Honestly, I think the cluster of tech-savvy, young, smart-but-nonconformist types is really winning at the goal of being productive while happy. Not everybody makes it; but I’ve seen a lot of people have lives more satisfying than their parents ever could. People who’ve broken the conventional wisdom that you have to put up with a lot of bullshit because “that’s life.” Mainly, because instead of asking “What is the Thing To Do?” they’ve got the hang of asking “What is the best thing I could be doing?”
If cryonics is a bust, I’ll grant that it’s a genuine waste of money. The same is true for SIAI. (Though I’ll mention that lots of otherwise fulfilled people donate to demonstrably inefficient charities that spend most of their money on employee salaries. Most middle-class people throw some money down the toilet and don’t even notice it.) The other issues are not such a big deal. Leaving religious communities is not a blow to people who have figured out how to optimize life, because they aren’t isolated any more. I don’t even know if overuse of stimulants is that widespread—I certainly know they aren’t good for me.
As for having self-gratifying beliefs that aren’t of much use … well, everybody does that a little. Guilty as charged. But for me at least, LessWrong’s favorite issues led me to interests in similar-but-not-identical issues. General AI is pretty opaque to me, but now I’m interested in narrow AI (and its statistical/mathematical cousins.) The abstract discussion of rationality has led me to take psychology and motivational advice more seriously.
Are LessWrong memes pretty confined to a subset of tech geeks and some young scientists and professionals? Yeah. For the moment, so what? That’s the environment I want to be in; those are my friends, collaborators, and role models. Not everybody is suited to be a world-wide evangelist with a big bullhorn; I’m satisfied that there will always be people in the world who disagree with me.
Honestly, I think the cluster of tech-savvy, young, smart-but-nonconformist types is really winning at the goal of being productive while happy.
As a general rule, nonconformists aren’t happy: they must choose between hiding their nonconformity and living a double life, which is never a happy situation, or being open nonconformists and suffering severe penalties for it. What you have in mind would probably be better described as people who know how to send off fashionable signals of officially approved pseudo-nonconformity, and to recognize and disregard rules that are only paid lip-service (and irrelevant except as a stumbling block for those not smart enough to realize it), but are perfect and enthusiastic conformists when it comes to things that really matter.
The key to successful non-conformity is to find your tribe later. If you look at people who’ve done this now, they seem like conformists, because they do what their peer-group does. But they’ve fit their peer-group to their personality, rather than trying to fit their personality to their peer-group. They’ve had to move through local minima of non-conformity.
Here are some examples of where I’ve made what have at the time been socially brave choices that have paid off big. This is exactly all about asking “what is the best thing I could be doing”, not “what is the thing to do”.
Decided to accept and admit to my bisexuality. This was very uncomfortable at first, and I never did really find a “home” in gay communities, as they conformed around a lot of norms that didn’t suit me well. What accepting my sexuality really bought me is a critical stance on masculinity. Rejecting the normal definition of “what it means to be a man” has been hugely liberating. Being queer has a nice signalling perk on this, too. It’s much harder to be straight and get away with this. If you’re queer people shrug and put you in that “third sex” category of neither masculine nor feminine.
Decided not to pursue any of the “typical” careers. I was getting top marks in English and History in high school, and all the other kids with that academic profile were going into law. I chose to just do an arts degree in linguistics, with an eye on academia. This turned out to be a very important decision, as I’m very happy with my academic career in computational linguistics. When I meet people, they’re amazed at how “lucky” I am to have found something so niche that fits me so well. Well, it isn’t luck at all: I decided what everyone else was doing was not for me, and had to suck it up when people called me a fool for leaving all that near-certain law money on the table.
Decided the “school” of linguistics I’d trained in all through my undergraduate was completely wrong, requiring me to abandon my existing professional network and relearn almost everything. It was kind of a scientific crisis of faith. But I think I’m happier now than I would’ve been if I hadn’t.
Decided to become vegetarian. This benefited me by reducing my cognitive dissonance between the empirical facts of the meat industry and my need to feel that I was making the world a better place, and wouldn’t do something I had believed caused great harm just because it was normal. Now I have a network of vegetarian friends (not that I abandoned my old one, mind), so it doesn’t feel like lonely dissent. And I did only “convert” after meeting a rationalist vegetarian friend. But the non-conformity pain was still there when I did it. I had to deal with feeling like a weirdo, which is unpleasant.
