Conformity does more harm than good to society

[SusanLR]

Herd mentality was the term I always used.

I have always been used to pretty well doing what I want also, as long as it didn't get me into trouble
with authorities that could cause trouble for me. So some thought goes into what I say or do
regarding repercussions. It's their game, I just play by the rules.

No one can make me conform. It's a matter of my choice and the reasons I made the choice.
I never understood peer pressure at any age. Never understood a lot of things others did though either.
The need to be accepted just didn't matter.

I tend to think there are some people that genuinely dont conform. Not many... but some.

Yup.

As far as music words, there is one song that comes to mind that fits the non-conformity theme
I always liked.
Billy Joel's -- My Life.

 

[owlet]

I don't think there's anything wrong with conformity in itself (just doing things the accepted way is fine if they work), but it's important to be able to question the accepted way and to be able to have discussions about it to see where it could be improved. It's worrying when people say things like 'that's just how it is' in response to there being a problem, because if there's a problem, that shouldn't be 'how it is' and people should be trying to fix it - or at least, I think so.

With the smaller scale kind, like liking the same music, that's usually a part of social bonding (shared interests). I've never been good at that, but if someone else, like a friend, happens to like something I like, it makes me happy. Strangers, I don't really feel anything either way.

 

[Mathalamus]

in public, i will conform to the normal standard, because thats what passes for maturity out there. no sense in creating trouble. id be very silent and avoid people, though.

 

[Autistamatic]

I have certainly had to do the "conforming to fit in" thing all my life. I've grown pretty good at it though I still get criticism for being "weird" or "too clever" (never understood that one - I've never heard anyone else criticised to their face for being "too strong", "too healthy" or "too handsome/pretty" so why is "too clever" a fault?). Conforming where one can without denying one's identity I see as a form of compromise with society. Where the failing lies is that when the limits of that ability are reached, others are often unwilling to fulfill their side of the compromise in accepting you can't be a carbon copy of their manifesto of acceptability.

 

[HidinginPlainSight]

Does society exist with conformity?

I don't believe that anyone is a carbon copy of anyone else. I'm no pillar of the community and I don't share the tastes of most people. My interests would likely get many, even here, shaking their heads at the scope of them. (Some of them involve memorizing sequences, numerical or otherwise)

That said, on a greater scale, I do conform. I hold down a job, drive close enough to the speed limit, don't damage property (etc) and generally don't act like a jerk toward people.

Liking some sort of activity or not liking it is really not the point of being a conformist or not a conformist. In the bigger picture true conformists (like myself) stay out of jail and are generally left alone.

Try not following the mores of society and see where it gets you. Drive as fast as you want and never pay your tickets, when they take your car away....drive anyways, soon enough you'll find yourself in prison. (Just a general example)

People who pay their bills, use the internet, watch TV, shop for groceries and generally live in society are conformists. It really doesn't matter how you cut your hair, how meaningful your tattoos are or if you listen to some band nobody's heard of.

 

[Autistamatic]

Functional civilisations are based on conformity. It's a contract between the state and the citizenry. We surrender an amount of freedom in return for protection, law & order, infrastructure etc... and if we don't conform to the laws (like speed limits, paying taxes...) then we run the risk of being removed from society (prison).
A second level of conformity exists in cultural expectations - what the country/region expects of you in terms of behaviour, manners, language, comportment and the like. This is a level which some AS people can have trouble with, but many (most?) of us find ways in which to blend in or go unnoticed.
The third level, noted by the OP, is that which goes beyond the social contract or the basic behavioural rules, and concerns tribalism. The need to dictate what someone must like, wear and say in order to be part of that tribe. Whilst some NT people identify strongly with a particular tribe dictated by music, sports teams, politics or religion, most have feet in many tribal camps. This causes me, and I suspect many AS people, more trouble than most. Because peer pressure goes over my head and I'm frankly not interested in being dictated to, I don't ascribe to any of these tribal rules, which has it's consequence of being shunned by them all. If you have no tribe, you have no label, and without a label they have no preconceived frame of reference on how to treat you other than "outsider".

 

[gl00m]

Functional civilisations are based on conformity. It's a contract between the state and the citizenry. We surrender an amount of freedom in return for protection, law & order, infrastructure etc... and if we don't conform to the laws (like speed limits, paying taxes...) then we run the risk of being removed from society (prison).
A second level of conformity exists in cultural expectations - what the country/region expects of you in terms of behaviour, manners, language, comportment and the like. This is a level which some AS people can have trouble with, but many (most?) of us find ways in which to blend in or go unnoticed.
The third level, noted by the OP, is that which goes beyond the social contract or the basic behavioural rules, and concerns tribalism. The need to dictate what someone must like, wear and say in order to be part of that tribe. Whilst some NT people identify strongly with a particular tribe dictated by music, sports teams, politics or religion, most have feet in many tribal camps. This causes me, and I suspect many AS people, more trouble than most. Because peer pressure goes over my head and I'm frankly not interested in being dictated to, I don't ascribe to any of these tribal rules, which has it's consequence of being shunned by them all. If you have no tribe, you have no label, and without a label they have no preconceived frame of reference on how to treat you other than "outsider".

