Individuality and Conformity

¶ … it governs virtually everything important I do. If I spend time with friends, it is because I know them from school or school-related activities. If I have a part-time job, it has to conform to my school schedule. The truth is that I have never seriously questioned whether I want to be a student or not, so I must define being a student as conforming behavior.

Society puts a high value on student behavior, and I must define myself as a conformist for accepting that societal value for myself without question. For the most part I have been blind to this conformity. Perhaps that is the nature of conformity, that it requires that people do not make active choices. As I look at pictures of family members, I can see that all the young women in the 1970's had long straight hair, but all the young women in the early 1960's had bubble hairdos.

I look at the young women around me today, and I don't see such a pattern. Some have long hair; some have short. Some have medium length hair, but it's blue. They are not conforming when it comes to hairstyle, but they're all students. When I go into a store, often sales clerks my age mention that they are either going to school or planning to go to school.

I had taken this in the past to be a simple way for that person to connect with me, also a student, but now I must wonder if they were apologizing for not conforming to the expectation that all young people go to school. The fact that I am a student rules all aspects of my life.

It determines where I live, what outside activities I participate in, who my friends are, to some extent what I wear (students don't wear business suits to school), and how much I work as well as where I work. This is also true of my friends. Those in college may live at home or in a dormitory, but their role as student limits their choices of where to live.

This choice I have made by default to conform and be a student will govern the rest of my life as much as I let it. My education may have a profound effect on what my final career choice is. That career choice will determine my salary and to a large extent, my life style, for the rest of my life.

My choices of schools to attend will determine my early business connections as well as strongly influence who I marry, since I can only choose a spouse from those people I have met. I have given society a lot of power over myself! In smaller matters I am not a conformist. I decide whether to wear loafers or running shoes. I decide whether to take another literature course or to branch out to science, math or the arts.

I choose how my hair is cut, and I decide whether to study or hang out with friends. I decide whether to write a paper or set it aside for other schoolwork, a job, or entertainment. But ultimately, all those individual choices are dominated and governed by my agreeing to the societal norm that I get an education. Perhaps most of the time the conforming thing we do without thinking is also the thing we would do completely on our own.

Probably if society said I could drop out of school at age 12 I would have continued to high school anyway. Probably after graduation I would have chosen, completely freely, to go on to college. But the reality is that my parents have never said, "Do you want to go to college?" The high school principal never asked, "Do you want to graduate from high school?" look around at my classmates and I don't see.