Conforming to Society

Topics: Self-esteem, Conformity, Thought Pages: 2 (517 words) Published: September 27, 2012
Every issue or idea has its advantages and disadvantages. One example can be conforming to society’s expectations. Some people may conform with their reasons to it and others may not, also having their reasons. According to Emerson’s idea on conformity, “whose would be a man must be a nonconformist.” As a personal point of view I find it hard to disagree with Emerson’s idea on conformity. To be a conformist means to be a person who conforms to accepted behavior or established practices. Whereas, to be a nonconformist means to be a person whose behavior or views do not conform to prevailing ideas or practices.

Just as I stated before, there are advantages and disadvantages to everything we do. Advantages to conforming to society’s expectations are that you will be accepted by everyone around you, because basically you follow and copy everyone around you. Another advantage is, if everybody conforms to the law, no rules will be broken in society. In my view a really bad disadvantage of conforming to society is that you will loose yourself and who you really are. If you conform to society and everyone else’s opinion you don’t really have a personal individual voice or opinion.

Even though conforming to society will get you to easily fit in, sometimes your self-respect is more important than fitting in. This leads to the advantages of nonconforming to society’s expectation. An advantage to nonconforming would be that you tend to form your own opinions and be more independent. Another advantage would be that you would come off to others as unique, and stand out more between others since your different, not a follower but a leader. The only disadvantage to being a nonconformist is that you would have problems fitting in with others since your different. It would be hard for you to get around others in society and agree with people around you.

You can’t blame people for their choice of conforming or not conforming. Some people are strongly influenced and others...
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