CONFORMITY

CONFORMITY

YOU PROBABLY KNOW THAT CONFORMITY IS A GOOD THING IN CHINA

I CAN SEE MANY GOOD THINGS IN CONFORMITY

(BAD TOO)

AS A WESTERNER I VALUE NON-CONFORMITY
CONFORMING TO WESTERN VALUES I VALUE NON-CONFORMITY

ANYWAY HERE IS SOME VIEW ON WHY CONFORMITY IS SEEN AS GOOD OR BAD

CONFORMITY/ NON-CONFORMITY AS GOOD / BAD


ON CONFORMITY as bad

Conformity is generally seen as a bad thing in Western countries.

Why?

If you conform you

* lack originality
which means you cannot create any new ides, society cannot progress or evolve

which means you don't have a self
in the west it is important to distinguish yourself as separate from others
to show you have a self

* people don't know
people don't know what you truly think, if you just parrot a religion or what everyone says
people think you have no personality

* power imbalance
westerners thinks that conformity occurs when there is a power imbalance
with the most powerful class setting the standard and everyone has to go
along with this -- even if it is harmful to you
maybe it will only benefit the most powerful group

* boring
westerners find it boring if everyone is the same
too predictable

* childish
it is seen as childish and weak.
it is seen as unintelligent because if you were intelligent you would have your own ideas
it is seen as uninteresting if you were interesting you would say something new or different
if you were strong, you would be strong enough to tell your true feelings despite others disaproval

* sacrifice
people in the west feel sorry for people who conform
because they feel like the "real them" is in there but cannot be shown
westerners see this as painful
the idea of not being able to be yourself
being yourself means -- be able to do and say what is honestly in your heart

* not real love
In the west we believe that there are differences between people
and true loves acepts others despite these differences
maybe you want your child to be a musician
but the child wants to be a sports star
the parent that truly loves his child would love them
unconditionally ----- that is without conditions, without 要求
because they want there child to be 'true to himself'



CONFORMITY AS GOOD

SAFETY
things are very safe with conformity. you know what everyone is going to do.
what is expected, you don't have to think too much. and you
don't know anything but conformity you don't think you are
missing out on your 'true self'. your true self is embedded in your
relationships with others.
you are not thinking "if only I could do X" or "say X" because
you have absorbed the culture so much that you never think
about doing x, or saying x. that thought has not crossed your mind
because you have totally observed the group values.


EASIER
it is easier. everyone gets along well.
everyone is doing the same thing.
for example. you want to get married and have kids by 27.
so does everyone else in the society.
whereas in the west there are 20 choices
eg. marry/not marry, kids/no kids, marry between 18 -99,
have kids between 13 -42, divorce, not marry have kids, celibate,
live together, don't etc. gay/straight. sex before/after marriage etc
so not only do westerners have SO many choices.
when you love someone maybe they DON"t want the same thing.
she wants to marry, he doesn't, he wants kids, she doesn't

also you are supposed to finish uni in your 20s.
post grad courses in Aus are full of people from the age of 24 -78yo
lots of 40yo finally make time to do their Phd.
so westerners have to alway think "what will I do this year? move to Italy, do a Phd, change careers?"
where in China you don't have those decisions to contend with. because
people will think you are weird.

You don't have to ponder the meaning of life.
In every choice one has to make
It forces one to reeaxmine their values.
What is the most important thing in life?
Is it enjoyment? money? time? family?
etc
really have to think "What do I really want?"
weighing up all the options makes many people
look towards philosophy, psychology, spirituality,
different advice from friends, new age , fortune tellers.
It does make you think "who am I?"
what do I want my life to be like.
Then you realise there is no right or wrong.
it can lead to an existential crisis.
In China there is a ready made value system
telling you what everyone wants from their life
and what is important.
So YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT IS IMPORTANT
which saves a lot of time and energy
and maybe in the West sometimes you regret your choices


BELONGING
you feel the sense of belonging and harmony with other people


CARING FOR OTHERS
showing that you follow your parents values makes them happy
you care for the other people and your family in society
you don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable
so you maybe curb your thoughts and behaviour for the good of the whole


REAL LOVE

you love other people more than yourself
you think of others first
so don't bring up radically different ideas
or behave in a radically different way

(do people really want to do this anyway
are we just taught in the west that there is
a 'real me' longing to get out and express itself?)



