The American Scene; Rush to Conform

Good morning. The rugged individualist is often pointed to with pride as being a necessary part of the American scene. Many of the truly creative people in America's history have been described as non -conformists. People who in some respects did not fit into the common pattern of society. Today, some concern has been expressed that the rugged individualist is disappearing from the American scene, that today people are unwilling to differ from the accepted patterns. And that, in fact, on many sides, there is a decided and to some unfortunate rush to conformity. And this is what we would like to talk about this morning. And to help us with this, we are very pleased to welcome Mr. Pierre Martino, Director of Research and Marketing for the Chicago Tribune, and Father Ivergie Lawrence, Director of the Parish of Trinity Episcopal Church, and Assistant Chaplin for Illinois Institute of Technology. Father Lawrence do people think for themselves today. I feel probably

people are not thinking as much today as they have in the past, especially the students, where we have our mass education, and we seem to send a person to college for four years, and he receives certain number of classes and certain number of credits over the four years. If he repeats and takes a certain amount of required subjects and successfully can complete that subject, or those subjects, he will then complete his course and graduate, something like pouring a person into a hopper and passing them on through and staying a certain amount of time. I don't think people think as much as they used to. Media for that, individual thinking, we follow much of our certain newspapers, certain magazines become almost the required reading for certain individuals, and because of that, someone else does the thinking for them, and they don't do too much on their own.

Mr. Martino, do you agree with this? Not necessarily. I think it's very hard to say whether we're doing it less or more than we ever have in previous times. All was in history and in social sciences, you find that there are definite group patterns. If you get into primitive cultures, you find almost no deviation from the accepted norm of the society. And I think that our society as a set up today has provided, it's perfectly alright for a certain number of innovators who go off on their own and are perfectly acceptable. Innovators do exist, but is the average person thinking for himself today. Let's look at advertising. Does an average person really have a chance to make up his own mind what product he wants to buy? Well, I don't want to be in the position of underwriting the value

of advertising, but on the other hand, all is worried about the mass media pouring all people into the same mold. I feel that this is vastly overrated. There are different types of people psychologically, there are different social groups, and I don't think that there is any business of any danger, any worry or anything like that. People pretty much make up their own mind. I would say in the last election, probably 90 % of the papers in the country were Republican, and it was an overwhelming democratic victory. Father Lawrence, you mentioned earlier that you thought education might have some effect on pouring people into the same mold. Doesn't education provide the tools so a person can think for himself after he leaves college? Yes. Quite frequently, I'm afraid, though, that many people seem to cease to

study and advance academically when they do leave school. I think there have been some studies made that how much reading has been done by individuals after they have left the college or high school. Well, I don't know whether that's more or less than it was before. Out of the college, you get a certain number of people who don't read, but on the other hand, it seems to me our educational system is likewise particularly in science, is producing a tremendous number of creative people, and we've literally come to accept innovation as a way of life. Particularly in science. In science with the amount of research being done throughout many schools today, and this is, of course, the lifeline of our industries today. Well, industries too have an all -big industry, even though you have this notion of the organization man, and because business has become big business

in so many cases, and the professional management group in so many instances have taken over, nevertheless, professional management realizes that there have to be some place for other definite amount of innovation going on, and they make provision for that. Is it not possible that the large industry is sort of scaring some of the people because it's becoming larger and larger? Scaring who? Individuals, the average person, looking at large industry, well, his individuality is going out, and he must conform too. Well, I don't think there's any connection between the two. I would say in a basis of our social studies, and what I have seen in our society today, there is more individuation, more desire to be individual in certain ways than there ever was previously. Great mass of people, once upon a time,

then they had the money to be different, and couldn't afford to, and I think in that regard, insofar as little changes here and here in the other place, they are indulging this wish for individuation. I don't think that big industry is carrying them one way or another. I think industry has probably made it possible to do this, especially on vacations, where mass media people have not been able to get away up until the last few years when they've had their two weeks or three paid vacation, where they can get away and be, and individual go off and go any place they care in the country. Well, don't people become individuals by doing what every other individual does? Isn't there a pattern in buying, let's say, a yacht and spend your summer yachting now, just because everybody else does, that they're really not expressing individuality. They are doing things, but because other people do them. Well, I don't think

