The con, in Conform

What does it mean to conform?

What are the pro’s and con’s for the individual, and for society?

A basic definition of “conform”, is; “comply with rules, standards, or laws.”

This can apply to any particular set of rules or standards, so there can be numerous sub-groups of people within a large group, each with their own set of standards.

I my previous post; “Mutual Morality”, I described how agreements of sets of rules within a society, can help increase order, and allow guidelines to be more objective, within the context of the agreements. Does this mean more people should conform to preset rules, to create more order?

It depends on how the particular set of rules, is determined, to be conformed to. Agreements of sets of rules may cause more order, but that doesn’t mean it’s beneficial for the individual or society, for someone to just conform to whichever set of rules happen to be pressured upon them. It seems it would be unbeneficial for everyone to conform to sets of rules which are encouraged by the fluke of their upbringing. This would cause everyone to blindly follow whatever rules happen to be in place in their location, which could allow any ineffective set of rules to control masses. For eg, a lot of ancient Egyptians blindly followed the sets of rules in place, which caused slaves to work in horrible conditions, to serve the pharaoh. This would be unbeneficial for the slaves in their horrible living conditions, and hypothetically unbeneficial for the society, as the Pharaoh would often have mainly self-interest motivations, rather than societally progressive motivations.

If a set of standards is decided upon, rather than followed circumstantially, then conformity might be effectively applicable. If every rule or standard within a set, is agreed upon by an individual, based on their rational comprehension, then it seems obvious to conform to that set. This should be beneficial for any individual, as it would allow them to determine which rule set is effective. This would be minorly beneficial for society, in that it creates order of distinction of peoples sets of agreements, or basically, categorizes groups of people and their agreements of standards/ rules. But it should be more significantly beneficial for society, if individuals are using rational comprehension to determine the rule-sets to conform to, in that it would cause more effective and efficient rule sets to be followed, steering overall society in that beneficial direction.

For eg, if leader #1 has a set of rules with a general focus on superficial appearances, and leader #2 has a general focus of production efficiency, then more people would likely follow leader #2, if they determine their conformity based on comprehension. This would likely significantly benefit this society in terms of practical progression, and functionality. Whereas the con in blind conformity, might allow leader #1 to steer society towards non-genuine displays, causing inaccuracy of depiction (and therein general calculations), while disregarding practical wastefulness or consequential negative effects.

It still seems unlikely that conformity, without comprehension of the rule-set, would be effective, unless a determination has been made, that the one(s) that set the rules, have knowledge or comprehension beyond the individual's current efficient capability. If the individual determines that someone has more effective knowledge or comprehension, then it may be effective for them to choose to conform to that setter of rules, rather than attempting to comprehend the particular rule sets.

It seems to generally be a pro, for individuals to comprehend sets of rules, of which to conform to, as it allows a more effective direction, rather than fluke-following of circumstantial rules. Conforming without comprehension seems, it may be the con, in Conform.