NON-CONFORMITY AS GOOD


CHOICE
non conformity means people can choose their religion,
what they wear, what they say or write, when they do things,
how they do things --- without others stopping them

of course in the West we have to curb our choices
if we share a house we need to share with people who
have similar values. ie like to play loud music

westerners believe that if you are not hurting anyone then it is okay.

If a man wears a dress. In Australia that man will probably get bashed
and suffer discrimination. People will stare etc. There is conformity.
However, educated people would argue that it is okay for a man to wear
a dress. They would say "it is not hurting anyone else". They would argue that
in Scotland men wear skirts and through history men wore skirts.
That while in current time men usually don't this could always change
as things always change through history.

Anyway in the west we believe in freedom of choice.



"It is your choice"
"It is his choice"
"It is your life do what you want with it"
"As long as your are not hurting anyone, do what you like"
"It's my life, I will do what I see fit"
"It is none of your business what other people do"
"Who are you to judge?"
"Who died and made you God"
"Free to be me"

CREATIVE AND SCIENTIFIC INVENTION

people used to think the world was flat.
everyone just went along and agreed with this.
until someone thought for themself
did not just copy but started to think "is that true"
questioned, and made a discovery of what was actually the case
If we just parrot what other people say
we never grow or find anything new.

so there is much evolution in the West.
new technology, fashion

people do and say diverse things
and this is encouraged
and sometimes
fashion, technology, science, art, literature is transformed

In Western education we are encouraged to be creative.
It is not about getting things "right" or "wrong"
It is about trying. It is about thinking.
We are told "Don't believe everything teachers, text books or authorities tell you"
Decide for yourself.

This was resisted in art at first.

INTELLIGENCE
see above. memory is not enough
to be considered intelligent in the west
you have to think of new ideas
and be able to think things in depth

INTERESTING

We believe non conformity makes life interesting
We like surprises. Meeting someone who totally changes the way
we think. Seeing a film that really opens our eyes.
Being engaged in debate or disagreement.
Having choices so life is not predictable.
Meeting people who are totally different
language, culture, lifestyle and finding things in common
and learning about what is different.

People who are very much non conformers
are seen as entertaining, interesting, quirky
unusual, artistic
and they are usually liked (in big cities)

HAPPINESS
we believe people who conform are generally unhappy
we think of the real them trapped inside their body
but unable to be real in the outside world

BRAVE
we see non-conformists as brave.
there are many stories of people who lived a lie
for years. not being there TRUE self
just did what their parents wanted
then got the courage to be real
and how some people did not accept them
and some people did (THEIR TRUE FRIENDS ACCEPTED THEM)
or people did not at first accept them, but then they began to understand

LEADERS
are leaders, not followers,
set the trends
people copy them
not them copying others
ground breaking innovators


ADULT
showing that you can make your own decisions shows you are
an adult
not a little kid that has to ask mummy what you are allowed or not allowed to do
not someone who has to get permission but a fully functioning
who relies on themself not on parents and others

POLITICAL









NON CONFORMITY AS BAD


BETRAYING SOCIETY AND YOUR PARENTS
why you don't conform your parents feel sad
they are worried what other people think
and society thinks you don't care about other people




IMMATURE
some westerners see non-conformers as immature
attention seekers, who will get over it when they grow up
(i think this sometimes)

they also note many non conformers conform to a
small subculture like Gothics
which are very conformist in their non conformity

WASTE TIME AND MONEY
people who don't conform in fashion way.
like punks or goths or something spend so
much money being 'non conformist"
or painting your car with dots or something
that people think "why bother if it takes SO much effort to not conform"



ARGUMENTATIVE/ANGRY
some people have ideas radically different to the group
these people are seen as trouble makers
the "angry young man" thing
people wonder if they really care so much
about rights or if they just want to make trouble