Hired a domestic cleaner. Domestic help is fairly socially unacceptable in my champagne socialist slice of Australia. How bourgeois! Well, yes—we are totally bourgeois. Champagne socialists are very uncomfortable about this. This exchange of goods for services is very high utility for me, though.
So I disagree that “non-conformists” are worse off, for this definition of “non-conformist”. People willing to make socially brave choices stand to gain a lot; people who are completely craven in the face of any social opprobrium wind up trapped in circumstances that don’t suit them well.
So I disagree that “non-conformists” are worse off, for this definition of “non-conformist”. People willing to make socially brave choices stand to gain a lot; people who are completely craven in the face of any social opprobrium wind up trapped in circumstances that don’t suit them well.
We clearly disagree on the definition of “nonconformity.” If you use this word for any instance of resisting social pressure, then clearly you are right, but it also means that everyone is a nonconformist except people who live their entire lives as silent, frightened, and obedient doormats for others. Any success in life is practically impossible if you don’t stand up for yourself when it’s smart to do so, and if you don’t exploit some opportunities opened by the hypocritical distinctions between the nominal and real rules of social interactions and institutions. But I wouldn’t call any of that “nonconformity,” a term which I reserve for opposition to truly serious and universally accepted rules and respectable beliefs. Of course, it makes little sense to argue over definitions, so I guess we can leave it at that.
If it makes any difference to you, my definition of “nonconformist” was someone who exhibits some social courage. For example, someone who decides to leave college to pursue plans of his own. Many people don’t stand up for themselves even a little. Or acknowledge to themselves that they don’t desire what other people expect for them. I have a hard time with this myself, which is why I don’t take this ability for granted. That’s all I meant by “nonconformist.” Don’t take the terminology too seriously
None of these are non conformity: All of them are fashionable signals of officially approved affluent pseudo-nonconformity. For example, the vast majority of people who claim to vegetarians, are not, but claim to vegetarians for the status.
And it simply absurd to suggest that Australian champagne socialists disapprove of hiring domestic help They are always one upping each other on how little housework they do.
Almost everything’s fashionable to someone, somewhere. You can start with a certain in-group and non-conform by deciding to eat meat. You can non-conform out of the gay community by deciding you’re actually straight.
The issue of conformity arose in this thread from SarahC’s comment:
Honestly, I think the cluster of tech-savvy, young, smart-but-nonconformist types is really winning at the goal of being productive while happy. Not everybody makes it; but I’ve seen a lot of people have lives more satisfying than their parents ever could. People who’ve broken the conventional wisdom that you have to put up with a lot of bullshit because “that’s life.” Mainly, because instead of asking “What is the Thing To Do?” they’ve got the hang of asking “What is the best thing I could be doing?”
I think this really applies to me. My assessment of my life is that I’m much happier because of these moments where I’ve exercised even a little bit of courage in the face of social pressure. It wasn’t a huge amount of courage, but it was non-zero—which is more than many people are willing to do. I do believe that being utterly craven in the face of social opprobrium is a common failure mode, and it’s an area where rationality pays dividends.
For example, the vast majority of people who claim to vegetarians, are not, but claim to vegetarians for the status.
Got a cite for that? Vegetarianism might be a questionable indicator of nonconformity, but I’d be much more willing to believe that vegetarianism’s become common enough in a broad spectrum of subcultures to be disqualified as such than that a vast, or even a simple, majority of professed vegetarians aren’t actual vegetarians. Perhaps modulo some wiggle room for culturally mandated meat-eating, like Thanksgiving turkeys in the US.
Now that I think about it, actually, it’s a non sequitur either way. The hypocrisy/sincere profession ratio of a feature doesn’t tell us much of anything about how acceptable it is in the mainstream: I’d expect many more people to claim to have Mafia ties than do in fact, but membership in a criminal fraternity is almost by definition nonconformist!
By the most naive rational appraisal, eating n% less meat than usual is fully n% as good—say, for suffering animals—as being a pure vegetarian. However, the social consequences of being a pure vegetarian seem to be entirely different than those of simply eating less meat. (I agree with sam0345 that those social consequences are largely positive.) It’s interesting to think about why.
Also, a question about the “not vegetarians” thing. I’ll grant you ahead of time that a great many vegetarians/vegans aren’t doing it for any particularly rational reason. E.g., they think it’s healthier (it’s not), they think meat’s gross (subjective—but they’re wrong anyway :p), they exaggerate the environmental case, etc. But I have a hard time believing they actually fail to eat little to no meat.
