Why we are so susceptible to conformity and why nonconformity, or the cultivation of one’s uniqueness, is such an important ingredient in a life well-lived.
Animated Video by After Skool
Key Takeaways
Within each and every one of us is an impulse to achieve greatness. To reach our highest potential, but few among us achieve anything of great worth. Why is this? If we all want to be rich, successful, influential or famous, how come so few of us do?
While there are various reasons for this, the primary cause is we fear our own greatness. That’s right, we fear our own maximum potential far more than we fear being insignificant.
20th century psychologist, Abraham Maslow said we are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments. We enjoy an even thrill to the godlike possibilities we see in ourselves and yet we simultaneously shiver with weakness, awe, and fear before these very same possibilities.
Maslow called this fear of greatness the Jonah complex, named after the biblical character Jonah who attempted to flee from the fate bestowed upon him by God.
But why do we shy away from greatness? The reason is that human beings have a primal fear of being isolated. We don’t fear greatness, we fear being alone. When we strive for greatness, we become separated from the herd.
In becoming great, an individual actualizes their potential and develop skills and abilities that set them apart from everyone else. Standing out can stimulate feelings of loneliness. The more unique you become, the more you lose the protection of the crowd.
This fear causes us to establish a greater connection with society by rejecting much of what makes us unique. We shy away from greatness, so we can fit in and be like everyone else.
Conversely, humans have another deeply ingrained fear that drives us—which is the fear of conformity. There is a type of psychological death that occurs when we fully conform to societal norms. The more we conform, the more we lose our individuality and sense of self.
It is the fear of conformity that drives humans to develop their potential, become great and stand apart from everyone else. The life of each person alternates between the impulse to individuate and the impulse to conform.
The greater we become, the more isolated we feel, and thus we retreat into the safety of conformity. The more we conform, the more internal angst builds up, and the need to differentiate ourselves. People are tossed back and forth between these two impulses their entire lives.
For most people, the fear of greatness is much more terrifying than the fear of conforming. We are more afraid of standing out or daring to be different. The safety of conformity is a much easier place to spend your time, compared to navigating the dark lonely waters of doing something extraordinary. This explains why so many are willing to accept a life far below their potential. This is why so many settle to be like everyone else.
Abraham Maslow made a habit of asking his students—who among them would write a great novel or become a great leader? He discovered that generally everyone starts giggling, blushing, and squirming until I asked “if not you then who else?” Which of course is the truth.
"If you deliberately plan to be less than you are capable of being then I warn you that you'll be deeply unhappy for the rest of your life. You'll be evading your own capacities, your own abilities."
Maslow thought the awkwardness displayed by his students was the inability to fathom the godlike possibilities within for too long without succumbing to the fear that such arrogance could lead to on of the delusions of grandeur.
People tend to gravitate to the opposite extreme and imagine themselves as insignificant, incapable of achieving anything of profound impact.
So is there a healthy balance? Can you achieve greatness without isolating yourself?
Somewhere between humility and arrogance is a healthy median. On the one end, you have arrogant people who believe they are better than others. They have an exaggerated view of their importance and an inflated ego.
But it takes a certain amount of arrogance to pull yourself out of the crowd to reach for something great—The belief that you are capable of achieving something extraordinary—but arrogance without humility will lead to delusion and loneliness.
Humility on the other hand, is the belief that you are not important, not special, not unique, or in other words being humble. Humility alone will lead to nothing ever getting accomplished. If you were too humble, you’ll become self-deprecating and never strive to do something great.
So the healthy technique is confidence. Confident people believe in themselves and know what they are capable of. They strive to achieve godlike abilities while maintaining the modest understanding of their limitations.
Confidence comes from being great, but not thinking you were great. Being better but never thinking you are better. Confidence is derived from within, not by comparing yourself to others.
In society we admire those who are confident. Those who are capable, yet humble. We respect leaders who are accomplished, yet kind so the key to success and happiness is to find a healthy balance and be confident in yourself.
The Psychology of Conformity
Video by Academy of Ideas
"For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure."
No longer is nonconformity primarily enforced by members of one’s community, but rather through online social networks people from all over the world can ostracize, shame, and ridicule those who fault hold beliefs or display behaviors which are considered socially acceptable.
It is the nonconformists who bring forth new ideas, creations, and ways of living which produce a vibrant society.
Too much conformity deadens the human spirit. A fulfilling life is one that sees the flowering of ones uniqueness.
Conformity the imitation of behaviors, beliefs, and values which are socially acceptable.
Nonconformity a person who rejects things just out of the desire to be “different” still conforms as their life, like that of the more typical conformists, is still shaped by an external source, that being the crowd.
True nonconformity, in contrast, is displayed to the degree that one’s life path, and thus character, are shaped by behaviors, beliefs,and values which are chosen for personal or authentic reasons.