HARD TO UNDERSTAND?
some people are very happy to follow the mainstream
want to get married, be rich, shop, have children,
be a typical woman/man etc. this is what they prefer?
so they don't understand non-conformists at all

Why do they have to xxxxx?
Why do they xxxxx?"
they just look others sideways, screw up their face
then shrug their shoulders, they think non conformers are laughable

RELIGIOUS
you should have faith in God

RELIANT ON AUTHORITY/ILLOGICAL THINKING/TRADITION

x said it was right so it must be right

this is the way we have always done it, so it must be right

at first I started sorting them into groups but gave up, too time consuming.

for first 20 or so are grouped,

the other ones are not

CONFORMITY
GOOD/NEUTRAL

birds of a feather flock together
don't cut of you toe to spite your face
Follow the well beaten path


We are half ruined by conformity; but we should be wholly ruined without it. ~Charles Dudley Warner



CONFORMITY
BAD

everyone is jumping someone elses train (copying)

you find you lived your life for people who did not like then and do not like you now (sacrifice)

It is crazy to see people be what society wants them to be - but not me

You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note. ~Doug Floyd


The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you except yourself. ~Rita Mae Brown, Venus Envy


A "Normal" person is the sort of person that might be designed by a committee. You know, "Each person puts in a pretty color and it comes out gray." ~Alan Sherman

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. ~Winston Churchill




Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road. ~Voltaire


The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking. ~J.K. Galbraith





NON-CONFORMITY
GOOD

why be normal?
Think for yourself
Don't just read out of a text book
Oh that's original (when someone says something someone else thinks)
Be yourself
Free to be me
The Road Less Traveled

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE







A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson



TRUE TO YOURSELF, INTERESTING


Nature made us individuals, as she did the flowers and the pebbles; but we are afraid to be peculiar, and so our society resembles a bag of marbles, or a string of mold candles. Why should we all dress after the same fashion? The frost never paints my windows twice alike. ~Lydia Maria Child



NATURAL AND BEAUTIFUL


Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
INNOVATION





NON-CONFORMITY
BAD


NON GROUPED ONES



CONFORMITY QUOTES



Welcome to The Quote Garden!






Every society honors its live conformists, and its dead troublemakers. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
INNOVATION


Don't think you're on the right road just because it’s a well-beaten path. ~Author Unknown
NO RIGHT OR WRONG


Most people are more comfortable with old problems than with new solutions. ~Author Unknown
INNOVATION


Stubborness does have its helpful features. You always know what you are going to be thinking tomorrow. ~Glen Beaman
INTELLIGENCE


Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity. ~Christopher Morley
???



You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note. ~Doug Floyd
INTEREST


The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you except yourself. ~Rita Mae Brown, Venus Envy
TRUE TO YOURSELF

A "Normal" person is the sort of person that might be designed by a committee. You know, "Each person puts in a pretty color and it comes out gray." ~Alan Sherman
UNINTERESTING


Labels are for filing. Labels are for clothing. Labels are not for people. ~Martina Navratilova


The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain. ~Colin
Wilson
UNHAPPINESS/UNINTERESTING


Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE




Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary. ~Albert Einstein
INNOVATION/GREATNESS


In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. ~Bertrand Russell
INNOVATION


Not all those who wander are lost. ~J.R.R. Tolkien


You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. ~Winston Churchill
BRAVE


We are half ruined by conformity; but we should be wholly ruined without it. ~Charles Dudley Warner


Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road. ~Voltaire
BRAVE


The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking. ~J.K. Galbraith
BRAVE/INTELLIGENT


The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them. ~George Bernard Shaw
SCIENTIFIC REALITY


What this country needs is radicals who will stay that way regardless of the creeping years. ~John Fischer


With the pride of the artist, you must blow against the walls of every power that exists the small trumpet of your defiance. ~Norman Mailer
BRAVE


Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. ~Mark Twain
THE MAJORITY IS GENERALLY UNTHINKING, AND USUALLY WRONG


