Neel Patel Semester Exam.
In the United States, a country created out of rebellion, society seemingly celebrates the idea of uniqueness, individuality, and nonconformity. However, in Brave New World and 1984 , conformity is strictly and, sometimes, brutally enforced. However, in reality, is nonconformity really respected or are there more structures in place than we are willing to acknowledge to encourage conformity, even in the United States of 2017? While we seemingly celebrate individuality, in reality, we do many things to discourage nonconformity.
In Brave New World, stability is ensured through each individual’s conformity to the state’s values. Conformity begins in the hatchery where babies are modified and mass produced. In the
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society, there is not only a tolerance of certain kinds of non-conformity, but sometimes uniqueness and individuality are celebrated. For example, in the last presidential election both Bernie Sander and Donald Trump were campaigning “against” the establishment. They were nonconformist candidates whose campaigns gained supporters based almost entirely on the fact that their ideas went against the “mainstream” candidate moderates in their political parties. Also, in the U.S. today, the government doesn’t enforce conformity. In fact, the Supreme Court has made some decisions in recent years on issues like gay marriage that have upheld the right to be a nonconformist. However, although the government doesn’t enforce conformity, there are many ways that individuals encourage others to conform. For example, in schools and other institutions, individuals who “don’t fit in” are often harassed and bullied for being different. People who look different, dress different, or act different, face a lot of hostility. Also, it is common for individuals with differing opinions, particularly, on political issues to shout each other down. Social media is a platform where often people with unpopular ideas or opinions get bullied into being quiet and keeping their opinion to themselves. Therefore, even though, we seemingly live in a society that is tolerant of nonconformity, there are pressures to conform and be like everyone
Conformity can be very crucial, infact a lot of people eventually start hurting themselves or doing drugs just because they don't feel themselves anymore.Why can't society change? why can't that one kid that always follows everyone in the back can turn into the kid that just hangs with the people they really wanna hang with?We need to embrace ourselves so we can stop all this conformity from consuming us.Tupac was a nonconformist, he always did what made him happy and always told the truth.
Conformity, the act of changing to fit in. Conformity can completely change a person whether it be their looks, such as their the way they dress, or their personality, like the way they act around certain people. In The Sociology of Leopard Man Logan Feys argues that being human has a right to it, and that right is to be who you are. Society pushes out certain people for not fitting in with everyone else, but also says that nobody should fit in, because everyone has a different personality.
The world is divided up into numerous things: Countries, states, cities, communities, etc. However, when looking at the big scope of things, one can group the vast amount of people into a society. This society is where the majority lie in the scheme of things - in other words, the common people. Individuals do exist in this society, but they are scarce in a world of conformism. Society’s standards demands an individual to conform, and if the individual refuses they are pushed down by society.
So far, conformity has been discussed in terms of group identification and social roles. However, individuals also tend to change prior beliefs to seek group acceptance. Asch (1951) investigated the effect of group pressure on conformity by asking participants to make a line judgment with seven confederates that gave the same obviously incorrect answer. Yet, 37% of participants conformed by giving the incorrect majority answer, whereas in the absence of group pressure, less than 1% of participants conformed (Asch, 1951). There are implications on normative influence as individuals, despite knowing the majority opinion was incorrect, may conform to avoid social punishment (Breckler et al., 2005). However, Turner and colleagues (1987) argued
In society, it's difficult to go against the norm. Individuals are compelled to act a specific way, or look a specific way in order to be accepted. For instance, teenagers may encounter pressure from their peers to partake in specific exercises that may not be moral, since they feel the need to fit in. This weight of conformity isn't just present in reality; it can be found in literature as well. The story "St. Lucy’s Home For Girls Raised by Wolves" by Karen Russell depicts that in order to conform to society, individuals abandon their selflessness and compassion and become selfish and apathetic.
