What Should We Do With Nonconformists?

In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service.
- John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873)

This is an extremely complicated issue.

We need to have a certain amount of conformity in order to have a cohesive society with rules and laws that are followed by most people. Yet total conformity creates the situation where people can be led into tragic circumstances, such as happened in Germany in the 1930s or Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s.

Social pressure (aka peer pressure) is what holds together a culture, a people, a tribe or a nation. Yet social pressure in the form of peer influence can be taken to excess, leading to prejudice and extreme political idealism.

Not enough will cause a group to fall apart. Too much will result in oppression.

A balance is needed. But who decides what the balance should be? There must be nonformists in order for the boundaries of what is acceptable to the group to take form and substance. Too many nonconformists and you have anarchy.

Or at least that is what we have been led to believe by those who want to increase conformity by tightening rules and laws to make people more "the same," often supposedly for their own protection. What if a cultural group had too many nonconformists? Would it fly apart and disappear?

Social groups have predictable "laws" of nature, just like other kinds of natural laws. People need to be together in groups for their own protection and mutual benefit. We established that 12,000 years ago when agriculture first began in the Middle East. Being together means requiring a certain amount fo conformity. People will create their own structures of conformity, no matter what the circumstances.

Conformity requires consensus, though not necessarily unanimity. A majority must agree on how its members will act and what behaviours are wrong.

What if there were total unanimity? First of all, every society has total unanimity in the form of laws that its members may not kill each other, as well as other laws without which the numbers of the group would reduce markedly.

Outside of those cases, total unanimity never happens. If it did, social and economic stagnation would occur. The group would become, in effect, inbred and eventually be overcome by another group.

We need nonconformists, as Mill said. However, he also suggested that being a nonconformist in a society where personal freedoms are severely restricted is a service to the group. One may even venture to say that a nonconformist is a hero, of sorts. The group could not exist in a healthy manner without those who oppose total conformity.

We need the "others." We don't have to put them in prison for treason. However, we do need to listen to what they have to say in order for us to strike a balance in the way we conduct our social lives.

Without the "others," we would have no clear way to define ourselves.

Bill Allin
Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to shine a light in the dark corners of life so we can all see what should be there.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/