What are you counting as “failing to be vegetarian”? If they eat meat once a month? Once a week? Once a day? I’d say that someone that eats meat once a day is not vegetarian. But I’d also say it’s reasonable for someone who eats meat even once a week to call themselves vegetarian. Are you claiming that there are lots of people who call themselves vegetarian but eat almost as much meat as “normal” people?
Even if vegetarianism were entirely status neutral, you need to communicate to people what you want to be eating. If you tell everyone “okay, I eat meat once a week”, then chances are high two people per week are going to say “great, here’s some meat”. So you won’t even be able to maintain this very liberal ratio.
I sometimes eat certain types of seafood, such as oysters or prawns, because I don’t believe this is actually cruel. An oyster is not a pig. It doesn’t have much of a nervous system to speak of. So why should I avoid eating them, just to meet someone’s definition?
Similarly, if someone can’t live healthily on a strictly vegetarian diet, but needs to eat some meat, why do they need to snap back to “no special diet” status? If they still think the meat industry is largely cruel, they can probably meet their health requirements by eating only a little meat. Why should this person not call themselves a vegetarian?
I personally eat very little meat. I don’t consider myself to be vegetarian.
I have never met a self-professed vegetarian that I’ve seen to eat meat. Not that this means there aren’t any… but my experience suggest to me that meat-eating vegetarians are not “the majority”
I can, however, conceive that some vegans might say that non-vegan vegetarians are not “really” vegetarian.
I am also aware of a certain movement, sprung from the vegetarian community, to spruik the “eat less meat” philosophy.
One of these may be where sam0345 is hearing about non-vegetarian vegetarians...
I don’t follow? Even if vegetarianism is highly negative starus, the word’s useful as a way to communicate your pre-commitments. Again, imagine the person who eats meat once a week attending several events per week where they will be expected to eat meat. If they don’t call themselves vegetarian, they won’t be able to keep their commitment. This says nothing about how much status they are gaining or losing, or how much they are ‘conforming’.
Different things can be meant by the word ‘nonconformist’. Is it someone who doesn’t care about conforming or someone who cares about non-conforming? The first kind of person will act weird as long as it doesn’t hurt them too much but they will not engage in any norm-breaking that could put them in actual danger. They will even signal their harmless weirdness if they feel like it. The second kind will set out to prove to themselves that they are truly different and unique.
There are also people who feel strongly about being ‘normal’ and they also feel strongly about adhering to the cultural ideal of romantic rebelliousness that you talk about in your later comment so they will indeed seek cheap ways to signal nonconformist traits.
I read SarahC’s comment as referring to nonconformists of the first kind, while from your comment I got the impression that you divide the space of weird people into ‘true nonconformists’ who seek weirdness for its own sake and pseudo-conconformists who really want to fit in but at the same time try to give out a rebel vibe.
fashionable signals of officially approved pseudo-nonconformity
things that really matter
Examples of these categories would be helpful. (In general, I find your comments interesting and your perspective important, but have a hard time understanding you due to frequent oblique allusions like these. I know that some of the time you’re trying not to step on landmines, which seems like a good idea, but this doesn’t seem like one of those cases.)
It seems to me that every human society has some romantic notion of heroic rebels and nonconformists, but for reasons that are interesting to speculate on, ours is obsessed with it to a very exceptional degree. (So much that people nowadays typically use the word “nonconformist” with a tone of approval, and rarely for those who fail to conform with norms and views that they themselves actually like.) This opens the way for people to gain status if they are capable of doing things that signal in a way that resonates with this heroic “nonconformist” image, while at the same time avoiding any really dangerous nonconformity.
Take for example all those artists and authors who get praised as “daring,” “transgressive”, “challenging taboos,” etc., even though the things they do have been run-of-the-mill for many decades (or even much longer), the views they express (insofar as they express any) are entirely predictable for anyone familiar with the respectable intellectual mainstream, their high status is acknowledged by the mainstream media and academia, and some of them even get rich off of this “nonconformity.” There are many other similar examples of cheap “nonconformist” signaling that is not backed by any serious nonconformity, including most (if not all) of the contemporary “subcultures.”
(An even more extreme and farcical phenomenon occurs when the establishment itself includes some sort of fake “opposition” or orchestrates supposedly authentic “protests” or “activism.” I won’t get into any examples of this to avoid stirring up controversy.)
