Conformity

Post Reply New Topic

Conforming against American imperialistic behaviour is against my broncode. Aswel cultural imperialism and extreme capitalistic imperialism.

Engels praten tegen iemand uit Dublin of Berlijn voel ik minder wrijving dan engels praten tegen iemand uit New York. Omgekeerd is het vele malen erger dat mensen uit de VS niet bereid zijn om Nederlands met mij te praten, en al helemaal niet om het te leren. Ongeveer 1 jaar geleden heb ik een filmpje gemaakt m.b.t. conformeren. Om het te begrijpen zul je wel 'flipthinking' toe moeten passen.

I'd rather express my individuality than conform to standards that I don't wish to meet.

I do believe that non-conformity is one of our primary defining attributes as Aspies and is one of our many social impairments but could be viewed by many as one of our greatest strengths.

I am physically unable to conform to much of anything and the very idea of "following the crowd" is not only repulsive but also utterly repugnant.

The slaves who walk blindly the line of the herd walks Always in the poop.

No matter how hard I try, I simply cannot conform 100% to the "will of the majority". There is always some detail I've missed, some response that I don't get right, or some bit of common cultural knowledge that has slipped past me. Then they reject me. This used to frustrate and discourage me immensely.

Now I set my own standards and determine my own "will". If others miss a detail, can't keep up, or fail to understand what's going on, then too bad for them.

^^

I second this. I've been a non-conformist all of my life. Documented first in preschool when I refused to participate in the group circle.

As a child, teen and adult, it's not that I've enjoyed being difficult in that way or thought it made me cool, it's like xatrix26 said above, "conforming" has felt disgusting to me also. It feels wrong. I don't mean it just feels unnatural or unpleasant, I mean on a fundamentally personal almost moral level, it's always felt wrong to me, as in bad.

I think the essence of it in me is that I don't really get a buzz out of conforming, and I've been through so many situations where I've been encouraged to or coerced into conforming and it's turned out uncomfortable or downright painful that conformity has become something of a dirty word with me. Technically if the particular act of conforming does no harm and if I can see some good coming of it, like making the other people happy or encouraging them to accept me better, then I'm likely to go along with it, but I'll also be feeling "I'd really rather they didn't do these things," and when I see people all conforming they often look kind of stupid to me. I'm not saying they are stupid, it's just the gut reaction I often have when I see them all doing the same thing.

OTOH it's more complicated than that, because in my youth I identified strongly with some non-conforming types and I quite enjoyed copying some of their ways. Much of my motivation to do that was to show that I wasn't accepting the mainstream, old-school way of life, which I didn't relate to much, and some of it was probably to maintain the admiration of my chosen peers, but there was an element of enjoying the process for its own sake, I had some kind of emotional pride in doing what my friends did. These days I don't feel that any more, I guess I grew out of youth culture, and I'm a little less scathing in my views about the mainstream. Maybe I only ever had that pride in conforming to the group because I held them in ridiculously high esteem, and these days I'm more down to earth about people, I know there's no group that's absolutely wonderful in every way.

One thing I really dislike is when I can see harm coming from conformist behaviour that wouldn't happen if they all thought for themselves. Worst of all is when the group tries to put pressure on individuals who aren't quite following the group thing, when they try to make them feel bad for being a bit different even when the "aberrant" behaviour is doing no harm. I have a strong feeling that there are much more important things about an individual that whether or not they follow the herd in everything. I think that conformity pressure thing is breaking down now that there's so much travel and migration, and the old homogenous groups are getting mixed in with all kinds of people who think differently, so that nobody's quite sure what the conformity standards are supposed to be any more. Naturally I'm glad that's happening. I've always done better in heterogenous groups.

I don't seem to have those genes. and furthermore, I don't care to have them, either.

Yeah non conformist here and a bit of a lone wolf as well.

That's it. I always hated to conform without any reason to do so. I was always a bit different.
NTs are more willingly to conform. Because of this I caused them several times to conform me.
Once I made 20 guys to dance like me in a disco.
But watching them all dancing like me and having fun doing so was a bit scary in the end.


There are simply too few people on earth who speak Dutch, so it is hardly worth the effort to learn.
Btw: Nice pics.

I do want to conform, but I admit that I don't see the point in many superficial societal norms. And my morals are a bit different from most. I can't make myself want what everyone else values. I can't outwardly comfort, either, even if I try to mimic their actions and vocalize their opinions while stifling my own. I've seen my NT oldest sister do it. She's homophobic, a Creationist, and a Catholic monarchist. She doesn't discuss any of that at university, of course. All of her friends thinks that she's a proper liberal student, open-minded to all and intellectually progressive. Because that's how she presents herself.

If we talk about conformity as an outward gesture, yeah, autistics are at a disadvantage. I've never been able to hide my enthusiasm over what I value. I overshare my opinions compulsively, so it's lucky that I'm not a radical conservative like my sister because I would be hated, probably targeted. But if conformity is related to the internal quality of the beliefs that you hold and how socially acceptable they are, perhaps there are more nonconformists than we think, who secretly hold opinions that are radically subversive. They're just good at hiding it. In that sense, we may only be different from the general population in our inability to lie.

Yes I think that's one saving grace for us about these apparently homogenous groups - that some of this apparent "hive-mind" is just pretense and there's a degree of "deviancy" in each individual just waiting to be encouraged. Finding and supporting it might seem like a terribly subversive, destructive thing to to, but I think it could be the very thing that keeps a group alive, because a group that becomes too rigid and immutable in its rituals and mores is probably destined to die, because it's failing to adapt to a changing world. Nonetheless, I'd proceed with caution, because the leaders will very likely see such interference as a threat to their authority, and may try to use their power to repress the "troublemaker."

The social pressure is always that way that you have to adapt. For most of us it is the hardest thing to realize that don't caring this pressure and setting own standards is the only way to success.

I have never fit in with other people. In grade 8 that became even more visible.

I like who I am. I get made fun of now for wearing a lot of black and not speaking much except for my special interests.

When I was a kid my parents were 1ce told by some kind of so-called expert that I had oppositional defiant disorder because of my behavior. My problem was that I did NOT understand things & others did NOT understand me. I had LOTS of needs that weren't being met rite.

I think aspies are natural non conformists. It didn’t even occur to me until I was 12 or 13 that I should maybe at least try to conform to my peer group. Then any time I did try, I failed, always “missing the mark” somehow. So as an adult, I stopped trying, just embraced it and i’ve Never been happier.