January 27, 2021 #7 of podcast: Conformity to Individuality
The Very Not Normal Podcast; Episode #7: Conforming to Individuality
Why do people stay in repressive societies? Are they too dumb to know better?
Would you ever be sucked in by one?
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MENTIONED:
- #VIDEO: The Compliance Test:
- #ARTICLE: Paul Graham’s 4 quadrants of conformism.
- #ARTICLE: The pressures on those more deeply embedded in a system to conform to specific biases. In this example the WHO explained why experts might exaggerate threats of a pandemic: “In the highly competitive market of health governance, the struggle for attention, budgets and grants is fierce.” This creates an incentive for experts to conform to this narrative.
- #BOOK: Vassily Grossman, Russian dissident, quote:
- “[A]n invisible force was crushing him. He could feel its weight, its hypnotic power; it was forcing him to think as it wanted, to write as it dictated. This force was inside him; it could dissolve his will and cause his heart to stop beating . . . Only people who have never felt such a force themselves can be surprised that others submit to it. Those who have felt it, on the other hand, feel astonished that a man can rebel against it even for a moment – with one sudden word of anger, one timid gesture of protest.”
Zeno
Posted at 17:07h, 28 JanuaryPeople are not cognizant of being trapped in their own versions of conformism. Wearing high heels, or desiring diamond engagement rings, for example have bad side effects. One deforms your foot, and the other supports conflict in Africa. Yet people cannot escape the desire to wear them. Similarly, western society pities niqab wearers in Muslim countries because they interpret this as a symbol of feminine oppression. But they don’t see the idiosyncratic ways that cultural norms in western society such as high heels, or removal of body hair can also be interpreted as oppression. If you look at the number of people who resist these customs because they don’t want to conform is probably as small as the number of people who leave hasidic communities.
Frieda Vizel
Posted at 08:49h, 29 JanuaryThis is so on the nose. Sadly, it seems impossible to make people see this.