Unhealthy conformity can make us unhappy with our lives when we deny our identity and become a fake persona.

Being a fake persona can damage mental health. The moment you become a fake persona you might forget who you really actually are.

I believe that many followers of herd mentality are unhappy people. They strive to be something they are not. They are not being authentic.

It's a disease of modern society. Some people do stupid stuff to impress others.

Some people in this thread may have missed the point.

Herd mentality (irrational, stupid, sheepish, mentally-damaging conformity)
is the problem, not conformity itself.

 

[Autistamatic]

My point is that herd mentality is an expression of tribalism. Those who ascribe to it are happy to follow, possibly because it absolves them of responsibility for their thoughts and actions. Because we aren't sensitive to the same pressures they do not understand us.
It IS damaging because it limits diversity to a finite number of narrow patterns. There is not ONE herd, there is a series of herds, but the one thing they share in common is that you MUST be part of their herd or another in order to understand you. Those who eschew the whole herd system are an even greater enemy than their rival herds so they feel comfortable uniting against their common enemy.

 

[Peter Morrison]

I believe that people who reject anything trendy are more creative and possibly more secure than people who buy clothes in a certain style because "that's what everyone is wearing". If you are on the spectrum, you have to be careful not to fall into peer pressure over shoes, music tastes, and TV shows. Children put a lot of emphasis on fitting in, but an adult doesn't need to follow trends unless they are totally without their own consciousness. You should be comfortable in the clothes you wear. You should decide how you look best.

 

[HidinginPlainSight]

Often something is popular simply because a lot of people like it. Having different tastes from them does not mean that they were somehow coerced into liking something. Nor does it mean you would have a group of friends simply for liking it too.

Using a personal example. I am from Canada and I play hockey. Many of the guys on the team are friends and share the experience of playing hockey as common ground. For the most part it's all they talk about. This is because they actually like hockey and think about it all the time. Sure it is mainstream, but I don't see this as conformity. However, simply having an interest doesn't mean we are all friends. Nobody really dislikes me on the team, they like it if I score a goal, but I'm not part of their group. From an outsider looking in, who doesn't play, likely would not understand this and label us as one tribe. The real world is seldom this simple.

I imagine that a style of music, or an artist, becomes popular because people actually like it. If you were somehow to eliminate all trends from the human consciousness right now new ones would simply emerge through statistical inevitability. In other words, something must become the most popular. As with any good set of statistics, there would be outliers too.

 

[Shamar]

We all have to conform to some degree in order to be socially accepted or otherwise we would be ostracized from society.
For example a shameless man who wears a white tank top at a workplace is going to be socially rejected by coworkers and boss for completely disregarding social etiquette.

Every society needs at least some degree of conformity or otherwise it wouldn't function and it would be anarchical.

I'm not against conformity. I am against mindless/irrational/sheepish conformity or herd mentality that our contemporary society suffers from.

I am not a anti-conformist, I am a little conformist myself, we all in fact are.

I don't despise people who occasionally conform, I despise people who conform for the sake of conforming. People who choose conformity over reason, even in the presence of superior evidence to the contrary.

There is a quote from Rollo May:
"The opposite for courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow".

Conformists are often insecure people because they fear social rejection if they don't conform. They are cowards because they are being society's slave, instead of being themselves.

Conformity isn't always a bad thing. For example I remember a classmate from High School who didn't take care of his hygiene and would wear the same clothes everyday. Naturally, peers mocked him for it. He became self-aware and started dressing better and didn't smell.

This is a positive example of conformity, but the truth is that there are much more negative examples in which conformity does more harm than good to society.

I'll give you some examples:

- if you don't listen to music or don't have favorite music, you're a weirdo.
- if you don't drink beer, you're not a real man, because real men drink beer!
- if you're a virgin, you are gay (nobody thinks of bisexual, asexual or involuntary celibate?)
- women and men can't be friends
- you never smoked??? Let me give you a cigarette (why do you want me to become a smoker too? That's bizzare.)
- virgin-shaming is okay (just another excuse for bullying)
- you really don't have facebook??? What a loser...

Much of what you say can also be allied to non-conformists. I once read a quote which went something like "Non-conformity is the safest form of conformity. You are part of a group, yet can claim to be different." Those of us who are old enough to remember the peak of the hippie movement know this. Many thousands of young non-conformists, all identical. A more recent example is the Occupy Wall Street movement. Again, all claiming to be non-conformist, yet you can't tell one from the other.

 

[Major Tom]

Sheeple...