Writes Tim Parks in "Do We Write Differently on a Screen?" in The New Yorker. And I wonder — even if you are hooked on the immediate response from readers, why are they responding to what is conformist? What makes anybody want to read anything? If it's the same as everything else, not reading it is the same as reading it. Why bother?
I had to look up how old Tim Parks is, because that talk of "conformity" sounds so 1950s/1960s to me. And, indeed, Tim Parks was born in 1954. He's in my cohort. I remember blogging a while back... oh, here it is:
It's funny, I was just saying to Meade that people don't rant against "conformity" anymore — not like they did in the 50s and 60s.... [I was thinking] about the way liberals, including liberal media folk, talk to each other and feel emotional rewards for saying what they all say back and forth to each other. They become so immersed in this feeling of belonging that they don't even hear the things that are not the things that they've been saying back and forth to each other. And my question is: Why does that feel so good? Why doesn't that immersion feel like drowning? Why don't you want to surface into the air and be free — to think about everything, from any perspective, and to find out for yourself what is true and what is good? You are a human individual: Don't you want that?
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"the apparent freedom of e-mail and the Internet makes us more and more conformist"
I agree 100%.
Working hard and fast isn't really a crisis.
It's about the commoditization of writing. When writing is something rare and precious, it makes sense to take the extra time to select the rarest writing varieties, to maximize your aesthetic pleasure.
When you know you'll never run out of it, it no longer makes sense to be so discerning and you can just gorge yourself on comfort literature.
Like what McDonald's and its ilk did for food. You know you'll never be hungry, there are mountains of butter and rivers of milk out there, so you might as well go to McDonald's for a milkshake instead of always hunting for that rare Michelin-starred restaurant.
From what I can gather, conformity is considered a great sin to Boomers? Of course I assume when Boomers talk of "conformity" it's refering to conforming with the old traditional values, like stay-at-home mothers or whatever.
Political correctness, microagression, and right-think is the opposite of non-conformity.
What Fernandistein said.
What it was like then: Bob Dylan and Joan Baez standing next to a poster that reads Protest against the rising tide of conformity.
"talk to each other and feel emotional rewards for saying what they all say back and forth to each other. They become so immersed in this feeling of belonging"
Because this is how humans act in social situations. Praise for social agreement; punishment for social disagreement. It's not particular to one ideology.
Social punishment can involve name calling, personal abuse, exclusion from the community. It is the exception when humans allow dissent in their communities. Dissent needs to be protected, else it is driven out of human communities.
High school and college debate are a good counter-point to the normal human interaction. Humans agree to disagree, with rules. It does not degenerate into personal attacks and trolling, because of the debate rules. Debaters loose points if you waste time on personal attacks while neglecting to debate the policy or idea.
But in human communities, the social imperative takes over. Intellectual debate points no longer "rule" the community. Personal abuse and insults seem to "count" to the commenters as relevant points. Community agreement, identity formation, and a sense of belonging take precedent over the intellectual debate.
"the apparent freedom of e-mail and the Internet makes us more and more conformist"
Likewise agree.
I've been thinking about different types of social interaction. Consider 19th-century calling cards. Visiting Grant's home in Illinois, the museum contained calling cards. Socializing was more restricted. How does this restriction change social behaviour? Does increased restriction allow for more dissent?
Many 21st century changes are driven by the internet. Just one example: every 19th century town of any population had at least two local newspapers. The local papers are falling apart in 21st century America. Will that event change American democracy and social behaviour? Local newspapers contained local letters to the editor, and local social events such as parades, festivals, plays.
That feeling of belonging. Must explain why I post here.
Apologies for commenting on an old post . . .
"the way liberals, including liberal media folk, talk to each other and feel emotional rewards for saying what they all say back and forth to each other."
Well, sure, but that's universal.
"And my question is: Why does that feel so good? Why doesn't that immersion feel like drowning?"
Cuz for most people the group is what sustains them.
