Conformity In Brave New World

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment” (Ralph Waldo Emerson). Emerson was part of the Transcendentalist movement in the 19th century advocating for uniqueness and being an individual. Nowadays there is still the discussion on why it is important to be different than everyone else. The sense of this individualism is missing from society. Conformity seems to be the norm nowadays and nobody wants to be different. Everyone doesn’t want to seem like an outcast and wants to have a feeling of companionship and being part of a group. Overall many things lead to the need of conforming, but it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Most people don’t think if they are different from others

Cliques are what we have in society that allows us to be similar, yet different at the same time. People who are not part of clique that makes them feel at home are ones who want to change society and feel outcasted. Aldous Huxley, author of the novel Brave New World, shows exactly what it feels like to be different through one of his characters Bernard Marx. In this world of Huxley's all humans are made through assembly line factories and Bernard happens to be a little bit shorter than his peers. “Yes, a little too able; they were right. A mental excess had produced in Helmholtz Watson effects very similar to those which, in Bernard Marx, were the result of a physical defect. Too little bone and brawn had isolated Bernard from his fellow men, and the sense of this apartness, being, by all the current standards, a mental excess, became in its turn a cause of wider separation. That which had made Helmholtz so uncomfortably aware of being himself and all alone was too much ability. What the two men shared was the knowledge that they were individuals” (Huxley 67). Huxley shows through his two characters Bernard and Helmholtz that being individuals made them come together to share their ostracization from the rest of society. Just like in real life this is what allows us to be different while conforming. Bernard and Helmholtz may be different than their peers, but having each other allows them to have each other. Our cliques allows us to be who we are without losing that sense of reward and happiness from being socially accepted by others. Because of this we are able to believe in what we want without having to be afraid of being the outcast since your group of friends think the same thing. You become part of the majority when you find where you fit in in