Anti-Conformity And Individuality

Human instincts are behaviors that are genetically wired into us that help us react to our environment, but most of the time they are more hurtful than useful. For example, one of them is to follow and be influenced by our surroundings. Since birth we adjust to what family setting we may have and conform to what we see on the outside. At some point this human instinct becomes hurtful to us as conforming makes us act and think like everyone else. So how is it that conformity affects individuality in our society? Our technology has gone so far and has improved better than it ever has, so information is faster to spread and conforming easier to do. Conformity is in all of us and we don’t seem to realize it until later on, so we must take action

We can see this in the essay “Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate The Smart Kids” by Grant Penrod explains why anti-intellectualism exists in our society and why intellectuals are despised instead of praised for their hard work. He writes “Certainly the image presented by modern celebrities suggests that intellectualism has no ties to success and social legitimacy”(760). What Penrod is saying is that the media glorifies non-intellectuals which in result makes intellectuals lose their ambition to continue with their accomplishments. Intellectuals conform to the idea that there are people who are looked up to who don 't have intellectualism so why should they? What is revealed is that Conformity hurts those individuals that may think differently, and makes them lose particular characteristics that make them different. Not only does conformity take away characteristics but it can make a person obtain characteristics that weren 't there before. We can see this in the essay by Brent Staples “Black Men and Public Space” in which he shares his personal experiences of being a person of color in the streets.“I now take precautions to make myself less threatening. I move with care, particularly late in the evening…I whistle melodies from Beethoven and Vivaldi” says Staples after taking enough judgment (316). In this quote Staples describes the changes he made just so people would not judge him

Conforming is about self approval but standards are high in todays society. In the article of “Little Girls Or Little Women? The Disney Princess Effect”, Stephanie Hanes analyzes how the media is maturing little girls way too early and representing what women should be. Hanes writes “Girls are using social media to get feedback in areas that they 've been told by the culture that they need to express or work on… girls post or send provocative images because they have grown in a culture that places a lot of value into their sexuality”(488). What Hanes is saying is that girls use social media to get validation from what is showcased on various platforms. This goes back to one of the reasons on why humans conform and that is to get approval from society, so they can have self-approval. With social media, the temptation to confer raise just to gain the self-approval that is needed. In the essay “Im Considering Becoming a Sports Fan-How Do I Pick a Team”, Andy hinds goes on a search to find out why people cheer a particular football and why he doesn 't. Hinds writes “You know, so as not to fail at the performance of hegemonic masculinity. In both of these exchanges, I had that old familiar feeling of not having a clue about something that was supposed to be important to me as an American male” (963). Hinds is describing how he feels when he encounters a conversation about sports, which he should he feels he should know all about since he is an American male. With the