“They laughed at Galileo. They laughed at Einstein. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”
It’s true that being shunned or attacked is a sign that you’ve likely done something nonconforming and transgressive. But some things are nonconforming and transgressive just because they’re stupid or obnoxious.
I think what this means is that trying to measure how non-conformist you are, and hoping that “the more non-conformist the better”, is a mistake. Being unlike other people isn’t a good goal, in itself, because most ways of being unlike other people are not improvements. What you need to identify is ways of doing better, specifically, and measuring whether they laugh at you / shun you / stone you won’t do that, because they’ll do that for being worse as well as for being better.
If you get attacked, you are not fully conventional… but it is not obvious where are you on the independent thinking scale. You can be attacked also for doing the most stereotypical form of rebellion (paint your eyes black, and wear black clothes with pieces of metal, or whatever it is kids these days do instead).
Sorry for a political example, but I assume that half of Trump’s voters consider themselves perfectly independently thinking, while from outside, they are just another mob. In the same way, probably most SJWs. Generally, most “anything that already has a name”.
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“They laughed at Galileo. They laughed at Einstein. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”
It’s true that being shunned or attacked is a sign that you’ve likely done something nonconforming and transgressive. But some things are nonconforming and transgressive just because they’re stupid or obnoxious.
I think what this means is that trying to measure how non-conformist you are, and hoping that “the more non-conformist the better”, is a mistake. Being unlike other people isn’t a good goal, in itself, because most ways of being unlike other people are not improvements. What you need to identify is ways of doing better, specifically, and measuring whether they laugh at you / shun you / stone you won’t do that, because they’ll do that for being worse as well as for being better.
-
If you get attacked, you are not fully conventional… but it is not obvious where are you on the independent thinking scale. You can be attacked also for doing the most stereotypical form of rebellion (paint your eyes black, and wear black clothes with pieces of metal, or whatever it is kids these days do instead).
Sorry for a political example, but I assume that half of Trump’s voters consider themselves perfectly independently thinking, while from outside, they are just another mob. In the same way, probably most SJWs. Generally, most “anything that already has a name”.