there is always this desire to conform to the standards of some kind of a group. Now, the intellectuals who express such a worry about the fact that Ryza conformed in America are conforming to standards of what other intellectuals do. The beatniks are conforming to what other beatniks are doing, and you have a wide diversity in our society of different groups, and the person conforms to the particular group that he belongs to, and yet at the same time, he expresses a certain individuality. He wants to be a little bit different than the person next to him. What does this conformity to his group provide for the person? Why would he conform at all? Probably one thing would be a sense of security if you're in a certain group. The group literally makes you conform. I mean, this is the rule of society, any organized society. It

sets certain standards, and people have to fall into those, or they're excluded. Now, there are always some marginal people who are on the outside who don't conform, and they have less security, maybe they're the most, come up with the most original ideas and so forth. But by and large, people get a very definite security from being a part of some group and being accepted and so forth. Here's conformity, a requisite for security. Do you have to conform to be secure? You have to conform to some kind of a group, marginal people are very, for the most part, unsure themselves, and not at all happy about things. We do these studies of social mobility, and this is one of the traditions of American society. People are always moving up, we're in so on and so forth. What we find is much more restricted than you think it to be. But those people who are moving, there is a great sense of

insecurity among them, because they have no assurance that when they've cut loose from the ties of their old friends and family and so forth, that they're going to be accepted by the group that they're aspiring to be a part of. They're not nearly as happy as the people who are definitely belonging to some group. This not possible, this happens when people move from one area of, say, the Chicago, out the suburban area. And whether they be accepted in the group out there, they certainly were accepted where they were in the area. And then to move out into another, all together, different class area where they may try to climb to social ladder. Very definitely. And they made, in fact, studies of how people picked out a neighborhood in such a large part are based on who are the other people, and they have aspirations, sure. But if you get too far over your head, the other people are going to punish you by letting you

know that you don't belong there, and you have to learn the signals of that particular group to be accepted, and to have your children happy and so forth. And the people who are not accepted by the group, if you talk to them, they're very unhappy. They say, I don't like them, the people around here are snobbish. I wish we'd move away and so on and so forth. Well, is this search for security? That important. A person who conforms in order to be secure is he ever going to know what he really could do. Will he ever get the chance to go in over his head? Well, I suppose that's always an individual decision. But for the man, the really truly creative individual, a non -conformist who wants to lead this marginal life, he's imposing hardships on his family and also himself. Now, he has to make the decision whether he wants to be that way or not on the thing. I would say from a personal standpoint, personal happiness standpoint, he probably is not nearly as happy on a thing as the people who are securely adjusted to some sort of a group rather.

Father Lawrence, do you think that these people are trying to make this decision, or do you think it's sort of a national habit to conform to the group? I think we have to conform one way and be conformist and non -conformist. It sounds like a hedge of course, but if we look at, well, take Christ was a conformist. In one way, he went the temple every Sabbath. Although he was a non -conformist, when he went in the temple and overthrew the money changes, both ways. And we are the same way in being, we conform to certain things, the group, and yet we want to be individuals also. Why I would agree with that. I don't think that that is an unsolved position to take at all, because we set up these different psychological typologies, and yet these are simply theoretical,

whether people are introverts or extroverts, whether people are other directed or inter -directed, whether people are conformists or non -conformists, and there are no exact measures. A human being is too difficult, and I would say that he's exactly right, that there's a measure in each person of the conformist and the non -conformist. The degree will vary, but certainly the non -conformist wears shoes and wears clothes and he acts like other people up to certain measure. And I think even the most creative people have to get along at some place along the line with the rest of the world, or they can't operate, they're not effective. They would lose their effectiveness if they didn't. That's right. Well looking at it from a society's point of view, would conformity tend to stifle leadership, tend to prevent leadership from arising within a society, within a group?

