Colin Wilson says everyone is a conformist. Are we all conformists? “The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in rain.” Colin Wilson. Is the average man and woman a conformist, acting like cows until the cowboys come? Sitting in the rain, is sort of a deep and insightful action, in my opinion. According to the quote the average person is a stoic. What does the word stoic mean? A stoic is, according to Merriam-Webster dictionary, a person who accepts what happens without complaining or showing emotion or one apparently or professedly indifferent to pleasure or pain. So the average man is a stoic; someone who is indifferent to pleasure or pain. He really has a pessimistic view of the …show more content…
The great philosopher and teacher, Plato, believed that all humans want to be good and kind to other humans. He taught his belief in the goodness of life, an idea that the purpose of life was to find goodness at its most elementary level. I believe we all want to be good people and enjoy life and the experience of our interaction with other humans, which is the purpose of life. Now, many disagree on the purpose of life, for reasons ranging from religious to personal discrepancy, but Wilson cannot say that the average person is an unadventurous and unquestioning soul. Human nature, some might say the human condition, is to try and expand our own intellects by inquiry and questing for knowledge. Going through life devoid of emotion, in my opinion, should not be considered living. The quest for what is real and meaningful in life is not if bad or good things happen but how you treat others. It is not found in the way you show or do not show your emotion but how you talk, touch, live, love, and experience life with others. That is why I disagree with the quote from Colin Wilson, there is something more to life than if it’s a bad or good event that is happening to you, it’s how you treat the others who are …show more content…
The three fundamental reasons I disagree with the Wilson quote. “The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in rain.” Is the quote that says the average, which should be seen as every single individual human being as a whole society, is not affected or shows no emotion in their lives. Wilson must either be a hyper-stoic or does not see what happens in the world as bad. He really has a pessimistic view of the world, Mr. Wilson, for thinking the average man or woman cannot show if they feel pleasure or pain. Is the world really so bad that in his view we all just trudge through life, indifferent to the happenings of the day to day. By saying the average man, though, that leads us to believe there are some who are not so average, maybe above or below. The persons who could be considered above average, where do they fall on this outlook of pessimism. Are they able to be stoic and also show emotion without complaining about everyday life? Colin Wilson is assuming that no one can show emotion and we assume from his assumption that means the bad things but to be a stoic means no emotion. If you’re happy and joyful you cannot show it. Have they found the key to happiness in life? Then that leads us to believe that some are below
In Christy Wampole’s “How to Live Without Irony” and Richard Taylor’s “The Meaning of Human Existence” both authors argue how humans ought to live a meaningful life. Wampole tackles the argument in a different way than Taylor but they both have similar positions on the meaning. I agree with both authors in some of the ways that we should dictate our lives to justify meaningfulness but I also believe that meaningfulness can differ from person to person. Life is very precious to us; since humans have had the ability to consciously think, we have always questioning our existence. No other animal on the planet has had the luxury of pondering whether or not their life is meaningful.
In human society, there are only a select few that choose to avoid conformity which makes them an individual in being that they can control their minds and make decisions up for themselves. A famous sociologist, Solomon Asch, conducted the Asch experiment which was a line experiment to see if people would change their answers just to fit in with the group of people around them. Astonishingly, the results proved that over 75 percent of people conform to society to fit in. Conformity in society takes away individuality in turn making humanity fade away. “Beautiful Monsters”, written by Eric Puchner, talks about a dystopian world where kids rule the world who don’t age but still look like children. The Perennials (children) are genetically born
Invisible Man ends with the narrator running away from the police for being accused of doing something he did not do. Scenes like this from a novel that was written sixty years ago can still be recognizable to readers today because of police brutality. Since the narrator was near Ras the Exhorter, he was guilty by association. Other unfortunate events led the narrator to be expelled from school, unemployed, and released from his organization. There was always a person of higher position over the narrator who had a distorted view of race relations. The Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines white supremacy as “the belief, theory, or doctrine that white people are inherently superior to people from all other racial groups, especially black
The 1950’s have received a reputation as an age of political, social and cultural conformity. This reputation is rightfully given, as with almost every aspect of life people were encouraged to conform to society. Conforming is not necessarily a negative thing for society, and the aspects of which people were encouraged to conform in the 1950’s have both negative and positive connotations.
When pondering about what an individual thinks of you, people have varying views. Some people are not concerned; to others it is the most critical matter on their mind. The feeling of being judged is a very potent emotion. Likewise, conformity is one of the largest controversies in today’s society; the behavior of someone in accordance with socially accepted conventions or standards. So if someone personally made his or her expectations on what you should be like evident, would you change? In Matthew Quick’s The Silver Linings Playbook, he illustrates that judgment and expectations conform a person into someone they are not due to their personal identity. This can be seen through a character’s loyalty to another, dominance and the vulnerability it includes, and a character’s love and devotion. Conformity and the reasons for its appearance will be analyzed through samples from Matthew Quick’s bestselling novel.
