This Is What I Do
Conformity vs. Personal Desire
Conformity involves the changing of one’s attitudes, opinions, or behaviours. It causes sound-minded individuals to go against their best judgement, to engage in behaviour which they usually would not engage in, even accept and welcome an idea they internally disagree with, all in order to not be a deviant from the group. When faced with a challenging or trivial task, there are two common ways of handling the situation. One is to do so according to your own personal desires and beliefs. The other is to base the decision on the how others will view and respond to it.
Remember that time in class when you thought you had the right answer but changed it because a majority of the class thought different, or that time you made fun of the nerdy kid in your class because it was considered the cool thing to do? Their might have been no problems at the time but when you found out your answer was the correct one and you got in trouble for picking on the nerdy kid, the majority of us would find ourselves saying "everyone else was doing it". The main reason for conforming is the guarantee that you will never be left alone. It is so often that people commit wrong acts, then when accused, they retreat into the numbers of those involved.
Personal desire, like conformity, is essential to life even though we may not appreciate its value. At one point we want to be different from all the rest in one way or another. So we might dress a bit differently and choose to do things we really like. For once, we might form our opinions based on what we really feel. However, sooner or later we are forced to change our spontaneous desires so that society does not label us as different or weird, simply because we are scared of being alone. It seems though that the more unique and out going individuals make an impression on others in life, people like Martin Luther King Jr. who took a stand for what he believed in even though the majority of people were against
Conformity involves the changing of one’s attitudes, opinions, or behaviours. It causes sound-minded individuals to go against their best judgement, to engage in behaviour which they usually would not engage in, even accept and welcome an idea they internally disagree with, all in order to not be a deviant from the group. When faced with a challenging or trivial task, there are two common ways of handling the situation. One is to do so according to your own personal desires and beliefs. The other is to base the decision on the how others will view and respond to it.
Remember that time in class when you thought you had the right answer but changed it because a majority of the class thought different, or that time you made fun of the nerdy kid in your class because it was considered the cool thing to do? Their might have been no problems at the time but when you found out your answer was the correct one and you got in trouble for picking on the nerdy kid, the majority of us would find ourselves saying "everyone else was doing it". The main reason for conforming is the guarantee that you will never be left alone. It is so often that people commit wrong acts, then when accused, they retreat into the numbers of those involved.
Personal desire, like conformity, is essential to life even though we may not appreciate its value. At one point we want to be different from all the rest in one way or another. So we might dress a bit differently and choose to do things we really like. For once, we might form our opinions based on what we really feel. However, sooner or later we are forced to change our spontaneous desires so that society does not label us as different or weird, simply because we are scared of being alone. It seems though that the more unique and out going individuals make an impression on others in life, people like Martin Luther King Jr. who took a stand for what he believed in even though the majority of people were against