In contrast, true nonconformity would mean adopting views (and undertaking consequent actions) that seriously lower your status and risk severe loss of reputation, unemployability, criminal penalties, or even violent confrontation with the powers-that-be. Examples would be refusing to recognize the authority of the government over some laws whose enforcement is taken seriously, or becoming an outspoken propagandist for some shockingly extremist fringe group. Clearly this is not a way to a happy life, regardless of whether you have any sympathy for any such sort of people and their views.
Please also see my reply to Mycroft65536 below regarding non-conformist groups.
In contrast, true nonconformity would mean adopting views (and undertaking consequent actions) that seriously lower your status and risk severe loss of reputation, unemployability, …
Doesn’t have to be as serious as bucking the law. It can even be as simple as telling your boss that his idea won’t work (because of X, Y and Z). Or deciding to buck the corporate dress-requirements because you know you will never be put in front of a real customer and therefore should be allowed to be comfortable at work… etc etc
Only if you stretch the definition of “nonconformity” to the point of meaninglessness. If you define it so broadly to include things like these you mention—polite disagreement with authority figures over technical matters and slight bending of rules to make things easier—then practically every human being who has ever lived has been a “nonconformist.”
Ah… by this I take it that you’ve never worked in a job where telling the boss what to do will end in your being disciplined for not toeing the company line. We’re not talking “polite disagreement over technical matters” here. There are situations of this kind where you definitely suffer social stigma for speaking out.
…mostly when the company has become a cult… and it’s much better to avoid this kind of company if you can—but that’s very difficult in today’s corporate culture.
Now I understand better what you’re talking about. I have seen such examples of institutional mendacity, and I certainly agree that in some sorts of institutions it is so widespread that you may be faced with unpleasant trade-offs between your career (or other) interest and your integrity. So yes, I’d certainly count it as real nonconformity if you opt for the latter.
For a complete list of examples of officially approved pseudo non conformity, see “Stuff White People Like”
Vegetarianism, or the pious pretense of vegetarianism, is pretty high on the list.
Deep fry pork belly in smoking hot pig fat till light brown, then gently simmer on a slow heat. It will cure most people’s foodie affectations. The slow simmer will produce some nice meat juices, which you should add to the roast potatoes.
I’m not sure about that. The world is big enough that you can live most of your life mostly in contact with other non-conformists in your particular cluster. I’m doing that right now.
The world is big enough that you can live most of your life mostly in contact with other non-conformists in your particular cluster.
The critical issue here is whether your nonconformist group has a truly independent status hierarchy and mechanisms of social support, i.e. if it really allows you to sever ties with the mainstream society and institutions so that you don’t have to care about your status and reputation with them without severe negative consequences. I can hardly think of any such nonconformist groups except for some very insular religious sects—the modern trend is almost uniformly towards strong consolidation of a single and universal status hierarchy whose rules apply to everyone.
Maybe in the 80′s, when we were only a few Satan worshipping nuts, but we are now in 21st century where science fiction and fantasy decisively won and is The Mainstream Culture now.
Of 10 biggest grossing movies of the year, all are F/SF and role playing games are worldwide multibillion industry.
Someone who does not know who is Harry Potter and what is Warcraft is the crazy weirdo :P
Some SF movies have been popular of late—and most mainstream films have become more science-heavy… but people that watch these shows are in no way fans of the genre. I don’t know of any Mainstream types who read SF books regularly or who avidly watch more than one or two of the most main of mainstream SF shows/series.
By contrast, even the non-uber-geek SF fans will know a Ferengi from a Centari by sight, will understand what the odd-even rule is and can probably rattle of the three laws of robotics (plus the extra one) on the spot. These are the people I mean—and I still think there’s a difference between them and people who may have just watched The Matrix, LOTR or one of the X-Men movies.
Actually being part of the full on SF fandom culture is definitely non-conformist. Think trekkies (or trekkers if you prefer).
And by role-playing gamers… I don’t mean video games… I mean classic dice-rolling “your elven warlock spots three kobolds” kind of role-playing games.
WoW is a different kettle of fish… but I know of nobody that thinks classic RPGs are “mainstream”.
