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From: crs@lanl.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: conformity/nonconformity
Message-ID: <25957@lanl.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 16-May-85 15:18:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: lanl.25957
Posted: Thu May 16 15:18:04 1985
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> > 1. True individualism is an unexploitable phenonemon in marketing.
> 
> >       ...  A true individualist wouldn't choose
> > 	to do things based on what one crowd did/didn't do.  He/she would pick
> >       and choose what he/she liked.
> 
> ``True individualism'' also does not exist.  No one is individual enough
> to speak their own language, or write all their own books and other
> media, or live their lives without having to conform at least partially
> to other people's expectations.
> 
> At least in some feminist circles this whole issue is regarded as an
> artifact of the extreme fragmentalism inherent in a patriarchal (i.e.
> male-centered) belief system, and even one of the means that patriarchy
> uses to maintain itself.  The theory is that this belief system allows
> individuals to subjugate groups by preventing the binding of group-
> members into a strongly-interconnected entity.  Thus the concept of
> individual action has becomes a element in the mythology that
> maintains male dominance.  If this mythology is shed, the theory goes,
> female superiority at group interaction would eventually result in
> female leadership and dominance.  Male hierarchies (and hierarchies
> themselves are considered mostly a patriarchal concept) require a great
> deal of energy just in terms of self-maintenence, and are inherently
> unstable.
> 
> No, I'm not saying I believe this theory, at least not in any complete
> way.  But like many radical ideas, it has some insights into the flaws
> of the status quo, even though it might be mistaken about causes or the
> result of changes.
> 
> >       If a modern woman wants to shave her
> > 	legs and wear high heels, or if a modern man wants to shave his face,
> > 	who is any of us to claim that it's "politically incorrect" to do so?
> > 	This notion of "political incorrectness" sounds like another
> > 	manipulative marketing scheme to me.   I digress...
> 
> As a matter of fact, it the very idea of dividing people up into groups,
> because of what they do or do not do, that the theory I stated above
> attacks.  Only it sounds like you mean to allow division despite
> similarity, rather than permit cohesion despite differences.
> 
> 
> > "to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day
> >  to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human
> >  being can fight and never stop fighting."  - e. e. cummings
> 
> Cummings hardly accomplished this; he never forsook the New England
> Transcendentalism of his background, though he certainly stretched
> its boundries quite a bit.  There is a big difference between
> individualism and free creative expression; I think perhaps Cummings,
> at least in this quote, mistakes one for the other.
> 
> > 	Rich Rosen	ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr
> 
> 		-Ed Hall
> 		decvax!randvax!edhall

I think we would all be a damned sight better off if we worried less
about individual*ism* and put more effort into being *individuals*.

Charlie
-------

Charlie Sorsby
...!{cmcl2,ihnp4,...}!lanl!crs
crs@lanl.arpa