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 Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, many of the character are conformists or conform to something one way or another. Major Major tries to act like the other men but still ends up being hated by everyone for no real reason besides being a major. Yossarian was in Pianosa and was just dealing with strangers shooting at him. He followed orders. However, he questioned why they had to do the things they were doing in the first place, why he had to kill people he didn’t know before they killed him first. At first, it did not bother him that he was killing people, but he was afraid of death. His fear of his own mortality caused him to question the order of his commanding officers and question his friends who actually enjoyed being in the war,
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.
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
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
People have been changing their behavior or obeying someone else’s commands for years. This continues today in our everyday lives. Conformity and obedience seem similar but differ in several ways. Conformity is defined by psychologists as a change in behavior or belief to accord with others. Similar to this, is obedience. Obedience is defined acting in accordance with a direct order or command. Normally people conform to reap a reward or to avoid punishment. If we comply with a direct order or command it is considered obedience. Most of the time when people comply, it is to be accepted among others so they are not seen as outsiders. On the other hand, when we obey, we are obeying a command an authority figure gives. Conformity and obedience like this can be seen in groups such as cults.
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
Conformity and Obedience in Society The desire to be accepted and belong to a group is an undeniable human need. But how does this need affect an individual? Social psychologists have conducted numerous experiments and concluded that, through various forms of social influence, groups can change their members’ thoughts, feelings, and behavior. In her essay “Group Minds,” Doris Lessing discusses our paradoxical ability to call ourselves individuals and our inability to realize that groups define and influence us.
A man of great honor: John Fitzgerald Kennedy once said “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” While conformity is something you can stand against, flouting can lead to downfall. Through the works studied it is evident citizens of different European countries were forced to comply to the expectations of their leader during the time of World War Two. Through characters, and theme it is revealed that conforming to society during this time period was highly influenced. Through the novel Anthony Doerr 's All The Light We Cannot See it is evident characters such as Marie-Laure Leblanc a perseverant blind girl, and Werner Pfennig a boy of many hidden talents are compelled to follow in the path of the citizens of their nature
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.
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.
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.
Conformity, compliance and obedience are behavioural consequences of social influence (real or imagined social pressure) that occur in the presence of a group or other individuals (Elsenbroich & Xenitidou, 2012). Often these concepts are misinterpreted as being the same or even synonymous and while they do have similarities they are also very dissimilar. In social psychology conformity, compliance and obedience are distinct concepts that coincide due to their effect on behaviour in the presence of others. Pascual, Line Felonneau, Guéguen & Lafaille (2013) define conformity as an altering of behaviour and beliefs in an individual in order to reflect the behaviour and beliefs of the group that holds influence, though Myers (2014) emphasises that
Elliot Aronson (2012) provides a definition of conformity, two social psychological processes that underlie a conformity and cited examples of reasons why people conform in the book, The Social Animal. Aronson (2012) defines a conformity as “a change in a person’s behavior or opinion as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people” (p.19). In accordance with Aronson’s (2012) definition of conformity, people do conform owing to the social influence, which are two main social psychological processes: belonging and getting information.
That is not true for me. When a person lives, it is when he/she does not worry about something far from your own concerns, it is when he/she loves to live a life helping others, but not all the time, sometimes being selfish and still ask for forgiveness. These are simple things that make us a living human being. There is a saying “Cogito Ergo Sum” by Rene Descartes which means “I think therefore I am”, it is true but life is not always about thinking. Sometimes overthinking leads to a person to do indecisive actions such as committing crimes, or even suicide, which deletes the meaning of the saying. For me, existing as a human person is simply just living life like a normal person, because that is what the society demands us to do as of now, if you do anything differently then you will be judged and criticized which is not a good sign because, again, it could lead to indecisive