Awesome. I really like this position; it feels right. It was too stingy of me to say that all rationalism buys is a chance to conform, and it’s too optimistic of certain LW cheerleaders to claim that rationality will promptly sweep the world or grant us superpowers. Your comment nails the middle path between these two extremes. :-)
Honestly, I think the cluster of tech-savvy, young, smart-but-nonconformist types is really winning at the goal of being productive while happy. Not everybody makes it; but I’ve seen a lot of people have lives more satisfying than their parents ever could. People who’ve broken the conventional wisdom that you have to put up with a lot of bullshit because “that’s life.” Mainly, because instead of asking “What is the Thing To Do?” they’ve got the hang of asking “What is the best thing I could be doing?”
If cryonics is a bust, I’ll grant that it’s a genuine waste of money. The same is true for SIAI. (Though I’ll mention that lots of otherwise fulfilled people donate to demonstrably inefficient charities that spend most of their money on employee salaries. Most middle-class people throw some money down the toilet and don’t even notice it.) The other issues are not such a big deal. Leaving religious communities is not a blow to people who have figured out how to optimize life, because they aren’t isolated any more. I don’t even know if overuse of stimulants is that widespread—I certainly know they aren’t good for me.
As for having self-gratifying beliefs that aren’t of much use … well, everybody does that a little. Guilty as charged. But for me at least, LessWrong’s favorite issues led me to interests in similar-but-not-identical issues. General AI is pretty opaque to me, but now I’m interested in narrow AI (and its statistical/mathematical cousins.) The abstract discussion of rationality has led me to take psychology and motivational advice more seriously.
Are LessWrong memes pretty confined to a subset of tech geeks and some young scientists and professionals? Yeah. For the moment, so what? That’s the environment I want to be in; those are my friends, collaborators, and role models. Not everybody is suited to be a world-wide evangelist with a big bullhorn; I’m satisfied that there will always be people in the world who disagree with me.
As a general rule, nonconformists aren’t happy: they must choose between hiding their nonconformity and living a double life, which is never a happy situation, or being open nonconformists and suffering severe penalties for it. What you have in mind would probably be better described as people who know how to send off fashionable signals of officially approved pseudo-nonconformity, and to recognize and disregard rules that are only paid lip-service (and irrelevant except as a stumbling block for those not smart enough to realize it), but are perfect and enthusiastic conformists when it comes to things that really matter.
The key to successful non-conformity is to find your tribe later. If you look at people who’ve done this now, they seem like conformists, because they do what their peer-group does. But they’ve fit their peer-group to their personality, rather than trying to fit their personality to their peer-group. They’ve had to move through local minima of non-conformity.
Here are some examples of where I’ve made what have at the time been socially brave choices that have paid off big. This is exactly all about asking “what is the best thing I could be doing”, not “what is the thing to do”.
Decided to accept and admit to my bisexuality. This was very uncomfortable at first, and I never did really find a “home” in gay communities, as they conformed around a lot of norms that didn’t suit me well. What accepting my sexuality really bought me is a critical stance on masculinity. Rejecting the normal definition of “what it means to be a man” has been hugely liberating. Being queer has a nice signalling perk on this, too. It’s much harder to be straight and get away with this. If you’re queer people shrug and put you in that “third sex” category of neither masculine nor feminine.
Decided not to pursue any of the “typical” careers. I was getting top marks in English and History in high school, and all the other kids with that academic profile were going into law. I chose to just do an arts degree in linguistics, with an eye on academia. This turned out to be a very important decision, as I’m very happy with my academic career in computational linguistics. When I meet people, they’re amazed at how “lucky” I am to have found something so niche that fits me so well. Well, it isn’t luck at all: I decided what everyone else was doing was not for me, and had to suck it up when people called me a fool for leaving all that near-certain law money on the table.
Decided the “school” of linguistics I’d trained in all through my undergraduate was completely wrong, requiring me to abandon my existing professional network and relearn almost everything. It was kind of a scientific crisis of faith. But I think I’m happier now than I would’ve been if I hadn’t.
Decided to become vegetarian. This benefited me by reducing my cognitive dissonance between the empirical facts of the meat industry and my need to feel that I was making the world a better place, and wouldn’t do something I had believed caused great harm just because it was normal. Now I have a network of vegetarian friends (not that I abandoned my old one, mind), so it doesn’t feel like lonely dissent. And I did only “convert” after meeting a rationalist vegetarian friend. But the non-conformity pain was still there when I did it. I had to deal with feeling like a weirdo, which is unpleasant.
