Random

Sounds like you are confusing non-conformity with anarchy. You can be a non-conformist and work within a system, as long as the system is designed for individuality, and change. (99.9999999% are not). Just being a non-conformist doesn't mean I want to DESTROY the system. I just want to change the system to do what I feel is Right/correct. I'm not about to blow up congress and appoint myself "Supreme Random States of America", yet there are so many things in our current system of government and laws that I would like to change.

Getting back to the origial topic...

Society only seems to "respect" individuality in art. In everything else, they want you to have a house like the neighbors, furinture like everyone else, decor like everyone else, a yard and landscaping like everyone else, Cars/driveway like everyone else..etc..etc..etc. And to a certian extent, there is a socialologic NEED for it. Humans beings are "clannish" by nature. We always want to surround ourselves with "people like us", and to a certian extent, that is what "Fxtreme/Team SR/Hyundai Performance" are all about. We are a "clan" bonded by our choice of what car we chose to purchase. Simply being a member of "A" clan, or even "several" clans does not make you a conformist. If anything, our choice of purchasing a Hyundai should confirm our non-conformity.

You are NOT a "Stereotype". That is the label or catagory that people put on YOU or put you in. A "stereotype" is by definition... Stereotype's are society's way of putting you back in a "box" or "catagory" just like the rest of society. You are not the label society puts on you.

I would not be so hard on yourself. Your musical tastes may not be shared by all, but that hardly makes them "questionable". Would you call your musical tastes "questionable" if you loved Opera? Is it "questionable" to love country music? Ditto to your ideas. They may not be shared by EVERYONE, but that doesn't make them "questionable". The key is, you have your own mind to make you own opinions and decisions. You question authority, the media, and often the opinions/statements of others.

Most members of society move along like cattle or sheep as you said. Blindly consuming what the adversting media tells them to consume, marrying and reproducing like TV tells them to..etc..etc..etc... They hold down "respectable" jobs, and live their lives like everyone else, never questioning what they do in live, why they do it, and if they would really rather be doing something else. Do you really put yourself in that catagory? (I didn't think so!)

Just remember...you're unique...just like everyone else!

[ September 10, 2001: Message edited by: Random ]

FasterInRed

Just remember you're different, just like everybody else

Max_Kool

No...I'm saying to achieve "true" non-conformity, anarchy would have to be part of the catalyst.



Perhaps the word "destroy" was a bit too strong for the context. I never meant to say that you would have to "blow up" anything, but to radically change it. That, in essence, is destruction.

Ignorance is bliss. Most definately.

But, you only looking at my point through one eye. I'm not being hard on myself at all. I'm being brutally honest, I suppose. Individual, you and I are, in the terms of body, and personality, and mind. Conformists we are also. You think buying one of the least popular cars on the market (at the time) makes a non-conformist? Most people have bought our cars because A: they look "cool", B: they're very affordable, or C: they saw someone else driving one.
I highly doubt most people bought a tibby as a form of non-conformity. But perhaps, I can see your point, but only in the small picture.



Then what makes one a conformist? I hope you're not looking at a conformist society one where everyone is uniformed, same hair, same minds, same everything (ie., nazis). That is conformity in it's extreme. Like the newspaper originally posted, it comes down to consumerism, media, and all the hundreds of little clans we animals create with each other. Loose conformity, you can call it, but conformity nonetheless.

Conformity, (noun.) conformity, conformation, compliance, abidance: acting according to certain accepted standards.

That's all it is. I'm sure you follow some small "accepted standard" or law. You get pulled over for speeding, you get a ticket, you either pay for it or fight it. Even if you fight it, it's all part of the system.

Those are all my thoughts on the topic, and I understand and see your view, but perhaps we all need to re-evaluate our "individuality.

Random

I guess we are looking at it as Half Full or Half Empty.

I see the majority of the choices I make, or at least the "important" choices, as Non-conforming. Looking back on my life, I never even realized at the time that the choices I made were not the "usual" choices that people made in life.

