Whooo, there's a lot to unpack here! I don't have the spoons to write out all my responses today, so I might revisit this at a later time.
But, some quick bits to add my thoughts in the mix.
"Why do people conform?" I don't have a concrete and accurate answer, but I do like the idea posited by my intellectual BFF that goes something like, "Tribe thinking still affects us because back in the days when you would live with the same fifty people your whole generally very short life - by our modern standards - it was NOT GOOD to be the outsider. Ostracism on any level took away choices and privileges, like being the last one fed (if at all), the last one picked for teams (bye bye social bonding), and completely unsuitable for marriage (no courtship, romance or family for you)."
Why the heck did this type of tribal thinking evolve this way and how does it even help? I think, in our tribal age, we had a very rough understanding of the concept of Us versus Them. Us tribe declared our Us-ness by sharing a definite set of values, opinions, and rituals. Anything that didn't tick off enough things on the list, could be a Them, and therefore the Enemy. I'm not saying that this thinking is morally right, but it worked well enough to keep the small societies we formed intact, and it wasn't like we could say, "Um, I don't like the tribe I was assigned to and would like to join a different one, please." It was too hard to move around, and we still solved our problems with self-centered violence; if we run out of something, let's go to war with Them and take what we need.
Back in the day, being weird could get you killed.
Today, a lot of the consequences of being weird aren't quite so dramatic, especially if you follow most of the majority rules. There's even this hidden admiration that gets accorded to people who are authentically and unapologetically weird ("I wish I had your confidence!" "You really don't care what other people think of you? Wow!" "Isn't it hard to buck the trends?"). The majority now generally don't agree on violence as the first or best solution, so weird people can go find their like-minded weird people to group up with. We even have lingo for that now! "Find your tribe. There are people who will resonate with you and celebrate you, and you will resonate with and celebrate them."
I'm going to finish up here for now because my chronic fatigue is kicking me down hard.
Whooo, there's a lot to unpack here! I don't have the spoons to write out all my responses today, so I might revisit this at a later time.
But, some quick bits to add my thoughts in the mix.
"Why do people conform?" I don't have a concrete and accurate answer, but I do like the idea posited by my intellectual BFF that goes something like, "Tribe thinking still affects us because back in the days when you would live with the same fifty people your whole generally very short life - by our modern standards - it was NOT GOOD to be the outsider. Ostracism on any level took away choices and privileges, like being the last one fed (if at all), the last one picked for teams (bye bye social bonding), and completely unsuitable for marriage (no courtship, romance or family for you)."
Why the heck did this type of tribal thinking evolve this way and how does it even help? I think, in our tribal age, we had a very rough understanding of the concept of Us versus Them. Us tribe declared our Us-ness by sharing a definite set of values, opinions, and rituals. Anything that didn't tick off enough things on the list, could be a Them, and therefore the Enemy. I'm not saying that this thinking is morally right, but it worked well enough to keep the small societies we formed intact, and it wasn't like we could say, "Um, I don't like the tribe I was assigned to and would like to join a different one, please." It was too hard to move around, and we still solved our problems with self-centered violence; if we run out of something, let's go to war with Them and take what we need.
Back in the day, being weird could get you killed.
Today, a lot of the consequences of being weird aren't quite so dramatic, especially if you follow most of the majority rules. There's even this hidden admiration that gets accorded to people who are authentically and unapologetically weird ("I wish I had your confidence!" "You really don't care what other people think of you? Wow!" "Isn't it hard to buck the trends?"). The majority now generally don't agree on violence as the first or best solution, so weird people can go find their like-minded weird people to group up with. We even have lingo for that now! "Find your tribe. There are people who will resonate with you and celebrate you, and you will resonate with and celebrate them."
I'm going to finish up here for now because my chronic fatigue is kicking me down hard.