The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. ~Friedrich Nietzsche
BRAVE


New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. ~John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
LOGIC


Doubt is healthy. It tests one's convictions. ~From the movie Haunted


Before you can break out of prison, you must first realize you're locked up. ~Author Unknown
FREEDOM


Ain't no man can avoid being average, but there ain't no man got to be common. ~Satchel Paige


One who walks in another's tracks leaves no footprints. ~Proverb
LACK OF INNOVATION


Be neither a conformist or a rebel, for they are really the same thing. Find your own path, and stay on it. ~Paul Vixie
BALANCE


I may not be different, but I'm definitely not the same. ~William J. Dybus
BALANCE


It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. ~Herman Melville
INNOVATION, TRYING, MAKING YOUR MARK


We need - and should encourage and honour - not only discoverers of facts hitherto unknown but explorers of ideas and rethinkers of values. ~Walter Moberly, The Crisis in the University


If you don't control your mind, someone else will. ~John Allston
FREEDOM


In the moment of our creation we receive the stamp of our individuality; and much of life is spent in rubbing off or defacing the impression. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
NATURE

Be open-minded, but not so open-minded that your brains fall out. ~Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.
HA HA


To be dragged in the wake of the passive flock and to pass a hundred and one times beneath the shears of the shepherd, or to die alone like a brave eagle on a rocky crag of a great mountain: that is the dilemma. ~Praxedis Guerrero, RegeneraciÓn, 18 February 1911
HA HA GREATNESS, OR MEDIOCRE


I guess I've spent my life listening to what wasn't being said. ~Eli Khamarov, America Explained!


Human beings, for all their pretensions, have a remarkable propensity for lending themselves to classification somewhere within neatly labeled categories. Even the outrageous exceptions may be classified as outrageous exceptions! ~W.J. Reichmann


I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education. ~Wilson Mizner



When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. ~Eric Hoffer, Passionate State of Mind, 1955
CONFORMITY IS NATURAL


If you keep doing things like you've always done them, what you'll get is what you've already got. ~Author Unknown
LACK OF INNOVATION


When I was four years old they tried to test my IQ, they showed me this picture of three oranges and a pear. They asked me which one is different and does not belong, they taught me different was wrong. ~Ani Difranco
NO RIGHT OR WRONG


Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity; and fashion will drive them to acquire any custom. ~George Bernard Shaw


What we call human nature in actuality is human habit. ~Jewel Kilcher, Pieces of You
CONFORMITY UNNATURAL


It's a rash man who reaches a conclusion before he gets to it. ~Jacob Levin


Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt. ~Clarence Darrow


Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature. ~George Bernard Shaw
CONFORMITY IS NOT NATURAL



Never accept the proposition that just because a solution satisfies a problem, that it must be the only solution. ~Raymond E. Feist


The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. ~Friedrich Nietzsche, The Dawn, 1881


Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us - and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along. ~Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection


My theory is that the hardest work anyone does in life is to appear normal. ~From the movie Ed TV
BEING TRUE TO YOURSELF, EVERYONE IS DIVERSE


I don't rent space to anyone in my head. ~Anonymous man on Candid Camera, answering Allen Funt's question about why he had not gotten upset


Only dead fish swim with the stream. ~Malcolm Muggeridge
UNTHINKING PEOPLE CONFORM


The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. ~G.B. Shaw, Man and Superman, 1903
INNOVATION, PROGRESS


Just because something is tradition doesn't make it right. ~Anthony J. D'Angelo, The College Blue Book
NO RIGHT OR WRONG


And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps. ~H.L. Mencken


None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Those who stand for nothing fall for anything. ~Alexander Hamilton


I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations, nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine. ~Fritz Perls
FREEDOM NOT JUDGE


One dog barks at something, and a hundred bark at the bark. ~Chinese Proverb


Common experience shows how much rarer is moral courage than physical bravery. A thousand men will march to the mouth of the cannon where one man will dare espouse an unpopular cause. ~Clarence Darrow, Resist Not Evil
BRAVERY