Sure I eat at McDonalds, wear Levi's, and drink beer once and awhile. But I look at the major life decisions I have made, and the "choices" I am presented with, I usually end up choosing a option that the majority of people do not. Thus I label myself as a non-conformist.

If you were to look at all the the "little" choices I make every day. What Radio station I listen to, what brand of Razor I use, what I ate for breakfast, what shoes I'm wearing, what jeans I buy...you could label me as a conformist.

Half-Full or half Empty.

To be a Complete non-conformist is just as impossible as being a complete conformist. So I was looking at the "generalized" choices I made in life, and in day to day living/working.

When I said you were being hard on yourself, I just meant in the choice of the word "questionable". A semantical choice that seemed to carry a connotation of "dissapoval" in the context it was used.

In think in the end we are basically agreeing, but disagreeing over semantics/degrees of conformity/non-conformity.

Damn...I wonder how many people left this thread after the first post or two we made!

Iago

I've just been sitting back and reading all of it, partly because I wanted to see where everything would go, and partly because I just haven't had the time to really sit down and churn out a novel-post like these other ones to touch on all the points that come up in my mind.

Iago

Well, I think we just got the kick in the ass we needed to disillusion our current generation about the current state of our global culture... sad.gif

Fast.Type-S

PLEASE TELL ME YOU POSTED THIS PRIOR TO WHAT HAS HAPPEND TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!


GOD BLESS ALL AMERICA! WE NEED TO BOMB THE COUNTRY THAT WILL BE HELD FOR THESE ACTIONS! SIGN ME UP...I'LL LEARN HOW TO FLY A PLANE LIKE A *****!!! And im sure the pilots of those planes are going to be considered "hero's" for there actions by there nation/country/organizations..and so forth. Like I was told as a boy..anyone can make a baby..but it take a MAN to raise the child. Same concept! Kinda out there statement..but same meaning.


Now the owner of my company came around turning off TV's and said get back to work. What a ****ING ASSHOLE! I need to win the lotto and find a small island and shelter myself there with my family and a T-1 line.

PLEASE KEEP THIS THREAD OR FLAME THREAD POSTED OF NEW INFORMATION/CHANGES IN OUR NATIONS WELL BEING. AS I CAN NOT HEAR OR SEE A TV/RADIO.

THANK YOU!

Choopi

Irony Sucks ass

SupraGuy

So, do you think that killing innocent people will make it all better? Will the deaths of the innocent people and their children in a foreign nation make you feel proud and justified? Should we just group all the people together and kill the innocent along with the guilty? That solution would not be dissimilar to the Japanese internment camps during World War 2. I had hoped that people have learned better by now...

This is an excellent example of both conformity and stereotyping. The conformity is the sense of nationalism. Even the non-conformist Random stated that if called, he would fight for his country. We all must conform to some degree, or society could not function. I, too consider myself a non-conformist, and will often reject a popular notion, or approach to doing things. I am not an anarchist. I do not subscribe to Max_Kool's idea that anarchy would spark to true non-conformity.

Anarchy is, by definition, an "everyone for themselves" state. In such a state, people must rely on their own strength to attain that which they need to survive. Unless there is more than enough resources for everyone (there isn't) that means that you must do so at the expense of others. With that being the case, we would revert to Darwinian "survival of the fittest." The catch comes when the first time that people group together, they will discover that many people working together are far stronger than even the strongest individual. And conformity is born again. Thus it would seem that the only way that total non-conformity, as per Max_Kool's definition could occur is within an area where there are enough resources that there is no competition for anything that any individual might want.

That brings us to the next point. Even if there were enough resources to go around, and then some, people would still fight over them. Has anyone watched two small children play? If one child has a toy, the other wants it. It does not matter that there is another, identical toy in the toybox, the second child wants that one. This is the way that people are, by nature. As parents, we teach our children to co-operate and share.

Now if only we could teach the world to "play nicely with others."

Lt. Roasta Botch

very good points Dan. i agree with you 100%. something has to be done however. this guy and his group have to pay and i think some country is hiding him out. they have been searching for this cat for quite a while and can't nab him.