Hired a domestic cleaner. Domestic help is fairly socially unacceptable in my champagne socialist slice of Australia. How bourgeois! Well, yes—we are totally bourgeois. Champagne socialists are very uncomfortable about this. This exchange of goods for services is very high utility for me, though.
So I disagree that “non-conformists” are worse off, for this definition of “non-conformist”. People willing to make socially brave choices stand to gain a lot; people who are completely craven in the face of any social opprobrium wind up trapped in circumstances that don’t suit them well.
We clearly disagree on the definition of “nonconformity.” If you use this word for any instance of resisting social pressure, then clearly you are right, but it also means that everyone is a nonconformist except people who live their entire lives as silent, frightened, and obedient doormats for others. Any success in life is practically impossible if you don’t stand up for yourself when it’s smart to do so, and if you don’t exploit some opportunities opened by the hypocritical distinctions between the nominal and real rules of social interactions and institutions. But I wouldn’t call any of that “nonconformity,” a term which I reserve for opposition to truly serious and universally accepted rules and respectable beliefs. Of course, it makes little sense to argue over definitions, so I guess we can leave it at that.
Thanks for the clarification. I tend to call what you call non-conformists “sole dissenters”. I’ve never done this.
If it makes any difference to you, my definition of “nonconformist” was someone who exhibits some social courage. For example, someone who decides to leave college to pursue plans of his own. Many people don’t stand up for themselves even a little. Or acknowledge to themselves that they don’t desire what other people expect for them. I have a hard time with this myself, which is why I don’t take this ability for granted. That’s all I meant by “nonconformist.” Don’t take the terminology too seriously
None of these are non conformity: All of them are fashionable signals of officially approved affluent pseudo-nonconformity. For example, the vast majority of people who claim to vegetarians, are not, but claim to vegetarians for the status.
And it simply absurd to suggest that Australian champagne socialists disapprove of hiring domestic help They are always one upping each other on how little housework they do.
Almost everything’s fashionable to someone, somewhere. You can start with a certain in-group and non-conform by deciding to eat meat. You can non-conform out of the gay community by deciding you’re actually straight.
The issue of conformity arose in this thread from SarahC’s comment:
I think this really applies to me. My assessment of my life is that I’m much happier because of these moments where I’ve exercised even a little bit of courage in the face of social pressure. It wasn’t a huge amount of courage, but it was non-zero—which is more than many people are willing to do. I do believe that being utterly craven in the face of social opprobrium is a common failure mode, and it’s an area where rationality pays dividends.
Got a cite for that? Vegetarianism might be a questionable indicator of nonconformity, but I’d be much more willing to believe that vegetarianism’s become common enough in a broad spectrum of subcultures to be disqualified as such than that a vast, or even a simple, majority of professed vegetarians aren’t actual vegetarians. Perhaps modulo some wiggle room for culturally mandated meat-eating, like Thanksgiving turkeys in the US.
Now that I think about it, actually, it’s a non sequitur either way. The hypocrisy/sincere profession ratio of a feature doesn’t tell us much of anything about how acceptable it is in the mainstream: I’d expect many more people to claim to have Mafia ties than do in fact, but membership in a criminal fraternity is almost by definition nonconformist!
Merely a personal observation. I do however have a cite for the proposition that vegan is conformity, and omnivory a sinful deviation.
Citing a source that aims for humor rather than accuracy is a lot more helpful if you’re aiming for flippancy rather than credibility.
By the most naive rational appraisal, eating n% less meat than usual is fully n% as good—say, for suffering animals—as being a pure vegetarian. However, the social consequences of being a pure vegetarian seem to be entirely different than those of simply eating less meat. (I agree with sam0345 that those social consequences are largely positive.) It’s interesting to think about why.
Also, a question about the “not vegetarians” thing. I’ll grant you ahead of time that a great many vegetarians/vegans aren’t doing it for any particularly rational reason. E.g., they think it’s healthier (it’s not), they think meat’s gross (subjective—but they’re wrong anyway :p), they exaggerate the environmental case, etc. But I have a hard time believing they actually fail to eat little to no meat.
What are you counting as “failing to be vegetarian”? If they eat meat once a month? Once a week? Once a day? I’d say that someone that eats meat once a day is not vegetarian. But I’d also say it’s reasonable for someone who eats meat even once a week to call themselves vegetarian. Are you claiming that there are lots of people who call themselves vegetarian but eat almost as much meat as “normal” people?
