Do you think Conventional is the New Unconventional?

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In our society narcissism and the lie of pursuit of "individuality" is rampant. But this is sort of ironic, because most people who claim to be individualists are greatly influenced by other things (if not consciously, certainly sub-consciously) and we all follow some sort of pattern and belief system, whether we realize this or not! So that if we claim we are non-conventional people who reject all social norms- we are still conforming with other "non conformists" who also think the same exact way - so we are not all that unique.

Look at how many people in the mainstream even are covered in tattoos- believe they have superior taste in music, reject God and religion, they are ALL THE SAME!. In that sense that conform. The new idea is lack of manners, lack of hospitality, rebel against 1950's traditionalism. Everyone is becoming alike because of social media and facebook and such.

A conventional person who respects others, is selfless, loves going to church and is stingy, doesn't drink or party, wears plaid, does not use profanity , is not materialistic, does not worship self- would actually stick out like a sore thumb in this Era. What do Y'all think?

I think your ideas of what constitutes conventional and unconventional people are full of stereotypes. Nobody fits that nicely into a box, so it's really hard to answer your question.

Also, conventional people love going to church and wear plaid??? lol Also, what about the people who are covered in tattoos, wear plaid, don't believe in religion, but still acknowledge the possibility of some sort of "god", use profanity, aren't materialistic, but still use social media without being a narcissist, and have manners?

Cool sermon. You're marketing christianity by artificially conflating it with traits that most would probably want to self identify with.

Last edited by Stannis on 04 Sep 2014, 9:06 am, edited 2 times in total.

I never realized there was a correlation between atheism and tattoos.
For my brother and sister Aspies who might not realize it, I'm being sarcastic.

I know people who lived in the 1950s and even they don't want to go back.

Aside from all the God BS, the topic title is an interesting one.
It's interesting that in the last few generations, possibly longer, that being unconventional has become conventional.
This is an article I found 6 months ago, from August 1893:

http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/5th-august-1893/11/the-conventionality-of-uncon--ventionalism

To quote from the article:

To be uncon- ventional is to be free from the conventions, agreements, and rules which are supposed to bind society, and to take your own course independently and without any thought of the consequences. The modern unconventional person, however, breaks through the rules and regulations, or what are sup- posed to be the rules and regulations, of Society, not because she or he really wants to do so, but because it is the fashion. It has become the fashion to be unconventional.

/\ I thought that was some kind of satirical piece, until I noticed it was written in 1893. Good one

I don't know if you mean "we" in the general sense, or "we" as in "we ASD people"? ASD people can have different functioning eccentricities that influence their thinking.

My ASD (brain damage) means I find most beliefs to be trivial, and rather, my "belief system" is to assign order to ideas.

Last edited by LoveNotHate on 04 Sep 2014, 8:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

I love it

The whole piece could have been written yesterday instead of 121 years ago. The sentiments are so current that the only thing giving it a bit of a time stamp are the assumptions that the young people are going to church (but wearing deliberately wrong clothing) and going to "the fair". I know state fairs still happen (I recently went to one) but I think they used to be a LOT more prominent as entertainment. Also the "servants" putting out lunch dishes (marking this as done by upper class people) whereas today's wealthy would say "maid". I wonder how far back you have to go in time before attempts at unconventionality were not done by subcultures of young adults.

Could have been written yesterday:


Woops. Here's a time stamp:


No more servants (although the wealthy may have maids). The modern unconventional person is probably playing out this scene in a restaurant where it is waiters bringing the courses in. Whatever convention these people were breaking has disappeared and now it's fine if waiters go back and forth. What has not changed in 121 years is the fact that this pursuit of unconventionality for its' own sake is class based. It seems to have trickled down from rich to middle class in the last 121 years, but you won't find blue collar kids doing it just as you didn't then.

The things the OP is complaining about (minus the plaid and other odd stereotypes) are exactly what is in this article. That was our (or at least somebody's) great grandparents swearing, smoking, and doing every other unconventional thing they could think of in lockstep with their conventionally unconventional peers.

So you're decrying the conformism of our age, for not conforming to the conformism of the age you would prefer.

The Leave-It-To-Beaver version of the 1950's, where Father Knows Best, women stayed in the kitchen, and the black man passively (and quietly) accepted the racism of the time.

Conventions are defined. If you are following the same conventions as everybody else you are all doing the same thing.

Not doing things in the conventional manner doesn't say how you're doing them. It just means your not doing them in the conventional way. There are a million different ways to live your life that don't follow conventions.

So non-conformists all share the trait of not following conventions. They can still be completely different from each other because there are a million ways to be unconventional whereas there are only a few ways to be conventional.

Not that I'm advocating breaking the rules just for the sake of breaking them. If you're so focused on not doing things in the conventional way you're only focusing on what you don't want to do. You're not thinking about what you want to do. If you just think about what you want to do and do it regardless of what everyone else is doing it may turn out to be unconventional or it could be conventional but at least your focusing on what you want to do instead of who you're trying to be different from (which is probably everyone).

Also people can copy others who they see as unconventional in order to also be unconventional and suddenly you have a new set of conventions and a bunch of people all copying the same person.

Still it's possible for 100 different people to behave in unconventional ways and still be completely different from each other. All they have in common is that they are non-conformists. They do it in totally different ways.

Im not just talking about faith. Although I would say since we basically live in a secular society, being a Christian would not truly be a convention of sorts, even though many profess to be "Christian". Certainly church attendance has dropped drastically amongst people under 35 in the past 30 years. My belief is that the alternative lifestyles are very mainstream, and that traditional people are becoming much less common in a social atmosphere. Someone who votes Conservative and is in the arts would almost be unheard of. But yet- here I am.

Not necessarily. How many people are said to be a "product of their time". When we look back the Hippie movement and culture of the late 1960s (which was actually a direct rip off of the Jesus-Freak movement which occurred years earlier), and also our current "Hipster" trend which has prevailed in the last decade- these fads are full of people who believe they are non-conventional, yet they all appear to be very very similar in tastes, fashion, belief systems, etc, etc. So whilst they may come in different varieties, they still conform to a set of standards by which they themselves have set in order to attain what they consider something "outside the norm". Yet they appear (at least on the surface) to be quite the norm-.

I'm mainly talking about the COUNTER CULTURE movement which is what I refer to in terms of this unconventional peoples (as a group). They are just as uniform (if not more) than what we consider "normal". If you take people who do not really consider themselves "uconventional" they are just being simply themselves, and do not place value or asthetic as to what is "different". These people seem to not really care about it. I believe "Conventional" people would be those who believe in love, marriage, family, home, and value simple things in life- may be harder to find these days. Many people don't believe in marriage- unless you count pervert marriage... But none-the-less, people with good moral values in these times are like a needle in a haystack.

^^^
Pervert marriage?

I'm willing to bet he's talking about 'dem 'dere queermosexuals, oppressing him by the terrible crime of existing, getting married, and generally minding their own business.

That was my guess.