I am not convinced that audacity is the same thing as, or anything like a guarantee of, nonconformity. lsusr, do you have evidence for that claim?
In particular, “boldness” and “daring” seem to me as if they have very little to do with nonconformity; it may happen they they correlate with it (e.g. because similar personality-types find those various things congenial) but I think it’s clear they they don’t intrinsically equate to, or imply, or follow from, nonconformity, and while there might be a not-so-trivial relationship between them I think it requires some actual evidence.
I do agree that “shamelessness” seems like it should obviously reduce conformity. “Impertinence” might well do, to whatever extent conformity results from treating social superiors as arbiters of truth; my impression (though not a confident one) is that conformity is more driven by trying to align with one’s peers than with accepting authority from above, which if true would limit how much “impertinence” can prevent it. The combination of shamelessness and impertinence does seem like it should reduce conformity; but if there’s reason to think that (with or without “boldness” and “daring”) this either suffices or is necessary to make one a nonconformist, I don’t think lsusr has presented it here.
In particular, “boldness” and “daring” seem to me as if they have very little to do with nonconformity
So, for instance, you could be bold and risk-taking but doing so because you want to live up to a norm (or are heavily driven by chasing an ideal that’s “conventional”)?
For instance, a manly warrior taking risks to show off his manliness or lack of cowardice, or desire to fill the warrior role in his tribe. Would that count?
I think so. Or, taking the specific kind of boldness lsusr mentions—making statements without qualifications that might make them sound weaker—this is a thing one will very often hear from religious or political fanatics, who may well have arrived at their views by pure conformism.
Or maybe a bunch of your friends join a secret society with a scary initiation ritual, and you go ahead with it because you want to be like your friends. Or you’re part of a culture in which men who reach adolescence are expected to go and hunt a tiger or stay in the wilderness for a week or something, and you go ahead and do it because that’s what everybody does. (Of course you might also be doing it because if you don’t the tribal elders will kill you, in which case it wouldn’t count as daring.) Or you’re a member of the Westboro Baptist Church and you go with everyone else to picket military funerals with signs saying GOD HATES FAGS and GOD HATES AMERICA, even though you’re worried that someone in the crowd may pick a fight. (This one is marginal, because someone in that position is nonconformist relative to the culture at large but conformist relative to what directly surrounds them. I think the latter is probably the thing that’s both harder and more important to escape.)
I am not convinced that audacity is the same thing as, or anything like a guarantee of, nonconformity. lsusr, do you have evidence for that claim?
In particular, “boldness” and “daring” seem to me as if they have very little to do with nonconformity; it may happen they they correlate with it (e.g. because similar personality-types find those various things congenial) but I think it’s clear they they don’t intrinsically equate to, or imply, or follow from, nonconformity, and while there might be a not-so-trivial relationship between them I think it requires some actual evidence.
I do agree that “shamelessness” seems like it should obviously reduce conformity. “Impertinence” might well do, to whatever extent conformity results from treating social superiors as arbiters of truth; my impression (though not a confident one) is that conformity is more driven by trying to align with one’s peers than with accepting authority from above, which if true would limit how much “impertinence” can prevent it. The combination of shamelessness and impertinence does seem like it should reduce conformity; but if there’s reason to think that (with or without “boldness” and “daring”) this either suffices or is necessary to make one a nonconformist, I don’t think lsusr has presented it here.
So, for instance, you could be bold and risk-taking but doing so because you want to live up to a norm (or are heavily driven by chasing an ideal that’s “conventional”)?
For instance, a manly warrior taking risks to show off his manliness or lack of cowardice, or desire to fill the warrior role in his tribe. Would that count?
I think so. Or, taking the specific kind of boldness lsusr mentions—making statements without qualifications that might make them sound weaker—this is a thing one will very often hear from religious or political fanatics, who may well have arrived at their views by pure conformism.
Or maybe a bunch of your friends join a secret society with a scary initiation ritual, and you go ahead with it because you want to be like your friends. Or you’re part of a culture in which men who reach adolescence are expected to go and hunt a tiger or stay in the wilderness for a week or something, and you go ahead and do it because that’s what everybody does. (Of course you might also be doing it because if you don’t the tribal elders will kill you, in which case it wouldn’t count as daring.) Or you’re a member of the Westboro Baptist Church and you go with everyone else to picket military funerals with signs saying GOD HATES FAGS and GOD HATES AMERICA, even though you’re worried that someone in the crowd may pick a fight. (This one is marginal, because someone in that position is nonconformist relative to the culture at large but conformist relative to what directly surrounds them. I think the latter is probably the thing that’s both harder and more important to escape.)