Even if vegetarianism were entirely status neutral, you need to communicate to people what you want to be eating. If you tell everyone “okay, I eat meat once a week”, then chances are high two people per week are going to say “great, here’s some meat”. So you won’t even be able to maintain this very liberal ratio.
I sometimes eat certain types of seafood, such as oysters or prawns, because I don’t believe this is actually cruel. An oyster is not a pig. It doesn’t have much of a nervous system to speak of. So why should I avoid eating them, just to meet someone’s definition?
Similarly, if someone can’t live healthily on a strictly vegetarian diet, but needs to eat some meat, why do they need to snap back to “no special diet” status? If they still think the meat industry is largely cruel, they can probably meet their health requirements by eating only a little meat. Why should this person not call themselves a vegetarian?
I personally eat very little meat. I don’t consider myself to be vegetarian.
I have never met a self-professed vegetarian that I’ve seen to eat meat. Not that this means there aren’t any… but my experience suggest to me that meat-eating vegetarians are not “the majority”
I can, however, conceive that some vegans might say that non-vegan vegetarians are not “really” vegetarian.
I am also aware of a certain movement, sprung from the vegetarian community, to spruik the “eat less meat” philosophy.
One of these may be where sam0345 is hearing about non-vegetarian vegetarians...
Of course this person can call himself a vegetarian. But that he is inclined to do so would indicate that vegetarianism is not non conformity.
I don’t follow? Even if vegetarianism is highly negative starus, the word’s useful as a way to communicate your pre-commitments. Again, imagine the person who eats meat once a week attending several events per week where they will be expected to eat meat. If they don’t call themselves vegetarian, they won’t be able to keep their commitment. This says nothing about how much status they are gaining or losing, or how much they are ‘conforming’.
Academics are lower-status than lawyers where you are?
It sure seemed that way when I was 17.
Different things can be meant by the word ‘nonconformist’. Is it someone who doesn’t care about conforming or someone who cares about non-conforming? The first kind of person will act weird as long as it doesn’t hurt them too much but they will not engage in any norm-breaking that could put them in actual danger. They will even signal their harmless weirdness if they feel like it. The second kind will set out to prove to themselves that they are truly different and unique.
There are also people who feel strongly about being ‘normal’ and they also feel strongly about adhering to the cultural ideal of romantic rebelliousness that you talk about in your later comment so they will indeed seek cheap ways to signal nonconformist traits.
I read SarahC’s comment as referring to nonconformists of the first kind, while from your comment I got the impression that you divide the space of weird people into ‘true nonconformists’ who seek weirdness for its own sake and pseudo-conconformists who really want to fit in but at the same time try to give out a rebel vibe.
Examples of these categories would be helpful. (In general, I find your comments interesting and your perspective important, but have a hard time understanding you due to frequent oblique allusions like these. I know that some of the time you’re trying not to step on landmines, which seems like a good idea, but this doesn’t seem like one of those cases.)
(On-topic, I agree with Mycroft65536.)
It seems to me that every human society has some romantic notion of heroic rebels and nonconformists, but for reasons that are interesting to speculate on, ours is obsessed with it to a very exceptional degree. (So much that people nowadays typically use the word “nonconformist” with a tone of approval, and rarely for those who fail to conform with norms and views that they themselves actually like.) This opens the way for people to gain status if they are capable of doing things that signal in a way that resonates with this heroic “nonconformist” image, while at the same time avoiding any really dangerous nonconformity.
Take for example all those artists and authors who get praised as “daring,” “transgressive”, “challenging taboos,” etc., even though the things they do have been run-of-the-mill for many decades (or even much longer), the views they express (insofar as they express any) are entirely predictable for anyone familiar with the respectable intellectual mainstream, their high status is acknowledged by the mainstream media and academia, and some of them even get rich off of this “nonconformity.” There are many other similar examples of cheap “nonconformist” signaling that is not backed by any serious nonconformity, including most (if not all) of the contemporary “subcultures.”
(An even more extreme and farcical phenomenon occurs when the establishment itself includes some sort of fake “opposition” or orchestrates supposedly authentic “protests” or “activism.” I won’t get into any examples of this to avoid stirring up controversy.)
