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From: laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: THe Moral Value of Conformity
Message-ID: <120@l5.uucp>
Date: Sun, 15-Sep-85 13:46:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: l5.120
Posted: Sun Sep 15 13:46:32 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Sep-85 05:26:04 EDT
References: <1647@pyuxd.UUCP> <1524@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1672@pyuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Organization: Ell-Five [Consultants], San Francisco
Lines: 38

=

	I'll go slow.  By being what others would like you to be rather
	than being what you yourself would like to be (or being/doing
	what you need to be/do), you are acting against your own
	self-interest.  It's that simple.  It is precisely because I
	(and you) don't know what's best for everyone that individual
	self-development is what I support instead the repugnant notion
	that conformity is a worthwhile thing.  Conformity is a
	trade-off you choose to make or not make, but it is certainly
	not in your interest, and advertising it as such as deceptive.
	(Which is of course what certain religions do.) [ROSEN]

Rich, I think your heart is on the right place, but you have stuffed 2 notions
together wich cannot be stuffed. If, in conforming, you are acting against your
own self interest, then we will agree that this conforming is bad. [However,
I would conclude, not that conforming is repugnant, but that the more general
not acting in your own self interest is repugnant.] However, I think that to
conform or not to conform is a trade-off which you make and which you should
always make in your perceived self-interest. [Actually, you should always
make in your self-interest, but all you have to go on is what you perceive,
using perceive in its wide sense.] Conforming to somebody else's coding style
may stick in your craw for a while, but it is probably in your self interest
since it will keep your bosses, co-workers and whoever else maintains your
code (customers) happy and this will be good for you (as compared to making
your bosses, co-workers and whoever maintains your code miserable). Of
course, if writing code in your own style rather than the preferred style
is that important to you (or gets to be that important to you) you can
always find a new job, or make extensive hacks to cb and use it or fight
management for the right to use your own coding style. *But* -- all of these
take work and time which you could spend doing something else. So, if you
decide to do this then there will be other areas of your life which do not
get your attention -- and (as an exercise left to the reader) this is the
tough part about determining what is in your self-interest.
-- 
Laura Creighton		(note new address!)
sun!l5!laura		(that is ell-five, not fifteen)
l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa


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