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From: gerber@mit-amt.MIT.EDU (Andrew S. Gerber)
Newsgroups: net.college
Subject: Conformity and Nonconformity
Message-ID: <40@mit-amt.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 21-Nov-85 01:26:19 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-amt.40
Posted: Thu Nov 21 01:26:19 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 23-Nov-85 01:46:58 EST
References: <848@wdl1.UUCP> <701@ucsfcgl.UUCP> <35@mit-amt.MIT.EDU>
Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 87

In article <35@mit-amt.MIT.EDU>, gerber@mit-amt.MIT.EDU (Andrew S. Gerber) writes:

> My dorm is co-ed, women and men living in rooms right next door to
> each other.  This is how life will be when you get out of college --
> let's face it, single sex dorms promote immaturity.

Looking back on this quote, I really didn't mean it.

The phenomenon I was really thinking about was the conformity/noncomformity
issue of living groups.

Every school has its conforming living groups, and its nonconforming living 
groups.

Many times fraternities and all-single-sex dorms promote this sort of
conformity. Other times, they do not.  At MIT, the fraternities, are,
in general, more conformist than some dorms.  The coed frats are, as a
whole, less conformist than the single sex frats.  There are many
local variations, but in general this is the case.

Also at MIT, the east side of campus (East Campus and Senior House -
it's not just for seniors, tho), are more liberal than the west side
of campus.  

What I am wondering here is -- is this the case at other schools?  At
MIT, there are no frosh dorms -- and freshmen move into the dorm
alongside of upperclassmen.  Since there are doubles and triples right
next to singles, the classes are evenly distributed through the dorm.
MIT also makes it relativly easy to transfer from dorm to dorm.  Frosh
also pick their dorm AFTER they get to MIT.  This makes for easy
traffic of people from one dorm to another -- and tends to get the
crazy people together with other crazys, nerds with nerds, etc.  Is
this the case at other schools?  (Sorry to repeat that).

For those of you who are wondering what I'm meaning by "conformist"
and "non-conformist" here's some silly lists:

Thing			Conformist		Nonconformist

POLITICAL		Republican		Democrat
AFFILIATION	

MUSIC			SOFT			LOUD
			Top 40's		Talking Heads,	
			Country			Grateful Dead	
						Wall of Voodo
						Tangerine Dream
						Etc..

NO DRUGS		no drugs		no drugs
	(I wish to point out, here, that there are many people who are
both "conformist" and "nonconformist" who don't do any drugs.  But for
rhose who do, see the next section)	

DRUGS			Beer			Pot
			Mixed Drinks		Wine
						LSD
						'shrooms

SEX			With the chick		With the chick 
			from the all-girls 	from down the
			typing school down	hall.
			the road

FOOD			Burgers			Ravs

NIGHTTIME ACTIVITY	Tooling			Tooling
	(well, this is MIT, y'know?)

Some people will point out is all that the non conformist people may
do is conform with the other non conformist people.  So what.  Replace
conformity with "X" people and non-conformist people with "Y" people.
Do you have "X" and "Y" people on your campus?

Anyway, I hope this gives you an idea

				-Andy


	

-- 
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|  Andrew S. Gerber    MIT '87    Systems Manager,  Visible Language Workshop |
|  gerber@mit-athena.MIT.EDU, gerber@mit-amt.MIT.EDU, gerber@mit-mc.MIT.EDU   |
|  {decvax, mit-eddie}!mit-amt!gerber   {decvax, mit-eddie}!mit-athena!gerber |
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