I don't think that it does at all. I think that leaders are going to grow up and studies of gangs or studies of tribes or studies of what have you, leaders come, whether they're by age or whether they're by physical prowess or by intellectual prowess or so on, I don't think that you can prevent leaders from arising. I agree with you there because we certainly, thinking a few years ago, thinking of political leaders in the country, and then people are questioning who might be a next person running for president to either the parties. And yet as things are developing now, certain men are beginning to grow into the possibility of taking over the election or leadership in their own party. And this goes also in a community group where someone will be the one that will gradually come forward and will bring the group

together and will, in the course of time, be most likely elected as the leader of that group, no matter what group and be economically or socially along the ladder. Well, might not this person who comes forward be almost the same as the group from which he came and that his leadership would then tend to stifle the growth of the group? In other words, he would be so much of a conformist. No, but he is an expression, a symbolic expression of what the groups wishes are. This is what the politician is trying to do when he's running for office and he's doing these folksy tricks. He's trying to say that I am your kind of person. I can best express what you wish and we will take a certain amount of deviation from the leader. He can go so far. But when he gets too far away

from what the group is, then he loses his influence. Well, if the group desires conformity and imposes this limitation on his leader, is this a group which can grow, can this type of organization progress in any direction or must stay where it is? Oh, no. I grow if they're headed in that direction, if the forces of history make it going that way. If they have a definite determination to grow, they perhaps can. But this has nothing to do with whether or not the group is holding them back because it's an expression of the group. So often groups, if they don't have the leadership and the ability to grow, they'll just span and die?

That's right. Or they should die, sometimes they live on from any years, which they shouldn't. But if there isn't a natural leadership of some kind of brother, some kind of an authority, or more or less it expresses their wishes and so forth, as he says, they just naturally fall apart. Well, how about the danger of a growth of a dictator? If you have a passive, conforming group, aren't the chances greater for a dictator to take over that group? Well, that's very difficult than the rise of dictators and so forth where they come from. It seems to me that what we witness in Latin America and what we witness in countries like Russia is that they've always been used to a very authoritarian kind of regime in a way. And one just succeeds in other and people are conditioned to that. Whereas in our Anglo -Saxon democracy,

we don't. We don't want any person to, we have an electoral system and so forth, where it's not that way. But still in all, for instance, the military to function for a business organization to function, there has to be an authoritarian figure to run the operation. Well, these groups have been conditioned to conform to either a dictator or a democratic way of life. I think this is very simple and one just moves in. And if they stop thinking a change might come along or if they stop caring about it, it wasn't Cuba, of course at time, with the Castro situation last January. But in the Middle Ages, when you had feudalism and you had this tremendous anarchy after the fall of the Roman Empire, people had to look to some strong man as guidance and as protection. And they literally wanted this situation to occur. And I think if there weren't leaders, we would make provision first and strongly. We would hope that they would be somebody and

be the expression for us. Well, this society today willing to have individuals in its midst is America willing to have the rugged individualist. Well, I think he's sure very much. We see him around in very, I mean, when you talk about the meat mixer, the people like that, they're not, they're not, we all, any society doesn't make any difference. Where do you go in human history? You're trying to have most people conform to some group pattern. And in our very diverse, very heterogeneous society, a lot of people are privileged to be different. We have the gangs in New York, of course. We're the young people being different, not conforming with certain laws of the city. Ethnic groups gather together against ethnic groups sometimes,

causing into some battles as we've noticed in the last month. Well, they are conforming to a certain group though. But this is not the kind of individualism we want. Now, this is a negative type of an individualism. And society has both of them. According to the newspapers, it would have seemed it has more of the negative individualism than the positive. Doesn't that because that is news and the positive ones don't make news? Very often. Well, I think so when you talk about these tremendous advances in the physical sciences, those people are being, nothing could be more ideal for their creative situation than the atmosphere that's set up for these people. By both by industry and by the universities. And there is more thought given to how do you, where do you find these kind of people? How do you provide the atmosphere so they can be just as creative as they can possibly be? And I think there's encouragement of this. One of

