I’ve also managed to (temporarily) dislocate my hip while doing this. I like your idea better, less chance to hurt myself.
(Also getting bigger pants helped with the hopping bits too 🙂
… hm.
i think all this conformity stuff has less to do with external appearance than internal acceptance of an external idea as the best way or at the extreme end, the only way to exist.
well, that and i think this sort of thought is meaningless .. but .. in the interest of discourse ..
i can be so many labels it’s not even funny. i could lie to god and pull it off. but at the end of the day, the stuff that makes me cry and the things that i want differ very little from whatever everyone else wants. i bleed the same way, and i like puppies and kittens and being warm when i sleep.
strangely, going through the military stripped a lot of my nonconformist ego from me. what was i thinking, twenty-six going through basic training and put into this incredible class clash. i’d been living in san francisco for six years, surrounded by the posh south of market urban revival and the shit covered homeless that had been displaced by those cheaply built lofts. the only way that i could succeed in this environment was to become one of them .. to be the mass .. to shut up and get in line and simply be one of the crowd.
oh boy.
i pulled it off and you know what, it was easy. my sense of self as unique and better than these people was so incredibly egotistical — so based in unwillingness to understand or experience whatever it is about Brooks & Dunn that those rednecks like, or what it is about some puerto rican rap that makes them so into their music.
mind you, there was no epiphany. i don’t want to be those people, but i can understand why they want to be who they are and why they don’t want to be me.
labels are easy. considering labels is easier. ignoring them is unrealistic, but placing their value in context is possible. i’m a lot of things, but what i am not is anyone else, and what i am is me.
beyond that .. it’s all outside of me. i’m comfortable being having labels and i am comfortable applying labels to others. there are merely tools to interpret, they are not the end of the interpretation process.
Well, the generic definition of “nonconformist” is in relation to the majority, not a local minority. So if you lived in India, but ate cow, you’d be a nonconformist. If you don’t wear fashionable clothing, but live here in America (gah), you’d be a nonconformist. Things like that.
In general tho, it is funny.
@Monty_Python(We’re all individuals! We’re all different!)
I’m not
SHHHHH!