The nonconformists accepts them because they understand their utility, while the conformists adopts them merely out of the desire to be accepted.
Why do people conform?
The fear of death is one of the most influential factors. We cannot face the reality of our death without facing debilitating anxiety, so we tempt to quell this anxiety by denying death.
The Jonah Complex and the Fear of Greatness
"The impetus that makes you fly is our great human possession. Everybody has it. It is the feeling of being a linked with the roots of power, but one soon becomes afraid of this feeling... That is why most people shed their wings and prefer to walk and obey the law."
The 20th century psychologist Abraham Maslow was convinced that within us all exists an impulse to achieve greatness and an urge to move toward what he called our highest possibilities. Few among us however, achieve anything of great worth.
While there are various reasons for this, one of them, according to Maslow, is simply that we fear our greatness more than we desire it.
"We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments... We enjoy and even thrill to the godlike possibilities we see in ourselves... And yet we simultaneously shiver with weakness awe, and fear before these very same possibilities."
Maslow called this fear of greatness the Jonah complex—in reference to the biblical character Jonah—who attempted to flee from the fate bestowed on him by God.
In this video, Academy of Ideas investigates the psychology behind this fear and examine how we can overcome it.
In his book Art and Artist, Otto Rank argued that human beings are driven by two fundamental fears: a fear of death and a fear of life.
The fear of death according to Rank, is not merely a fear of our physical extinction. We also fear a type of psychological death which occurs when we conform so fully with societal norms that we lose our individuality.
This fear according to Rank motivates us to differentiate ourselves by actualizing the potentials which make us unique. It drives us to exist in the Latin sense of the word that is to step out, stand forth, emerge, appear.
Standing out to much however can stimulate feelings of loneliness and isolation. The more we individuate, the more we lose the comforting protection of the crowd and it is this fear of standing alone which Rank characterized as the fear of life.
This fear of life, Rank argued, drives us to re-establish a greater connection with society via conformity and to reject much of what makes us unique.
The life of each person alternates between the impulse to individuate driven by the fear of death and the impulse to conform driven by the fear of life.
"Between these two fear possibilities...the individual is thrown back and forth all his life."
For most of us the fear of life predominates over the fear of death. We are more afraid of standing out of daring to be different, than we are of relinquishing our individuality. This analysis of Ranks suggests that at its root our fear of greatness is a fear of life. A fear of standing alone and of separating ourselves from the masses.
"The concept of greatness entails...being able to be different."
But a fear of life is not the only thing inhibiting us from actualizing our potential. Colin Wilson, one of the most prolific authors of the 20th century suggested that an insignificance neurosis permeates modern society, acting as an additional barrier to the cultivation of one’s greatness.
Wilson observed that much of twentieth-century thought was dominated by what he called the unheroic hypothesis which he defined as the sense of defeat or disaster or futility that’s to underlie so much modern writing.
In answering the age-old question is man more akin to a god or a worm? He thought the modern age instilled in the individual. A belief that we are much closer to the worm, thus helping explain the average individual’s tendency to accept a life a far below their potential.
Abraham Maslow, a friend of Colin Wilson’s, came to very similar conclusions. Maslow made a habit of asking his students who among them would write a great novel or become a great leader or composer and discovered that
"generally everybody starts giggling, blushing, and squirming until I ask, "If not you then who else?" Which of course is the truth...if you deliberately plan to be less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you'll be deeply unhappy for the rest of your life. You will be evading your own capacities, your own possibilities."
Maslow thought the anxiety displayed by his students was the result of an inability to fathom the godlike possibilities within for too long, without succumbing to the fear that such arrogance could lead to unhealthy delusions of grandeur.
As a result of this fear, people tend to the opposite extreme and view themselves as more analogous to a worm, incapable of achieving anything of significance.
Maslow however believed that both extremes—seeing oneself as a God or a worm—were equally detrimental. He therefore advised we find the golden mean or middle way.
To overcome our fear of greatness, we must learn to move boldly towards our goals while simultaneously maintaining humility in the awareness that we are all after all, human all too human.
"For some people this evasion of one's own growth, setting low levels of aspiration, the fear of doing what one is capable of doing, voluntary self crippling... are in fact defenses against grandiosity, arrogance, sinful, pride, hubris. There are people who cannot manage that graceful integration between the humility and the pride which is absolutely necessary for creative work. To invent or create you must have the "arrogance of creativeness" which as so many investigators have noticed. But, of course, if you have only the arrogance without the humility, then you are in fact delusional. You must be aware not only of the godlike possibilities within, but also of the existential human limitations... If you can be amused by the worm trying to be God, then in fact you may be able to go on trying and being arrogant without fearing delusions of grandeur...this is a good technique."