The very existence of society represents the existence of conformity. Conformity is more than simply following rules or laws, perhaps even more than being in accordance to socially acceptable standards or customs. Conformity is, in a sense, synonymous with society, construction, development, evolution, and even the presence or absence of change. Conformity is the written word, the spoken tongue, and the quiet thoughts that run through our minds.
You can’t escape conformity completely.
We all have a moral obligation to resist injustice, even if doing so places one at risk.
That statement was so easy for me to say, so easy for me to type out. Perhaps I do strongly believe this to be true, perhaps I do think at the sight of injustice one must stand up and speak out. But two things hinder me from doing so. First, through our history classes, we have learned that to speak out on what is considered “unjust” is the right thing to do, in fact, the noble thing to do. Our Founding Fathers chose to do so, as well as the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, or even Winston Churchill. One may even argue the current Occupy movement fits within the likes of these great men, people who stood up against something that was “wrong,” and tried to make things “right.”
But what is right, and what is wrong? In fact, more than just that, what does right mean and what does wrong mean? What if what is right is actually wrong and what is wrong is, consequently, right? Who decides what is unjust, or even how to stand up to the injustice?
Society does. Conformity does. If the Founding Fathers didn’t have thousands of revolutionaries banding behind them, wouldn’t the British have crushed them, executed them, and sent them into the dark depths of history? And if millions of blacks across the country were too afraid to voice their views and failed to show support for MLK, would the 60s have ended on a different note? Had Indians not already desired independence, would Gandhi still have starved himself for days in an act of defiance? We characterize history to be millions backing one man (or a group of men), when we should be considerate of the millions backing them. Simply put, they are nothing more than faces, figureheads, and symbols of change.
So yes. I guess one can say we have a “moral obligation” to resist “injustice,” even if doing so places one at “risk.” But society decides what is moral and what is immoral, society decides what is just and unjust, and society decides how alienated the dissenter will be.
I would argue that my beliefs are not my own, but the product of society, thus the product of conformity. I can say what I believe in, and there will surely be someone who agrees with me. In fact, there are probably a million others who do so as well. So am I really standing out, am I really on the “just” side?
Take California’s Proposition 8. More than thirteen million people voted on this measure, resulting in a seven million yes votes and six and a half million no votes. Who am I to argue against the seven million people who voted yes? How can I be possibly be on the “just” side if there are roughly the same number of people on the opposite side? I can try to resist “injustice” as much as I want, but whether or not what I’m resisting is “unjust” or not is wholly up for debate.
No, you say. There must be current issues where there is a side which is going to be strictly “just” and another side which is strictly “unjust.” Last time I checked, however there is still an estimated 250 million children working (aged between 5 and 14) worldwide. Oh yes, I must be a horrible person. Child labor is simply, obviously unjust, and there isn’t a single thing I can say in support of child labor. Clearly you didn’t read the number correctly. It’s two hundred and fifty million children. No? Those children, you say, are being forced to work, are being exploited, and are not willingly entering the work force.
Obviously you don’t know that even in the US, children as young as 12 can legally work in the fields in the agricultural industry, or that in Asia, 22% of the workforce is made up of children, and a more shocking 32% in Africa. I can go on in defense of child labor. Before the Industrial Revolution, basically all children worked the fields alongside their families. At the height of the Industrial Revolution, they flocked into the cities to find jobs (typically with unreasonable pay).
Justice can be easily blurred, depending on the society one belongs to, on what form of conformity one has aligned themselves to.
At this time of our lives, when we are maturing and learning, taking in all that the world has to offer, I’ve noticed that some of us mature significantly quicker than others do. Sometimes we’re forced to—whether it be because of a traumatic event marking our lives, or any significant upheaval in the way we live, or lived, our lives. Because I don’t want to digress too far, I’ll simply say that I have had a couple such experiences in my life. Sometimes when I look back to my childhood, I laugh to myself at my innocence, the naïveté that characterizes our youth. Sometimes it hurts. It’s that feeling of “If youth knew” stabbing at my heart (Etienne). The prevailing feeling that I’ve been having more often now, however, is a desire to regress back into that naïveté, that unassuming simplicity which once exemplified my life. What joy it was to not understand, and what pain it is to understand.
I’d rather live that lie.
And it’s that feeling of standing on the wrong side of the line (at least, the side that I would prefer not to be in) that really causes me to think and ponder on many of the minuscule aspects of life. I know that I am one who pays very close attention to my surroundings—how people interact and why they interact they way they do have always intrigued me. If I were to be lined up with the billions of people who inhabit this planet in a race, I would be the one who fails to hear the blast of the gun to begin the race because I’d be wondering what the motivations of different people are, how they’ll do, or even why they’ll do as well as they do.
But I’m always left with countless unanswered questions—and they all boil down to one simple one: How is it that I exist?
No, I’m not asking why I exist—although I’d love to find an answer to that—what interests me more is how I’ve come to be who I am, how the person I am today exists. In fact, it’s more than just me, but also my friends, family, community, and society.
And I’ve think I’ve slowly begun to form a conclusion. And that answer is conformity.
Frankly, I think conformity has an unfortunate negative connotation to it. I don’t think conformity is bad—no, conformity tends to bring happiness. The absence of that conformity tends to bring about trouble and difficulty. Thus I’d argue that many things that compose this world of ours are the product of conformity—even if there are contradictory sides to any one issue. It is these common ideals and values that are shared amongst the millions that characterize this world, and with the onslaught of globalization and the homogenization of the cultures and peoples of this planet, these very ideals and values are becoming increasingly unified—the product of further conformity, typically leaning towards the ideals and values of the greater majority.
You claim that you don’t conform? Conformity doesn’t only take place when there are differing opinions or you think you might believe in what the majority opposes, but it is entrenched deep into the basic building blocks of our lives and society. Language is, as I believe, king and key to conformity—I’ve previously said in posts from last semester that to understand a culture is to be able to understand its language, and in turn, understand what the members of the culture conform to. The simple usage of language is conformity in of itself, as well as following rules, laws, or any other guidelines set by people for the “greater good.” To survive in this society, one must prescribe to the basic principles of conformity.
I am the product of conformity, as are you.
