Fellow Non-Conformist (or aspiring Non-Conformist) 👋🏾
Here are this week’s resources, with which I hope to encourage you to continue resisting mindless conformity, or to motivate you to stop conforming mindlessly:
(Click on the book title to buy or read a sample of the book.)
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
A dystopian novel published in 1932. The story is set in a future world where people are genetically engineered and conditioned to conform to a highly structured society. In this society, happiness is achieved through the use of a drug called “soma" and the suppression of individuality and emotions.
The main character, Bernard Marx, is an outsider who struggles to fit in with the rigid social hierarchy. He becomes interested in a “savage” named John, who was raised outside the controlled society and has a different perspective on life.
As Bernard tries to integrate John into society, the novel explores themes of individuality, free will, and the dangers of a society that prioritises happiness over everything else. The novel also touches on the role of technology in shaping society and the potential consequences of a society that values efficiency and conformity above all else.
A longer summary of the novel, 5 quotes, 5 key takeaways, and 5 actionable tips, which I expanded on, are in the latest issue of The Individual™
In addition to conformity as a way to relieve the anxiety springing from separateness, another factor of contemporary life must be considered: the role of the work routine and the pleasure routine. Man becomes a “nine to fiver”, he is part of the labour force, or the bureaucratic force of clerks and managers. He has little initiative, his tasks are prescribed by the organisation of the work; there is even little difference between those high up on the ladder and those on the bottom. They all perform tasks prescribed by the whole structure of the organisation, at a prescribed speed, and in a prescribed manner. Even the feelings are prescribed: cheerfulness, tolerance, reliability, ambition, and an ability to get along with everybody without friction. Fun is routinised in similar, although not quite as drastic ways.
Books are selected by the book clubs, movies by the film and theatre owners and the advertising slogans paid for by them; the rest is also uniform: the Sunday ride in the car, the television session, the card game, the social parties. From birth to death, from Monday to Monday, from morning to evening—all activities are routinised, and prefabricated. How should a man caught up in this net of routine not forget that he is a man, a unique individual, one who is given only this one chance of living, with hopes and disappointments, with sorrow and fear, with the longing for love and the dread of the nothing and separateness?
— Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving
That’s all for this week. I look forward to serving you again next week. In the meantime, feel free to follow Dangers of Conformity™ on Twitter, where I tweet a few times every day, celebrating individuality and condemning mindless conformity.
One Love ✊🏾
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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