NONCONFORMITY VS.
CONFORMITY
NONCONFORMITY STATEMENT– Following the herd (often to the slaughter house) is dangerous! You have to
have the free thinkers! Society's ways do not fit for everybody.
CONFORMITY STATEMENT– The “society” is the system set up to benefit the masses over the
individual...so going against that is, of course, dangerous to the masses.
ASSIGNMENT: CHOOSE ONE OF THE STATEMENTS ABOVE THAT YOU
MOST CLOSELY AGREE WITH. EXPLAIN WHY YOU
AGREE WITH THAT CHOSEN STATEMENT. THEN, CHOOSE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING QUOTES BELOW TO SUPPORT YOUR REASONING AND TIE THEM
TOGETHER. YOU MAY NOT USE “I FEEL,” “I
THINK,” “I BELIEVE,” "IN MY OPINION," “I AGREE” OR “I DISAGREE” IN YOUR RESPONSE. IN ORDER TO RECEIVE FULL CREDIT, YOUR
RESPONSE MUST BE AT LEAST FIVE TO SEVEN SENTENCES LONG AND CONTAIN ONE OF THE GIVEN QUOTES AND SUPPORTING COMMENTS.
NONCONFORMITY QUOTES
“You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note.”
-Doug Floyd
“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.”
-John Fitzgerald Kennedy
“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
- George Bernard Shaw
CONFORMITY QUOTES
“Conformity,
humility, acceptance...with these coins we are to pay our fares to paradise.”
-Robert
Lindner
“The opposite
of bravery is not cowardice but conformity.”
-Dr. Robert
Anthony
“No man on
earth is truly free, all are slaves of money or necessity. Public opinion or
fear of prosecution forces each one, against his conscience, to conform.”
-Euripides
EXAMPLE:
The “society” is the system set up to benefit the masses over the individual...so going against that is, of course, dangerous to the masses. Even though being an individual is an important Transcendentalist belief, in reality, the system that society has set up is designed to prevent mass chaos and is based upon the group and not the individual. In America we have a democratic system which allows Americans the right to vote, and through this process majority rules. Everyone does not always win. Sometimes conformity or compromise is important in keeping order. Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi went against society, but they still conformed to the laws and rules of society in order to get what they wanted. In order to keep the masses safe they chose to operate within the system set up. Robert Lindner said it best when he stated, “Conformity, humility, acceptance...with these coins we are to pay our fares to paradise.” Both of these great men exhibited some form of conformity and humility and those two things made them accepted individuals which has afforded many Americans "paradise" here on Earth.
