Individuality__Article

All for One and One for All By ________________. The Twenty-first century is filled with many different kinds of people with many different kinds of personalities.... but with six billion people in the world, you’re not that different. You might think that you are completely individual, if someone says you’re not, you might argue that no one in the world has the same fingerprint as you, or that no one has the exact same eye colour. But really' You need to come back to reality and realise that just because you have different genes to the person sitting next to you, doesn’t mean you’re that different. The definition of individuality is: the qualities that distinguish one person or thing from another. Let’s have a look at these qualities. Hair colour is something that we use to tell people apart, we can change our hair colour to what suits us, or to what society tell us looks good. If you change how you look because someone says something else is better, you’re conforming. Chances are more than one person is going to have the same hair colour as you. How about the clothes you wear' If you buy them from a shop, then someone else is going to have the exact same as you. Just think, why are those clothes in the shop in the first place' Because someone has said that they look good, and people should buy them. So if you do, you are conforming to what someone says you should wear. But say you don’t get your clothes from a shop, and you make them yourself. You might say ‘I’m an individual; no one in the world has the same shirt as me’, but then how many people are there that make their own clothes' Once again, you’re conforming, but to the idea that it is good to make your own clothes. What about music. Teenagers these days listen to a large range of music. Some listen to pop, some rock, country, metal, hip hop, the list goes on. They will often think that they are different because they listen to different music to the majority of people in their community, but how does that make them individual' ‘I listen to Kisschasy, you don’t, so that means I’m individual.’ I don’t think so. Your choice in music is going to be exactly the same as someone else- individual, I think not. If you have downloaded your music, then so have other people. If you think it’s good, then someone else has too. If you make your own music, how many other people do that too' You’re conforming either way. All for one and one for all. One person is like everyone and everyone is like one person. You’re not different, if we don’t pay attention to the things that we can’t change- fingerprints and so on, than everything about who you are is going to be the same as someone else. It might not be just one other person in the sense that you’re not going to be completely identical to anyone, but everything about you will be the same as it is with a number of other people. You might like the same music as one person, have the same clothes as another, and have the same hair colour as someone else again. But with every aspect of ourselves, we have conformed to someone’s idea of what is ‘good’ or ‘right’. “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” This is a very true quote made by Oscar Wilde. All our thoughts are based on someone else’s opinions. At the moment, you’re thoughts are based on my opinion about individuals. When in class, your thoughts will be based on the teacher’s opinions. When reading a book, your thoughts will be based on the author’s opinions. Our thoughts are never solely ours to begin with. In the movie ‘Shawshank Redemption’ we can see the result of conforming on a mass scale. Upon arriving the criminals were addressed by Captain Hadley: “You eat when we say you eat. You shit when we say you shit. You piss when we say you piss.” In this case, if you didn’t conform then you didn’t survive. We can draw from this movie, similarities to society in the Twenty-first century. If you don’t conform to the majority, then you don’t survive. Don’t believe me' Then let me ask, do you drive on the right side of the road' That’s conforming to society’s rules, and if you didn’t, then chances are you wouldn’t survive very long. In the 21st century, the individual does not exist. Has it in the past' Possibly. Today we have technology linking us to people all over the world, we can see what people in other cultures act like and how different we may be from them. We have the media constantly telling us what to wear and how to act, and we are provided with the recourses to change ourselves to fit someone’s idea of what we should be. For an example, say you’re walking down the street and you see a magazine stand. Who is on the front cover' Natalie Portman, Angelina Jolie, Scarlett Johansson' All beautiful, rich, and ‘perfect’ people. Why are they there' Because that ‘perfection’ is what we are being told to be like. And why are we told to be like that' Because that is how the media makes its money. Did people in the past experience the pull of the media trying to shape them into obedient clones of each other' All dressing the same, talking the same, eating the same things and living in the same kind of house as everyone else' Sure, if you were living in a small town in the past, there would people telling you what to do just like there is now in modern-day society. But for the people who lived by themselves, and had no influence from anyone else ever... then they would be the only example of an individual that I can find. Some people will conform to the pressure of the media, others will conform to the idea that it is good not to conform to the media. There is nothing either good or bad about individualism or conformity, until it has an effect and result, and the effect of society conforming in one way or another is that everyone will have a place, that everyone will have something in common with someone else. This is a good thing, conformity is a good thing. Without it, no one would get along; no one would have a place among friends or family. And we as human beings, being social animals, would lose our way of life, the way we interact with each other, and our identity. Society values conformity because conformity gives society value. We conform in ways that both keep things running smoothly and keep us from harsh light of scrutiny that so called ‘nonconformists’ (who really just conform in other ways) endure, especially when their nonconformity causes us to question the values of our society. Conformity - the state of being a sheep, lemming, or other cowardly, slow-witted creature without the ability to think for itself. This is a definition often made by a so called ‘individual’, it is also completely wrong. If you have been listening to a word spoken in this article you would already know that being a conformist does not stop you from thinking for yourself, being a conformist allows you to survive. You follow the law, the road rules, you agree that the exchange of money for goods and services is fair, conforming, and survive. You can’t do one without the other. Most people will probable object to this article because we all like to think of ourselves as different or ‘irreplaceable’ but in truth, were not. Individuals exist only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only conformists.