Conformity is the great undiscussed disease of modern life. Epicurus would , were he alive today, be constantly warning us against it.
Huge blocs of "public opinion", formed by priests, schools, so-called pundits the biased blather of the media are exploited by politicians for their own ends. Much of the conformity is caused by laziness, fear of being out of step with your friends in the mega-church, and fear of voicing opinions which are not fully informed (how can they be sometimes, given the bias of the right-wing media?).
Ah, the media! First they swooned over Barack Obama and he could do no wrong. Then Hillary complained and now Obama can do nothing right. Obama’s speech yesterday was objectively probably one of the finest, most honest and most moving political speeches in a hundred years of American politics, but the media reacts mealy-mouthed in unison. Regrettably, the older generation of pundits, pastors and the talk show hosts cannot get past their preoccupation with race, and the man in the street just goes along and laps it up instead of thinking for himself how destructive all this is. Meanwhile, the media rubber-stamps the Administration mantra that Iraq is now a great success, when even a casual glance at the facts shows that we are far from the end of an endless war. Two examples.
Those you think for themselves and reject conformity are the true minority.
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In the good old days when Britain had an educated class of rich people, the country bred a group of eccentrics who said what they thought and said it well. They had the privilege of doing this because they were independently wealthy, very well educated, and “owed nothing to nobody”. By and large they were liberal in attitude and could say things in an amusing way, with a sense of humor. They “gave permission” to others to say what they thought too, and the result was a healthy democracy where it was o.k to go against received opinion.
We have lost this now. Oh, yes there are many more rich people, very rich people, but they are thinking, by and large, about themselves and their money, not about the public good. If they were we would not have all the social ills we now have. Conformity rules.
“Much of the conformity is caused by laziness, fear of being out of step with your friends in the mega-church, and fear of voicing opinions which are not fully informed (how can they be sometimes, given the bias of the right-wing media?).”
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It’s a lifelong effort to chose when it is worth our joining others in social action and when our integrity requires that we walk a more solitary path. I’m not sure that the English eccentrics reveal very much, though. Do we ever speak of “working class eccentrics?” Men from the privileged classes who deviated from the norm (sexual issues excepted) might draw tolerant laughter but seldom risked being tossed out of their leather armchairs at the club or feared losing their income and social status.
The origins of the conformity of views which today pollutes political discourse in the U.S. are becoming clearer and the lamentations need not be abstract. Beginning in the late 1980s consolidation of newspapers, radio, and television accelerated and with that corporate power (e.g., Jack Welch of GE buying NBC/MSNBC) came sponsorship of political messages conveyed across those media. What’s the use of criticizing the Rush Limbaughs, the Matt Drudges, and the Judith Millers of our public spaces while not holding accountable those whose power propped them up in the first place?
It easier than ever to document the lies of Don Imus, the intellectual dishonesty of Chris Matthews, or the preening biases of Tim Russert. Since the late 1980s through the 1990s to today, prominent pundits seldom stray far from their paymasters’ views or even social circles. Similarly with newspapers, it is possible to name publishers and reporters who contributed to the declining quality of the New York Times or the Washington Post, over the past 16 years.
They have cut a destructive path through our political system for two decades. First, they have “framed” what we talk about, on whom we focus, and how we characterize people and issues. More tragically, and a result of their “framing” power, they bequeathed us the election fiasco of 2000 and the Iraq war, its dead and maimed, our faltering economy, and our tattered political system.
Conformity is, indeed, a problem and an intense scrutiny of its causes might illuminate its possible remedies.