On Fitting In…
The Cost of Conformity: Why the World Needs Original Thinkers
The Hidden Tax on Social Conformity
It is a lesson most of us learn early in life: the value of fitting in. Whether getting laughed at on the playground, ostracized in the lunchroom, or perhaps even being treated like the black sheep within our own family, our fundamental need to belong kicks in at an early age, usually guiding us to behave in ways that allow us to stay within the perceived safety of group approval. But there is a hidden, recurring tax on the effort we spend trying to seem “normal,” or as a player in part of a larger group. We tend to view social conformity as a safety net—a way to avoid judgment and keep from standing out and being noticed. But this compliance actually functions more like a high-interest loan. We get the immediate comfort of blending in, but the long-term costs are steep; the heaviest cost being identity erosion, and loss of individual expression.
Identity Erosion and the Loss of Self
It has been my observation that when a person spends years sanding down their edges to fit into the pre-shaped slot required for group alignment, the parts that make that person an individual, at some point, stop growing back. One loses the ability to distinguish between what he or she actually believes and what they’ve been told they should believe. This standardized version of the person becomes a reliable and predictable member of the group, but through the process, becomes entirely unoriginal—not to mention ineffectual—as an individual.
In this regard, comformity comes at the price of forfeiting one’s own personal power in lieu of what the social circles deem as acceptable behavior and/or allowable beliefs; they become our invisible enforcement agencies.
We see examples of this everywhere in the fabric of our communities—between different churches, economic classes, and within the structure of our political body.
In a nation that touts liberty and freedom as cornerstones to our democracy, I find it wildly ironic just how few people actually exercise that freedom through the expression of original thought—ideas that are not simply a parroting of a particular group’s take on things—its identifying thought system and narrative.
Groupthink & Why the World Needs Authentic Personal Expression
What most people do not realize is the pressure to fit in is not about them at all; it is about the group’s stability. Group cohesion is a real thing where any deviant ideas are often seen as a threat to a group’s identity; where any argument becomes less about the issue at hand, and more about any perceived affront to the group’s distinction. Also, these groups frequently build “membership cohesion” by jointly targeting those with different ideas, a phenomenon known in psychology as “Common Enemy Intimacy.”
The real tragedy of a person’s investment in fitting in with a particular group is that the world does not need more people roped into conforming to a group (whichever group that may be) out of some misguided and false sense of security.
What the world needs now, more than anything, are the specific, the strange, and even the slightly uncomfortable perspectives that only the brave and thoughtful can have and express as individuals.
If you like stories about independent thinkers and rebellious women going rogue, I invite you to check out my fiction writing.