In contrast, true nonconformity would mean adopting views (and undertaking consequent actions) that seriously lower your status and risk severe loss of reputation, unemployability, criminal penalties, or even violent confrontation with the powers-that-be. Examples would be refusing to recognize the authority of the government over some laws whose enforcement is taken seriously, or becoming an outspoken propagandist for some shockingly extremist fringe group. Clearly this is not a way to a happy life, regardless of whether you have any sympathy for any such sort of people and their views.
Please also see my reply to Mycroft65536 below regarding non-conformist groups.
Doesn’t have to be as serious as bucking the law. It can even be as simple as telling your boss that his idea won’t work (because of X, Y and Z). Or deciding to buck the corporate dress-requirements because you know you will never be put in front of a real customer and therefore should be allowed to be comfortable at work… etc etc
Only if you stretch the definition of “nonconformity” to the point of meaninglessness. If you define it so broadly to include things like these you mention—polite disagreement with authority figures over technical matters and slight bending of rules to make things easier—then practically every human being who has ever lived has been a “nonconformist.”
Ah… by this I take it that you’ve never worked in a job where telling the boss what to do will end in your being disciplined for not toeing the company line. We’re not talking “polite disagreement over technical matters” here. There are situations of this kind where you definitely suffer social stigma for speaking out. …mostly when the company has become a cult… and it’s much better to avoid this kind of company if you can—but that’s very difficult in today’s corporate culture.
Now I understand better what you’re talking about. I have seen such examples of institutional mendacity, and I certainly agree that in some sorts of institutions it is so widespread that you may be faced with unpleasant trade-offs between your career (or other) interest and your integrity. So yes, I’d certainly count it as real nonconformity if you opt for the latter.
Here is fake nonconformist and here is real one.
Your real non-conformist still has buddies. That’s why it’s worth his while to get coded tattoos which have online explanations.
For a complete list of examples of officially approved pseudo non conformity, see “Stuff White People Like”
Vegetarianism, or the pious pretense of vegetarianism, is pretty high on the list.
Deep fry pork belly in smoking hot pig fat till light brown, then gently simmer on a slow heat. It will cure most people’s foodie affectations. The slow simmer will produce some nice meat juices, which you should add to the roast potatoes.
I’m not sure about that. The world is big enough that you can live most of your life mostly in contact with other non-conformists in your particular cluster. I’m doing that right now.
The critical issue here is whether your nonconformist group has a truly independent status hierarchy and mechanisms of social support, i.e. if it really allows you to sever ties with the mainstream society and institutions so that you don’t have to care about your status and reputation with them without severe negative consequences. I can hardly think of any such nonconformist groups except for some very insular religious sects—the modern trend is almost uniformly towards strong consolidation of a single and universal status hierarchy whose rules apply to everyone.
Geeks, Scifi-fans, role-playing gamers.…
Maybe in the 80′s, when we were only a few Satan worshipping nuts, but we are now in 21st century where science fiction and fantasy decisively won and is The Mainstream Culture now. Of 10 biggest grossing movies of the year, all are F/SF and role playing games are worldwide multibillion industry. Someone who does not know who is Harry Potter and what is Warcraft is the crazy weirdo :P
Some SF movies have been popular of late—and most mainstream films have become more science-heavy… but people that watch these shows are in no way fans of the genre. I don’t know of any Mainstream types who read SF books regularly or who avidly watch more than one or two of the most main of mainstream SF shows/series.
By contrast, even the non-uber-geek SF fans will know a Ferengi from a Centari by sight, will understand what the odd-even rule is and can probably rattle of the three laws of robotics (plus the extra one) on the spot. These are the people I mean—and I still think there’s a difference between them and people who may have just watched The Matrix, LOTR or one of the X-Men movies.
Actually being part of the full on SF fandom culture is definitely non-conformist. Think trekkies (or trekkers if you prefer).
And by role-playing gamers… I don’t mean video games… I mean classic dice-rolling “your elven warlock spots three kobolds” kind of role-playing games. WoW is a different kettle of fish… but I know of nobody that thinks classic RPGs are “mainstream”.
Awesome. I really like this position; it feels right. It was too stingy of me to say that all rationalism buys is a chance to conform, and it’s too optimistic of certain LW cheerleaders to claim that rationality will promptly sweep the world or grant us superpowers. Your comment nails the middle path between these two extremes. :-)
Are you deliberately trying to invoke our Deep Wisdom alarms with an incredibly blatant golden mean fallacy?
[Grin] Guilty as charged. That said, I do really like SarahC’s position.