If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. ~Anatole France
CONSENSUS DOES NOT EQUAL TRUTH


Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are. ~Quentin Crisp
NOT BEING TRUE TO YOURSELF


Heresies are experiments in man's unsatisfied search for truth. ~H.G. Wells, Crux Ansata


Fashion is more powerful than any tyrant. ~Latin Proverb


Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it - even if I have said it - unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. ~Buddha
DON'T RELY ON AUTHORITY


All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions. ~Adlai Stevenson, speech, Princeton, 1954
INNOVATION


If they give you ruled paper, write the other way. ~Juan Ramon Jimenez



Emancipate yourself from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds.
~Bob Marley
RELY ON SELF


The fastest way to succeed is to look as if you're playing by other people's rules, while quietly playing by your own. ~Michael Korda
SECRETYLY DON'T CONFORM, BUT APPEAR AS IF YOU ARE


I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones. ~John Cage
INNOVATION


You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind-legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men. ~Max Beerbohm


Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. ~Albert Camus


No man can cause more grief than that one clinging blindly to the vices of his ancestors. ~William Faulkner


No. ~President Jimmy Carter's daughter Amy, when asked if she had any message for the children of America


People still retain the errors of their childhood, their nation, and their age, long after they have accepted the truths needed to refute them. ~Condorcet, Progress of the Human Mind, 1794


I believe more follies are committed out of complaisance to the world, than in following our own inclinations. ~Mary Wortley Montagu
CONSCIENCE


The eager and often inconsiderate appeals of reformers and revolutionists are indispensable to counterbalance the inertia and fossilism marking so large a part of human institutions. ~Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas, 1871


The number of those who undergo the fatigue of judging for themselves is very small indeed. ~Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Critic, 1799
IT IS TIRING TO THINK, EASIER TO CONFORM


There are some men who turn a deaf ear to reason and good advice, and willfully go wrong for fear of being controlled. ~La Bruyère, Characters, 1688


It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance," 1841
SELF RELIANCE, GREATNESS


The most damaging phrase in the language is: "It's always been done that way." ~Grace Hopper


A lawyer's brief will be brief, before a freethinker thinks freely. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
FREETHINKERS ARE FAKES WHO JUST CLAIM TO THINK FREELY


Public opinion is a compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy, and newspaper paragraphs. ~Robert Peel


The marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading "Keep Off." ~Carl Sandburg


Habit rules the unreflecting herd. ~William Wordsworth, Ecclesiastical Sonnets, 1822
STUPIDITY IN CONFORMITY


The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them. ~Albert Einstein, letter to Sigmund Freud, 30 July 1932
NO FREEDOM, BEING CONTROLLED


The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone. ~Henrik Ibsen
BRAVERY


If everyone is thinking alike then somebody isn't thinking. ~George S. Patton


Yield to all and you will soon have nothing to yield. ~Aesop, "The Man and His Two Wives," Fables
WEAKNESS IN CONFORMITY


Conformity is that jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. ~John F. Kennedy
LACK OF INNOVATION, FREEDOM


Our concern must be to live while we're alive... to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are. ~Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
BEING TRUE TO ONESELF


Every man is a reformer until reform tramps on his toes. ~Edgar Watson Howe, Country Town Sayings, 1911


Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our fathers have done them or that our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a larger part than we suspect of what we think. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.


Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model. ~Vincent Van Gogh


I had an immense advantage over many others dealing with the problem inasmuch as I had no fixed ideas derived from long-established practice to control and bias my mind, and did not suffer from the general belief that whatever is, is right. ~Henry Bessemer (discovered new method of producing steel)


If you believe everything you read, you better not read. ~Japanese Proverb
FIND YOUR OWN TRUTH


I merely observe that all living things are manipulated. As long as there is a will, it is bent and twisted constantly. Only the dead are allowed the luxury of freedom, and then only because they want nothing, and therefore can't be thwarted. ~Orson Scott Card


You cannot be both fashionable and first-rate. ~Logan Pearsall Smith
GREATNESSS IN NON CONFORMITY