Everybody wants to be accepted, yet society is not so forgiving. It bends you and changes you until you are like everyone else. Society depends on conformity and it forces it upon people. In Emerson's Self Reliance, he says "Society is a joint stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. " People are willing to sacrifice their own hopes and freedoms just to get the bread to survive.
Pursuing a personal desire and choosing to conform to societal expectations is a challenging decision to make. A person must decide if their personal desire is worth risking the shame and judgment of others or is conforming the route to take because it is easier. When pursuing a personal desire one must ask itself if it is worth the hardship to accomplish one's desire or if it is best left alone and repressed, in hopes of finding comfort in conformity. John Laroche from The Orchid Thief expresses his personal desire without a care for conformity or societal expectations. Nevertheless, Laroche never stopped being strange as he grew up with fascinations of many objects such as orchids, turtles, old mirrors and fish tanks.
They program these humans to have needs and desires that will sustain a lucrative economy while not thinking of themselves as an individual. Huxley describes the World State’s intent to control their society through medical intervention, happiness, and consumerism, which has similarities to modern society. Designing life from conception is an intriguing concept. Brave New World’s World State is in control of the reproduction of people by intervening medically. The Hatchery and Conditioning Centre is the factory that produces human beings.
“Social conformity has been practiced in societies around the world since ancient times,” and the reason it is so effective is that humans have an inherent need to be accepted as part of a group (Sadat). Furthermore, Hossna Sadat reports that:
The definition of conformity is the compliance with social standards and laws in a particular culture, environment, society and time. If this occurs the individual changes their attitudes, beliefs or actions to align more holistically with those in the surrounding groups and environment, as a result of real or perceived group pressure. This is ultimately a direct result of the power which a group has over the individual. There are two types of conformity, normative conformity, and informational conformity. The motivation behind normative conformity is the desire to be liked and accepted in society. This is most widely known as peer pressure. For example, a student begins smoking because their peers
It is human nature to do this, but this does not mean it is necessary or even beneficial to our lives. An example of this tendency to conform is politics, in our government there are two main parties the Democratic and Republican Party. These parties throughout history have had ever changing views and stances on social issues and with these changing views are the votes of the public should change with the parties. Unfortunately, due to our human nature, there is a want to associate with a certain group, although their perspective upon social matters has long changed, but because of our readiness to blindly conform people state that they are a Republican/Democrat and always have been. This mindset that people tend to follow must come to an end as it is of no benefit to society. Society conforming to this trend leads to the misrepresentation of the public. This issue of our human nature to conform to a certain opinion while it has no benefit to the community must come to an end in order for the society to improve and become more
¨ Show people who you are on the inside, not the copy of someone else that’s on the outside ¨ No one has heard this quote before, but it is telling everyone to be themselves and not be ashamed who they really are not the copy you have made over the years. People in our generation tend to believe that kids and teens are not being true to themselves and just wanting to be one within the crowd.
Non-conformity and conformity are two very different things.Nonconformity is the people who want to be different than everyone else. Conformity is the people that want to fit in but some of those people have so nonconformity in them also. Although many people can't notice if themselves are non-conformist or conformist. The way to find that is by looking at yourself, yes everyone has their own different ways but conformist all similar to each other they do not want to stand out unless they look truly
Conformity is defined as the compliance with social standards and laws in a particular culture, environment, society and time. If this occurs the individual changes their attitudes, beliefs or actions to align more holistically with those in the surrounding groups and environment, as a result of real or perceived group pressure. This is ultimately a direct result of the power which a group has over the individual. There are two types of conformity, normative conformity, and informational conformity. Normative conformity is motivated by the desire to be liked and accepted in society. This is most widely known as peer pressure. For example, a student begins smoking because their peers are smoking,
Unfortunately, this struggle for conformity often extends beyond a personal level. It is not uncommon for society to chastise a person for being different, in one particular way or another. This chastising could range from polite disapproval, to snide comments, to harmful, oppressive tactics such as bullying and harassment. This causes more people to conform to society for the fear of being labeled a