"to find out for yourself what is true and what is good? You are a human individual: Don't you want that?"
Careful. Inching dangerously close to I-can't-believe and it's-so-sad territory.
But no, progs don't want to find out: they already know. Progs already are individuals: committed to the cause, and that's enough. What they want is power and control and the destruction of bourgeois culture as we know it.
Though of course progs nurture their own high regard for themselves, the prog culture war is not a matter of feelings. Don't-you-want is beside the point.
Now, let's repeat the non-conformists oath.
If you refuse to conform, then you have to put forth a better idea that you have just created and repeat it over, and over again. Only stop when you seem to be talking over their heads. Being nice is very overrated.
When non-comformists rise to power, all comformists will be put to the sword.
ALTHOUSE: "...people don't rant against "conformity"... like they did in the 50s and 60s.."
What? You don't think that was also a clear case of the "immersion" you are ranting against - simply hordes of conformists ranting against Conformity?
Maybe we are now simply more 'conformist' than ever in our phony non-conformity of progressive and socialistic conformity. SNL is rampant conformist 'humor'. Even anti-Trump mania is rampant conformity. The major Media are card-carrying conformists trying to outdo each other in repeating the same conformist catechism. Indeed, ALL liberal-progressive politics seeks a world of obedient Conformity. In fact and truth, Donald Trump is the only true 'non-conformist' seen in many decades of American politics. It will be interesting to see who wins.
Non-conformism was doomed from the start. In the United States, there were a number of non-conformist movements (A non-conformist movement? Isn't that an implied contradiction?), mostly religious, which pepper our evolution as a polity and a culture. In fact, non-conformism could rightly be claimed as the foundational principle of the American nation. The Pilgrims were non-conformists in opposition to the Church of England and against the non-conformist Puritans who agreed with the Pilgrims that the High Church retained too many outward features of Roman Catholicism but perhaps not to the same degree. (When in Great Britain be sure to take at least one tour of a surviving medieval cathedral, such as Ely, Durham, or Wells. Inside you'll notice the walls, arches, and vaults are mostly the same color as the exterior walls. That wasn't their original condition. During the High Gothic, England was known as a very pious, at least outwardly pious, Catholic country. And her cathedrals were ornately decorated inside with gold leaf, ivory, and colorful paintwork. These decorative elements were scrubbed, chiseled, and filed away by radical Puritans during the Civil War. They remain naked stone inside because Charles II agreed to not restore the decorations as a condition of the Restoration.)
The problem with non-conformism is the natural social inclinations of genus Homo, a group of related of great ape species descended from a less derived African ape species. If our genus were descended from the much more solitary Asian great apes (the orangutans are the last survivors of that lineage) non-conformism might have a real chance. However, our genes assure that all "non-conformists" will actually be more conformist within their ranks than the larger "conformist" societal they have allegedly rebel against. The examples are legion and I do not intend to bore the Althousians with more citations except to note that William M. Gaines invented a quip which he ascribed to his magazine's fictional mascot: "Todays non-conformists are getting harder and harder to tell apart."
Non-conformists and conformists are getting harder to tell apart.
A herd of independent minds.
On second thought I shall draw my readers' attention to many famous crimes, particularly those of the Manson Family, the Jonestown cult, and the Heaven's Gate UFO cultists. These were all self-described non-conformist movements which almost instantaneously became charismatic dictatorships ruled by patriarchs who exercised greater power over their followers than Hitler and Stalin ever managed to exert over their autocracies. Cutting conformational ties with nation and family almost guarantees that the "non-conformist" will become an ultra-conformist under the absolute control of a charismatic figure who will progressively isolate his followers until the entire movement degenerates into criminality of the most psychotic and anti-social nature.
I think the War on Individualism shows that there are a good number of people who go their own way. The current intensity of the attack implies a lack of confidence in victory. There will always be sheeple, wolves, rogues and herders. The trick is to know what you are.
The conundrum of non-conformity is probably why the newborn United States had to create a written contractual constitution, the first such instrument ever known in the history of nation-states.
