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From: laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: THe Moral Value of Conformity
Message-ID: <67@l5.uucp>
Date: Thu, 5-Sep-85 19:34:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: l5.67
Posted: Thu Sep  5 19:34:12 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Sep-85 10:44:11 EDT
References: <1622@pyuxd.UUCP> <1472@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Organization: Ell-Five [Consultants], San Francisco
Lines: 45

People, I think that you are missing the point. It is not that conformity
is bad, but that forcing people to conform {is/usually is}. (That last
can be debated a lot.) Forcing people to not conform would also be bad,
but I have never never seen a case of it. (I have seen people who felt
forced to conform to some counter-culture standard, but this again is
forcing to conform, not to ``not conform''.

If everybody had the same standards, then a lot of things would be easier.
if everybody conformed to the same standard of ``what is pornography'' then
there would hardly be any of it and no great debate. Part of the reason why
the Canadian and US legal system is such a kludge is that it is based on
the British Common Law system which developed as an attempt to codify
existing community standards. Now that there are more people alive than
have ever died it is no wonder that the mechanism is breaking down.

The fact is that most people do not conform to some local standard, and
many people do not conform to a lot of them and many other people are
conforming but at a great price. Defending your choices against
other people who choose to do otherwise is a big effort, so no-one is
actually free of the strain.  I think that it is wrong to view
conformity as a virtue -- everything from ``you all should attend my
church'' to ``you all should wear a suit to work'' and all between seems
to value the property of being a member of a group above the property of
being the individual that is. 

This is not to say that conformity should not happen, but that it
should be taken as an indication that many other people have found
something good, not as a virtue in itself.  To do something ``just because
everybody (or somebody) else does it'' does not seem to be virtuous; but
to do something for the same reasons that everybody (or somebody) does
often is. To do something ``because everybody does it, and I don't know
why, but I assume they had a good reason'' is a good way to dig a hole
for yourself -- but given that one sometimes has to make a decision
without time for reflection may be a good rule-of-thumb for times when
you don't have the time to think things through properly.

Note that all of these assume that you can choose. I am not going to
get sucked into that argument again. I've been away for 4+ months and
it is *still* going on!

-- 

Laura Creighton		(note new address!)
sun!l5!laura		(that is ell-five, not fifteen)
l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa