Conformity Vs Society

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Just go with the flow, don’t stick out of the crowd, everyone else is doing it. Everyone has been told a statement like this at some point in their lifetime. Today conformity is the new American dream. What is trending being the thing to do, you are unpopular if you aren’t like everyone else. Is this the way society advances? Ralph Waldo Emerson believed that this wasn’t the case. Emerson believed conformity is controlled by society however; conformity also poisons society at the same time. This theme can be easily seen in Emerson’s Self-Reliance, which discusses conformity. Society vs the mind, destructiveness of imitation, and the power of human will, are just three of the many topics Emerson discusses throughout Self-Reliance. Society …show more content…

This hope being within the mind, and the power in every thought. “…believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men, -that is genius” (Emerson 1869). To be truly free from society, man needs to break free from the cage and trust in himself. By trusting in himself, man can become independent from society and create his own customs and thoughts. To achieve a goal such as this may seem hard for most, however, it is achievable. When going down this road, it is likely to stumble over traps set by society, like limits and “easier” pathways. Man, must persevere through these obstacles to achieve the goal of independence. Another major trap set by society is the look of the path. While looking at other’s path, it may seem like theirs is straight and smooth, while the path you follow is zig zag and rough. This is an allusion set by society, to trick man into conforming to the customs used by others. Emerson tries to unveil this allusion by stating, “The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency.” (Emerson 1875). This quote alone, speaks volumes for the theme of conformity. Emerson explains that even the man that society sets as the “best” walks down a path very similar to the rest of man. It all depends on the perspective the path is viewed from. Though

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