One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea. ~Walter Bagehot
HUMAN NATURE DOESN'T LIKE CHANGE


Public opinion... requires us to think other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to follow other men's habits. ~Walter Bagehot, Biographical Studies, 1907


Unless one decorates one's house for oneself alone, best leave it bare, for other people are walleyed. ~D.H. Lawrence


We begin life with the world presenting itself to us as it is. Someone - our parents, teachers, analysts - hypnotizes us to "see" the world and construe it in the "right" way. These others label the world, attach names and give voices to the beings and events in it, so that thereafter, we cannot read the world in any other language or hear it saying other things to us. The task is to break the hypnotic spell, so that we become undeaf, unblind and multilingual, thereby letting the world speak to us in new voices and write all its possible meanings in the new book of our existence. Be careful in your choice of hypnotists. ~Sidney Jourard
RELATIVISM, THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG,


I'm not sure I want popular opinion on my side - I've noticed those with the most opinions often have the fewest facts. ~Bethania McKenstry
LOGIC






But it is just when opinions universally prevail and we have added lip service to their authority that we become sometimes most keenly conscious that we do not believe a word that we are saying. ~Virginia Woolf


When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. ~Jonathan Swift
PEOPLE DON'T LIKE NEW IDEAS


Every man who is truly a man must learn to be alone in the midst of all the others, and if need be against all the others. ~Romain Rolland
GREATNESS, TRUE TO YOURSELF, BEING AN ADULT


Minorities are the stars of the firmament; majorities, the darkness in which they float. ~Martin H. Fischer


And who can doubt that it will lead to the worst disorders when minds created free by God are compelled to submit slavishly to an outside will? When we are told to deny our senses and subject them to the will of others? ~Galileo Galilei


Man is a gregarious animal, and much more so in his mind than in his body. He may like to go alone for a walk, but he hates to stand alone in his opinions. ~George Santayana
BELONGING TO SOCIETY

We must not overlook the role that extremists play. They are the gadflies that keep society from being too complacent. ~Abraham Flexner, Universities, 1930


At the bottom of a good deal of bravery... lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion. ~E.H. Chapin
BRAVERY


The plague of mankind is the fear and rejection of diversity: monotheism, monarchy, monogamy and, in our age, monomedicine. The belief that there is only one right way to live, only one right way to regulate religious, political, sexual, medical affairs is the root cause of the greatest threat to man: members of his own species, bent on ensuring his salvation, security, and sanity. ~Thomas Szasz
RELATIVSIM, NO RIGHT OR WRONG, DIVERSITY


If you want to look like the people next door, you're probably smothering yourself and your dreams. ~Clive Barker


How glorious it is - and also how painful - to be an exception. ~Alfred de Musset
GLORY, GREATNESS, PAIN


Orthodoxy: That peculiar condition where the patient can neither eliminate an old idea nor absorb a new one. ~Elbert Hubbard, The Note-Book, 1927


If you do not agree with the prevalent point of view, be ready to explain why. ~Martin H. Fischer


The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors. ~John Stuart Mill


We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect. ~Ambrose Bierce, Epigrams
NO CHOICE BUT CONFORM


Mental slavery is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul. ~Robert Ingersoll, Individuality
NOT TRUE TO YOURSELF


Here in America we are descended in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower, address, Columbia University, 31 May 1954


Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking. ~Alfred North Whitehead


I believe in rules. Sure I do. If there weren't any rules, how could you break them? ~Leo Durocher


He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. ~Albert Einstein


Never assume the obvious is true. ~William Safire, Sleeper Spy
QUESTION


We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles. ~Mark Twain


Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. ~Mark Twain


History does not teach fatalism. There are moments when the will of a handful of free men breaks through determinism and opens up new roads. People get the history they deserve. ~Charles de Gaulle


Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment. ~Seneca


I don't necessarily agree with everything I say. ~Marshall McLuhan


They will say that you are on the wrong road, if it is your own. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin
NO RIGHT OR WRONG, BE TRUE TO YOURSELF


