Conformity In Brave New World

In today’s social norms or Conformity to fit in with a certain group of individuals you see a lot of “I need to change this or have that” to be accepted. Eating disorder, it’s one of those on the top of the list. You could be in other words Fat or over weight, might be a health condition like a Thyroid. In the other cases, you have someone eating too much. That individual will start eating less or will throw up after each meal to fit in with the society. You could say it for Anorexic individuals also, just the steps would be flipped.

Everyone in the Brave New World is conditioned to conform to the societies rules: Community, Identity, and Stability. In the world we live in today, are we not conditioned the .same way? We are taught to follow the rules of society by example of our parents, churches, and even celebrities. We don’t describe the process as conditioning, but essentially they are the same thing. In Brave New World, conditioning is used to control the minds of the population, and in modern times, social norms control the population.

An American culture of strict conformity accounts for the rise of the phenomenon known as the Red Scare, as well as its widespread nature and prominent power. The Red Scare was complicated and a result of many different aspects of American culture. However the American culture in the 1950’s was one of strict conformity. This conformist society, created in the late 1940’s was created by many early discoveries that uncovered Communist members as Soviet spies. There arose a prevalent belief that anyone who thought differently was unpatriotic. This conformist nature of American society thus resulted in few organizations fighting for social justice. The Communist party therefore attracted a wide range of liberals from different aspects of life. Joseph McCarthy himself, along with many other governmental officials, was able to institute anti-communist laws and practices under the pretense that an unwavering conformity was the American goal. The conformist nature of American society in the 1950’s created one of the most powerful anti-communist crusades and allowed for a dominant Red Scare.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” Becoming yourself while not conforming is the greatest accomplishment. Whether or not we think we do it or not, we all have done it at some point in our lives. In 1964, a young woman named Kitty Genovese was murdered outside of her apartment. Many people heard this innocent woman being brutally murdered and just assumed someone would help. So why do people just assume someone will help? Why are we so scared to stand up for what we believe? Why are we so terrified to stick out? Stop conforming and be an individual.

Conformity has engrained itself in the American society at a conscious or subconscious level, and whether person knows it or not, most do not do anything to change it. An average person has conformed to at least one thing in their life, whether it is conforming to a dress code, buying specific products, or even having religion telling you the way to act. America has conformed to what is perceived as society’s standards and to be quite frank, it’s boring.

“I once told a woman I had Asperger's Syndrome and she responded with ‘that's ridiculous, you’re doing great’” (McCreary 0:18). People default to a judgemental state in which they constantly disapprove of actions that deviate from their definition of normality. Why do we create these stereotypes to solidify what we believe is the normal way to live an abnormal life? The answer is: we will never be able to escape societal conformity because our way of life is shaped by the rules society imposes. Perhaps this unfulfilled desire to escape the routine normality of our lives leads readers to Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time whose narrator Christopher John Francis Boone escapes this detrimental darkness because of the “flaw” he was born with, Asperger’s. Christopher values the rules created in his mind that, because of his condition, do not conform to society. This explains why he resented his father for lying to him; nevertheless, he would not have reacted the same if his father told him that he killed Wellington. However, the father doesn’t share the truth. Instead, he finds himself in an entanglement of horrible lies because he fears that Christopher can’t handle the truth due to his undeveloped mind, inability emotionalize facts, and his understanding of the world around him. In reality, though, the rationale the father uses for the dishonesty prove his own undoing, for Christopher seems less concerned with the action than the unacceptable lies.

Throughout my life, many people have impacted me. Whether it be a teacher, a fellow classmate, a parent, or even a celebrity, someone has influenced me in some way. I have found that the older I get, the more I really think about life and what really matters in this world. Some people would say that materialistic items are the key to happiness, while others will disagree by saying that possessions cannot fill the void in your life forever. There will always be something that you will want so that you can maintain the happiness that is put into possessions. Others will say that conformity is a popular thing in society and the only way to be happy is to conform to the way society says you should. Many people will completely agree with that because they are afraid to stand out in a world that tells them it is not okay to be different or to be an individual. If you want to be truly happy, one must break away from the chains of conformity. To live in a world that tells us who we should be is the greatest waste that anyone could fall susceptible to.

