Words: 1137
When self-reliance and conformity come into imprison, I can hear the prevalent voice favoring self-reliance over conformity, Just as the reality that diamond is priced over water. People are either “drinking” conformity without being conscious of Its values, or “dehydrated” because of Its absence. If we take a broad definition of conformity, which means following others, learning is at least partially an act to conform. Ever since when we totter as babies, we have learned language by conforming to the rules of language.
The preservation of these grammatical rules, such as the subject-verb-object structure in English instead of the verse, is conducted by the process of this innocent and innocuous conformity. Unimaginable is a world where every child, who refuses to conform even as a baby, creates Its own grammatical structure and words. Thanks the God who TLD take away this essential conformity when stopping the tower of Babel. People grow up with a great amount of practices to follow others in the milieu.
For thousands of times we ruminate on classic works to shape our mind in a way that follows the thoughts of those dead men (yet can only pray for the serendipity of a good score In SAT). Even the most Innovative provocative technology In this globalize age-??the Internet-??is built on top of conformation. Computers have to send data in one particular format instead of others if it Joins the Internet. Browsers have to support the most prevalent frond-end language in order to survive. Software has to generate the compatibility of the rules set by Microsoft and Apple In order to be used by people.
Maybe it is the computers which help us to gulp down the rules, so that we seldom remind ourselves of the convenience that conformity has brought us. In many asses, conformity is the tasteless water that we gulp down without giving thanks to. It Is true that the conformity of babies Is different from the conformity of a person with a fully developed mind, since the latter is conducted by someone who either accepts the rules willingly or takes them as granted without giving a careful thought. This “take as granted” attitude is often targeted by the critics.
However, as our predictable Irrationality can protect us if It Is not used by canning people, unconscious conformity, which in some ways can be interpreted as “sticking with default automatically’, is also a protective mechanism. Thoreau criticized in Civil Disobedience that people who Just followed the unjust rules, such as those direct or Indirect supporters of the Mexican War, were as numb as machines. He was right: human are machines designed delicately to make some automatic conformity to survive or live better.
Paying the poll tax for a war that is unstoppable by a single 1 OFF relatives who try to bail the dissenter out. Shouting out loud the slogan among the crowd during Cultural Revolution in China without feeling tortured, definitely an act f conformity from outward to inward, is considered the highest art of survival. Living as sheep in Animal Farm, the creature with only instant memory and inability to dissent, can escape from the political rumor of pigs. For all of these cases, sticking with default without knocking on the conscious until a satisfied answer emerges is often rewarded of a more peaceful life.
Even for the worse situation, the situation of Winston who went through all the process of Department of Love in order to “fit” into the society, it was evident that Winston lives with less conflict after the torturing duty of conformity is complete. It won’t kill us if we drink some bad water without noticing, and what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. But it will be extraordinarily torturing if one obsessively clean up every little last germs before drinking a cup of water.
It’s arguable that we can’t drink “bad water” all the time, and some “bad water” can be toxic as Department of Love in 1984. But eventually, we have to conform to the laws of the nature. The laws of nature can be the physical laws. Scientists and philosophers who study and follow the laws of the nature flourish, while those who devote their effort to halogen the law of nature result little. Einstein General Relativity was not accepted by the world until Arthur Stanley Denudation’s observation on solar ellipse supported its prediction.
Scientific theory is valued only if it is useful to predict the world governed by the laws of nature. In other words, science is valued for conforming to the law of nature. In contrast, the scientists who refuse to conform to the law of nature, such as the one who creates Frankincense, are overwhelmed because of their incompetent to master the complexity of the world or to understand the system they retreated. Laszlo summarized this idea in Chapter 25 of Tao-tee Chining: Man takes his law from the Earth; the Earth takes its law from Heaven; Heaven takes its law from the Tao.
The law of the Tao is its being what it is. Moreover, it’s also the law of nature that the strong defeat the weak. If every unit contains nearly equal amount of power, the majority will triumph over the minority. Rules are basically set by the strong or accepted by the majority. Therefore, it can be inferred that disobedience of rules amounts to either challenge against the strong or isolation from the majority. Such deed can be sometimes successful, but is destined to be a painstaking and arduous path.
Even though drinking stale water is harmful, it’s meaningless if it was only the minority who cares. To fix this predicament, one can either pray for the enlightenment of a new majority or attain the power to purify the stale water. Dehydration is never suggestive. However, can people dissent collectively against the physical law of nature as the society in 1984 illustrated? Of course we can, Just as we can alert the appearance of the earth and taint it with grayness. We can pull thallium into the upstream of the ever and challenge our discordance’ ability to adopt this toxic water.
But it’s a questionable means. It takes Thoreau to be a dissenter. But even as erudite and as for his little practice of civil disobedience, and thanks to his relative that he could come out. American’s war against Mexico didn’t stop for his excellent writing, which touches only the highly educated minority. Despite the fact that we are often alert and uncomfortable when Winston in 1984 exclaimed “Sanity is statistical,” it’s the reality: sanity IS statistical. It takes conformity to be sane.