The good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive - a definition that invalidates man's consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence. The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society - a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a super-being embodied in no one in particular and everyone in general except yourself.... The purpose of man's life, say both, is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question. ~Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957 (Thanks, Mary)


Traditions are group efforts to keep the unexpected from happening. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
PREDICTABILITY, SAFETY


History is particularly important in throwing light on the source of our attitudes about sex because many of the assumptions we make are not necessarily scientific or rational but holdovers of past belief systems that are no longer held by modern society. ~Vern Bullough


If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist it's another nonconformist who doesn't conform to the prevailing standards of nonconformity. ~Bill Vaughan


Men will sooner surrender their rights than their customs. ~Moritz Guedemann


I try not to break the rules, but merely to test their elasticity. ~Bill Veeck


If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun. ~Katherine Hepburn
INTERESSTING


To be a genuine individualist requires a great deal of strength and courage. It is never easy to chart new territory, to cross new frontiers, or to introduce subtle shadings to an established color. ~Toller Cranston
BRAVE


My manner of thinking, so you say, cannot be approved. Do you suppose I care? A poor fool indeed is he who adopts a manner of thinking for others! My manner of thinking stems straight from my considered reflections; it holds with my existence, with the way I am made. It is not in my power to alter it; and were it, I'd not do so. ~Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade


When some folks agree with my opinions I begin to suspect I'm wrong. ~Kin Hubbard


Custom meets us at the cradle and leaves us only at the tomb. ~Robert Ingersoll, Individuality


If you see in any given situation only what everybody else can see, you can be said to be so much a representative of your culture that you are a victim of it. ~S.I. Hayakawa


You laugh at me because I am different; I laugh because you are all the same. ~Daniel Knode


The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered. ~Samuel Butler, Notebooks, 1912


Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead. ~Aldous Huxley


Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago. ~Bernard Berenson, Notebook, 1892


The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well. ~Foe Ancis
EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT


Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new. ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854


Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. ~George Bernard Shaw


My uncle ordered popovers
from the restaurant's bill of fare.
And, when they were served,
he regarded them with a penetrating stare.
Then he spoke great words of wisdom
as he sat there on that chair:
"To eat these things," said my uncle,
"You must exercise great care.
You may swallow down what's solid,
but you must spit out the air!"
And as you partake of the world's bill of fare,
that's darned good advice to follow.
Do a lot of spitting out the hot air.
And be careful what you swallow.
~Theodore Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss), from a commencement address


What makes you think that human beings are sentient and aware? There's no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told - and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their "beliefs." The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is a self-congratulatory delusion. ~Michael Crichton, The Lost World


Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was. ~Margaret Mitchell


A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip, and worried to death by a frown on the right man's brow. ~Charlie Brower


I feel like a fugitive from the law of averages. ~William H. Mauldin


All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. ~Paul Simon
BRAVERY?


Men get opinions as boys learn to spell,
By reiteration chiefly.
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh, 1856
ADULT

False opinions are like false money, struck first of all by guilty men and thereafter circulated by honest people who perpetuate the crime without knowing what they are doing. ~Joseph De Maistre


From now on, I'll connect the dots my own way. ~Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes
INDEPENDENT


I am not eccentric. It's just that I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of goldfish. ~Dame Edith Sitwell
TRUE TO YOURSELF


I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions. ~Lillian Hellman



Page Information:
www.quotegarden.com/conformity.html
Last modified 2007 Sep 05 Wed 17:55 PDT




Site Navigation Home Page Send This Page Site Information




Web quotegarden.com


Next Friday, Saturday & Sunday is the Dragon Boat Festival


On this day Chinese people eat green triangles
with rice inside and a sweet substance

the rice is wrapped in thick green leaves (leaves from banana trees???)

The story behind this festival is this....


In ancient times there was a poet who killed himself by throwing
himself into the river

It was believed that there was a dragon who lived in this river


People were worried he will be eaten by the dragon

So they threw in the zongzi (little triangles of rice)

so the dragon would be full and not eat him