In the end, Death makes conformists of us all.
2+2=4.
I am Laslo.
...people don't rant against "conformity"... like they did in the 50s and 60s..
Perhaps the majority of 60s survivors are too embarrassed to rant.
In the end, Death makes conformists of us all.
Yesterday while bantering with a long-established client I think I invented a new euphemism for death.
Distraught wife: Doctor, will my husband be alright?
Attending physician: He'll never need toilet paper again.
Yes, I do want that. That's why I read Althouse.
However, it seems that many many people just don't enjoy thinking, or at least thinking deeply. Maybe it makes them feel inadequate?
thtet
However, our genes assure that all "non-conformists" will actually be more conformist within their ranks than the larger "conformist" societal they have allegedly rebel against.
Safari spellcheck strikes again. That should read: However, our genes assure that all "non-conformists" will actually be more conformist within their ranks than the larger "conformist" societies they have allegedly rebelled against.
In the end, Death makes conformists of us all.
Oh, I dunno...
Man found eaten by bear in Great Smoky Mountains National Park died of meth overdose
What if someone in a commune in 1968 had decided to get a buzz cut and wear zoot suits? Would that have been accepted by his bearded and tie-dyed peers? I forget which historian said that the Twist was very emblematic of the 60's - everyone on the dance floor was doing their own thing in exactly the same way.
Oh, I dunno...
Oh, I dunno... Once you've made the trip the innards of a bear you're pretty indistinguishable from any other bear shit.
"What it was like then: Bob Dylan and Joan Baez standing next to a poster that reads Protest against the rising tide of conformity."
Hilarious. She is so serious.
Once the Left takes over, people MUST conform. Didn't you get the memo?
Or do you still deny that the Left took over?
Hilarious. She is so serious.
Of course if you read the fine print it’s advertising Booth’s House of Lords, “the non-conformist gin.”
Let see, black outfit, black fishnet hose, straight black hair worn Morticia Addams-style...
Yep. Non-conformist conformity.
If Baez had been anything of a conscientious non-conformist she'd have junked the stereotypical guitar and adopted the double contrabass flute. Now that's non-conformity.
Same goes for Bob "don't call me Zimmerman, I've appropriated a Welsh poet's name so you'll think I'm also a poet" Dylan. What a conformist copycat. All he does his strum guitar chords and wheeze through a harmonica. Dylan, the essential iconoclast. What a joke. The only real pop culture iconoclast with national recognition is Alfred Yankovic. But would Althouse spend hours deconstructing "Another One Rides the Bus" the way she might infuse herself into "Desolation Row"? Nah, that demands too much non-conformity.
BTW. That poster is an ad for Booth's Gin.
Modern nonconformists -
Procesion de la Hermandad Dominicana Salamanca 2018
"It's funny, I was just saying to Meade that people don't rant against 'conformity' anymore — not like they did in the 50s and 60s.... " My impression is that that's true. In fact I get the impression that many people these days actually like conformity.
My impression is that that's true. In fact, I get the impression that many people these days actually like conformity.
The irony is those same vehement non-conformists who displayed themselves as campus revolutionaries in the 60's are now the leaders of the Sturmabteilungen enforcing conformity in today's academia.
Modern nonconformists
Interesting point you've made.
Imagine what one would need to do to send Hemingway a letter demanding a new book. How would one find him? The effort of pen to paper, the shame of doing three drafts so one didn't sound a crank, the bicycle ride to the post box.
It is too much! It weeds out 90% of the cranks.
But we have the internet. Sigh
I quit Twitter because I was basically getting into this cycle of worrying about the number of followers i had. First I banned anybody who followed me to try to combat it, but finally, I just dumped Twitter.
You don’t hear a lot of “Question Authority” either. Hmmm. I sense a trend.
Most in the media are wannabe celebrities. Their hearts are set on being in that ultimate in crowd. To be in, you have to be like them.
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