our major problems, I think, is finding the person getting the right job. And that's one of our major problems of the school. Today is finding the person to get into the vocation he wants to do. Without the pressure of family, which is so often happens, a person can go on because quite frequently we find a person is completed two or three years of school and all of a sudden realizes this is not what he wants to study. Goes to psychological services and goes through the battery of tests that are available for them. To find out just what will be my best place in life. And then, of course, if he can be satisfied in what he's doing, certainly can develop much better than he can be and something he's not happy with. Well, I think we're generally conditioning our society to accept that in our educational system. If my experience with my own youngsters is any criterion at all, I had ideas, old -fashioned ideas. My father used to point out to me that this is a good career to go into and so on so far. But my youngsters tell me,

coming from the schools that the teachers say, you find out what you want to be and you find out what you are best fitted for. And that's the thing you should take. Not what your parents, thank you, is the place for you. Is the family unit accepting this more today? I think very definitely. Fragile, they are. Is there still a stigma attached to a fellow who gives up everything and runs off to Paris to paint or to write or something like that? I think some families do have to feel that way. But I think that today, it's very definitely the other way around, though, the emphasis that more and more families in this generation are accepting the fact that if the youngsters want to do that, and they're never going to be able to earn a living, and he wants to go to San Francisco and work in ceramics, or he wants to be a school teacher and earn $45 ,000 a year. And that's what he's happy about doing. They're accepting that. It's not, I think, 50, 75 years ago that drive was much more in the opposite direction that you had to be in something where you're going to make money. And I think that the ideal

today is much more permissive of individual behavior and happiness and so forth. So often the family wants them to go out and make the money, and the young person doesn't want to. He wants to go in what he wants to do. And they finally grow into it, though. Well, that's right. But I think that as a formal attitude, families are becoming more and more accepting of this fact that you should let the child do what he wants to do. And you send them down to a battery at that practical airy school today. And I think even with many religious orders, administrators to test to find out if the person is suited for this career. And when they're accepting that, were there any accepting the fact that he's going into something that you'd be best suited? Therefore, more trust is put in the schools what they're doing than in the judgment of families, which it was in the past. Well, I think that's true. As a matter of fact, a family has surrendered a lot of its hole on the children to the

school. They put it into, or some other organization, counseling service, or something like that as to what the child shouldn't be. As our society grown so large today that it's difficult for an individual to rise above the group. And so that in its place, a group, individualism has come about rather than a personal individualism. A person belongs to a group which is different from the rest. I don't think that was true any place in any time and history. They all was identified with something or some group. It's just that now we're becoming aware of this situation and are identifying the groups that they belong to and that this always previously happened to. The left bank artist in Paris in the 1860s, this is the groups that he belonged to. And he was getting away from what he called

bourgeoisie conformity and so forth on. How necessary is it for a person in business today to conform strictly with the standards of his business and dress and where he lives and the clubs he attends and so forth? Is this really as necessary as sometimes said? Probably a falseness on the individual's part to feel that way. Although many times they feel it's very important and they do belong to the right club or the right theater group and the right people in the office. But possibly the idea of social climbing or climbing in the company they might begin. Well I think each company is a matter of fact and in the divisions of each company have certain dress standards and behavior that's expected and you'll come back to the sole problem of social order. If people that work for me came in wearing every kind of costume under the sun

I wouldn't like that. It wouldn't hinder their work necessarily wouldn't? Except that some of them those who are in outside contact with the public would make an impression on them. But on the other hand those who are not in contact with the public it doesn't make any difference. Well people who go along with this without thinking about it without realizing why are less of an individual, less of a person. Let's go along with the group and be happy where they are. So the person who doesn't understand these cues he's going to get lost in the shuffle on the thing because no matter what what the organization it is and I could name 75 different companies in Chicago and each one has its own particular style of living and performing. Thank you very much gentlemen. It has been suggested in our discussion

this morning that both the individual and society need some degree of conformity. The individual in order to survive and remain free and gain security must conform to various legal and social pressures. It has been suggested that a society will naturally maintain that degree of conformity best suited to its stage of development. And a democratic society based on individual freedom will inevitably make room for the individualist and for the non -conformist. Good morning for the American scene.