Why do we feel the need to be accepted by certain groups even if that means that we have to do or wear stuff we wouldn’t normally like? How far are we willing to go to try to mold ourselves to those standards? Sociologist today call this behavior conformity. Conformity is defined as “action in accord with prevailing social standards, attitudes and practices, (conformity)”. People tend to conform to group standards so they can feel like they are accepted and have a stable spot in society. Although some examples of this are fairly innocent, dressing in “trendy” clothes or behaving how your friends are acting so as not to be perceived as strange, conformity can easily turn into a dangerous situation. For example, say everyone in your primary group
Conformity and Its Meaning This assignment focuses upon conformity and what it means to us. Conformity is defined by Zimbardo (1992) as "A tendency for people to adopt behaviour, values and attitudes of other members of a reference group". Why people conform is a topic of much debate. People don't always conform for the same reason's, in 1958 Kelman identified three main forms of conformity, each of which could produce conforming behaviour but in different ways.
Conformist personalities can be good, nebulous, and super dangerous for the world. Conformist personalities are a type of neuroticism personality. Neuroticism is characterized by fear, anxiety, bipolar disorder, manic episodes, holding disorder, jealousy, loneliness, severe depression, and
Conformity is defined as the occurrence of people yielding to social pressures as a result of pressure from a group of their peers; when faced by the pressure to conform, people will alter their behaviour and actions to fit the norm demonstrated by their peers (Lilienfield et al., 2012). Conformity is studied so that is can be understood and used in society to facilitate positive outcomes, and help avoid situations where peoples’ predisposition to conform leads to negative consequences (Lilienfield et al., 2012). By understanding conformity and other social processes society as a whole is able to understand themselves better and motivates them to work on improving as a whole (Lilienfield et al., 2012).
Conformity, or going along with the crowd, is a unique phenomenon that manifests itself in our thoughts and behaviors. It’s quite simple to identify countless examples of the power of conformity in virtually all aspects of social life. Conformity influences our opinions and relationships with others, often to a higher extent than we realize. It is posited that people generally conform to the group in order to fit in and avoid rejection or because they truly believe the group is more knowledgeable than they are. After analyzing numerous studies and experiments on the nature of conformity, one will find that the motive of social acceptance is the greatest driver of conformity.
“Conformity is a form of social influence that involves a change in behavior or belief so that one can fit in with a certain group” (McLeod). Such a change is a response to imagined (which involves the pressure of expectations or social norms) or real (which involves the presence of others) group pressure. Another definition of conformity can be “yielding to group pressures”. Group pressure can take many forms, for example persuasion, teasing, bullying, criticism etc. Conformity is also referred to as group pressure or majority influence. The term conformity is mostly used to show an agreement to the position of the majority, and this is brought about by either by the desire to be liked or to fit in, or just to match a social role. The aim of this paper is to argue that conformity is among people because they always live in groups-work groups, family, political, religious and social groups. At the same instance, they are adjusted to obey authority. A conformist mentality makes it easy for people to be influenced by others.
Conformity is a concept that has intrigued psychologists for decades; a concept that has been the foundation of numerous studies, books, and that has been subtly woven into the media. Most of the research done on conformity has to do with what can cause conforming behavior and when conforming behavior is most prevalent. There are generally two types of influences that can cause conforming behavior, informational social influences and normative social influence. Both deal with the when and why of conformity in society and what situations typically cause a group or one or two people to conform. The most powerful and dangerous type of conformity is conformity to authority, which can cause people to obey orders that they would normally not follow in any other situation. With that being said, informational social influence can fuel conforming behavior, especially in instances when the situation is a crisis, ambiguous, and when other people in the situation have authority or expertise.
Though conformity is a humane feeling, many examples of conformity going wrong can be found throughout history. For example, multiple Germans conformed to follow Nazism and prosecuted millions of innocent Jews. Southern whites conformed to segregate thousands of African-Americans. By looking at multiple sources of literature, one can see conformity becomes unacceptable when innocent people are hurt and/or killed and affects the way one thinks or acts.
A person who lives an unexamined life may seem content and believe they have the answers to what they need to know. Philosophical questions are irrelevant to them because they assume that they have already answered them. For example, the child of a religious family may follow the theistic view and conclude that the meaning of life is following God's commandments and teachings, despite never using reason to come to their own realization. If a person doesn't have a true, rational belief about the meaning of life, they will never be fully satisfied. Without this, a person will have no goals to strive towards and their life will be pointless.
We might not have the same opinions, paths, and ways of living; but we all, millions of people around the world, share the same purpose of life: Being able to say “I am having a good life!” What we mean by “good life” is living in pure happiness and having a wonderful peace of mind. The difference between us is that each one of us chooses a different way in his pursuit of happiness. Some find it in stability with a big house, a family, and a good paying job. Some find it in adventure and wildness, travel, and taking risks. While others don’t really have specific criteria or an organized plan, they just believe that happiness comes with living each day as if it was the last, with no worries about the rest. Personally, I find it in trying to be the best version of myself, in staying true to my principles, and in the same time in being able to make my own decisions; which reminds me of what George Loewenstein said “Just because we figure out that X makes people happy and they're choosing Y, we don't want to impose X on them.”