If there’s anything I’m sure about myself from the last 18 years of my life, it’s that I’m a people pleaser. Everything I do is solely in acknowledgement of what everyone around me wants or needs, and I often find myself putting others before me; I try to be someone that everyone can like while at the same time I refuse to be a conformist. My very personality is conflicting in the fact that I’m both a realist and a dreamer, and it’s because of those reasons, I can honestly say I wouldn’t be some basic ice cream flavor. Instead I see myself more as a combination of two: Chocolate and Strawberry. As a bit of a feminist, It’s very relevant in the fact that these flavors are often labeled as feminine, but are also construed as the most commonly

With the rules and policies set in place today it makes it hard for students to learn, as the strict standards and repetitive nature of a daily high school life causes students to look forward to a day off, and dreading a day that increases their knowledge that might benefit them in their chosen career in the future. These rules and policies are what makes students feel like they are a victim of conformity as for five days a week for nine months we are expected to follow the same routine without any changes which is without a doubt make students lose interest in their education.

The idea of conformity vs. non-conformity emerges in the American issue for generations as the opposing views on this concept exemplify diverse consequences in choosing which path to follow. In the genre of one’s journey west toward self-discovery, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, written in April 1951 illustrates the journey of him and his friend’s across America in the post war beat generation, as they counteracted the societal norms of that time in order to discover his own true individuality. Similarly, individuality emerges strongly in the essay Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson written in 1841 to portray the necessity of relying on oneself for knowledge and guidance in order to re- discover a true identity. Contrasting, the concept of opposing the majority reveals dangers exemplified in The Ministers Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne written in the 18th century to a Puritan society. Emerson and Kerouac embrace the idea of individuality and self-reliance while Hawthorne explores the dangers of non-conformity in order to exemplify both views on this American issue.

“Society,” Emerson wrote in his timeless treatise on self-reliance and what it really means to be a nonconformist, “is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater.” In such a groupthink society, Emerson cautioned, conformity is the most prized virtue, but whoever wishes to be a true person “must be a nonconformist.”

There is nothing that excites me more than the unknowns of a person or society. There are so many factors that shape our lives in so many ways, be that a shared belief in religion, the social expectation of the society, events and behaviours that shape or identity. I believe that social science could satisfy the need for this knowledge.

It is human nature to acclimate to one’s surroundings, but this instinct has created non-individualized activities amongst the public, leaving the non-thought provoking state of mind of society (Orwell). The naive stay happy, tradition brings normality, and a lack of self-expression leaves the mind at ease, for there is no one to reject it. Crowd mentality has driven society since the Stone Age, and throughout the course of history writers have recorded such mentalities and behaviors loving and/or criticizing it. George Orwell is not the only author to critique society’s forced state of being; many others have an apparent disapproval and criticism for society in their writings as well. Each one reflects a different time in history and the

In the novels ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ and ‘Brave New World’, George Orwell and Aldous Huxley present the conflict between individuality and conformity as a key theme of their dystopian societies, inspired by the totalitarian governments of the early twentieth century. This idea is reflected in critic Jenni Calder’s argument that ‘the striking feature of society in both the novels is uniformity and lack of individualism’. In the novels this conflict is presented through the portrayal of state controlled conditioning, the protagonists resisting through expressing their individuality, the conformity/non-conformity of the female characters, and the extent to which the protagonists succumb to convention by the end of the novels. ‘Brave New World’, written following the growth of consumerism and technology in the 1920s, is set in a technology-dominated future society known as the World State, which enforces conformity through the use of coercive scientific processes; ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’, written in 1949, features a future totalitarian society run by the Party who use surveillance and the threat of violence to force uniformity and lack of individuality on the population.

Without individuality, there is no humanity as deviations in thought are the essence of mankind. The slight variations in mental capacity differentiate humans from one another, and without these differences, there is no collective human species. Instead, only an overarching static being, incapable of evolution, remains. Aldous Huxley, in Brave New World, illustrates a society composed of citizens subservient to their conditioning, a process of molding an individual’s psychological landscape to coincide with rigid social norms. He warns against restrictions on individuality and fears a civilization predicated upon conformity. Through Bernard Marx and John Savage, rebels adrift in a sea of conventionality, Huxley accentuates the inherent flaws of hive mind thinking. Clearly, individuality is the center of human identity, but in the World State, an overbearing government imposes uniformity among the people, preventing Lenina from understanding Bernard’s preference for solitude and rendering John unable to free the Deltas from their addiction to soma.