Conformity and Creativity

[Mole]

We spend a large amount of time and energy in learning to conform, so naturally we want to protect our investment in conformity.

So we vigorously police conformity by group bullying, by shaming, by humiliation, and by political correctness.

Political correctness has even infected one of our moderators.

It is classically authoritarian. But authoritarians can't tell the difference between. chaos and creativity, and suppress both.

 

[Sacrophagus]

Mole's random thought for the day. Straight from 1984.

Only hyenas get in groups together for a kill, that's the equivalent of peer pressure in today's society. Most people like being dictated the decisions to hate/like/think/operate/act in a certain way, you can't blame them for being, hum, lethargic. Though "owning thine self" is a rare and delicious virtue, authority is needed to exact some level of order, otherwise it's anarchy.
We need some of both. The whole debate is around the latter idea.

 

[Jaguar]

Political correctness has even infected one of our moderators.

Gee, I never would have known if you hadn't told me.

 

[rav3n]

Political correctness is a similar lazy, overgeneralised pejorative as SJW. They're people who don't agree with you on one or more issues, regardless if they're conformists or regardless if these people potentially disagree with each other, on most/many other issues.

 

[Mole]

Mole's random thought for the day. Straight from 1984.

Only hyenas get in groups together for a kill, that's the equivalent of peer pressure in today's society. Most people like being dictated the decisions to hate/like/think/operate/act in a certain way, you can't blame them for being, hum, lethargic. Though "owning thine self" is a rare and delicious virtue, authority is needed to exact some level of order, otherwise it's anarchy.
We need some of both. The whole debate is around the latter idea.

It's anarchy, order, or creativity. In prosperous democratic societies we are moving from order to creativity. Unfortunately the authoritarians can't tell the difference between chaos and creativity and so suppress both.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Mole's random thought for the day. Straight from 1984.

Only hyenas get in groups together for a kill, that's the equivalent of peer pressure in today's society.

Is this meant in a metaphorical sense, or as a biological fact? Because, lots of animals hunt in groups. Lions and wolves to name two.

 

[Peter Deadpan]

siiiiiiiiiiigh

 

[Mole]

In traditional tribes the ultimate punishment was being ostracised or banished from the tribe, because it would mean not only your psychological death but your physical death as well.

And in the electronic tribe of Typology Central our ultimate punishment is permanent banning.

So we start to see the parallels between traditional tribes and electronic tribes of today.

And even more important we start to see the contrasts between tribalism, both traditional and electronic, and the literate individual.

 

[Dreamer]

In traditional tribes the ultimate punishment was being ostracised or banished from the tribe, because it would mean not only your psychological death but your physical death as well.

And in the electronic tribe of Typology Central our ultimate punishment is permanent banning.

So we start to see the parallels between traditional tribes and electronic tribes of today.

And even more important we start to see the contrasts between tribalism, both traditional and electronic, and the literate individual.

Or simply, because that’s all we CAN do in the most extreme. We have no proper jurisdiction or authority to handle situations beyond removing someone from our “electronic tribe”, therefore drawing this parallel might not be analyzing the picture in its entirety.

Now, if you were to broaden this view to the general public, and look at convicts and fellons, you can argue that sure, they are in still being removed from the tribe by sending them off to prison out of the public eye to a degree, but in another sense, they are also being sent to a place that has an intensely more focused eye on them, as “criminals”.

 

[Dreamer]

We spend a large amount of time and energy in learning to conform, so naturally we want to protect our investment in conformity.

So we vigorously police conformity by group bullying, by shaming, by humiliation, and by political correctness.

Political correctness has even infected one of our moderators.

It is classically authoritarian. But authoritarians can't tell the difference between. chaos and creativity, and suppress both.

Is chaos and creativity that far dispersed though? What IS creativity? What IS chaos? Both are transgressions from control, from a sense of security and order. Creativity though, is perceived as the positive form, whereas chaos is only ever seen as negatively implicated, but how far separated are they, and are they truly different that far removed from control and suppression. If you consider creativity as the lack of control and a willingness to see beyond, to see outside the boundaries, it requires a level of control to see clarity within that creativity. I don’t claim to have an answer to this as I’m thinking off the cuff here, but I suspect we are analyzing states of being that are in reality, all very much the same and heavily influencing the other states, but that in each state, the other definitions have been pushed to the back and ignored, but nevertheless, control still remains within creativity, and creativity still exists within chaos, and so on.


Though, there is a chance that what I speak of is entirely in error and I am in fact that authoritarian mod. There’s that possibility as well.

 

[cascadeco]

Is chaos and creativity that far dispersed though? What IS creativity? What IS chaos? Both are transgressions from control, from a sense of security and order. Creativity though, is perceived as the positive form, whereas chaos is only ever seen as negatively implicated, but how far separated are they, and are they truly different that far removed from control and suppression. If you consider creativity as the lack of control and a willingness to see beyond, to see outside the boundaries, it requires a level of control to see clarity within that creativity. I don’t claim to have an answer to this as I’m thinking off the cuff here, but I suspect we are analyzing states of being that are in reality, all very much the same and heavily influencing the other states, but that in each state, the other definitions have been pushed to the back and ignored, but nevertheless, control still remains within creativity, and creativity still exists within chaos, and so on.


Though, there is a chance that what I speak of is entirely in error and I am in fact that authoritarian mod. There’s that possibility as well.

You authoritarian you!!!! Edit: I do think that chaos/creativity is an odd delineation, as it can be subjective, and I agree with what you write that chaos is usually reserved for the more negative repercussions, creativity is seen as positive. It's that subjectivity in whether it is negative/positive that is probably the issue; one person might view that everything goes, in the name of creativity, no matter what the repercussion, another person may say if something impacts 2 people negatively, it's maybe ok, but if it impacts thousands or millions of people negatively, maybe it's not. And so on.

-----------------------

I don't see creativity being suppressed, I think typically there is a very very wide realm of tolerance, to the point in recent times that almost everything is tolerated, and people cry foul when something is, gasp, not tolerated -- and honestly I think that's why certain cultures/groups are running into the troubles they are running into. A community is just that - a community - whether on the scale of 5 people or millions. And a community will never run on 'anything goes' -- because it will cease to be a Community. Any time people band together there will have to be some structure or overarching shared purpose in place: that's the nature of what a community/group/tribe IS.

 

[1487610420]

We spend a large amount of time and energy in learning to conform, so naturally we want to protect our investment in conformity.

So we vigorously police conformity by group bullying, by shaming, by humiliation, and by political correctness.

Political correctness has even infected one of our moderators.

It is classically authoritarian. But authoritarians can't tell the difference between. chaos and creativity, and suppress both.

Gee, I never would have known if you hadn't told me.

And it spreads, too.

 

[Forever]

Or simply, because that’s all we CAN do in the most extreme. We have no proper jurisdiction or authority to handle situations beyond removing someone from our “electronic tribe”, therefore drawing this parallel might not be analyzing the picture in its entirety.

Now, if you were to broaden this view to the general public, and look at convicts and fellons, you can argue that sure, they are in still being removed from the tribe by sending them off to prison out of the public eye to a degree, but in another sense, they are also being sent to a place that has an intensely more focused eye on them, as “criminals”.

Well if people were banned only to post in the graveyard.. you could say that would have relevance.

 

[rav3n]

I find nonconformism for the sake of speshul snowflakery and conforming for the sake of conforming equally silly. They're two faces of the same issue and point to people not thinking their way through issues and lacking a sense of self.

 

[meowington]

I find nonconformism for the sake of speshul snowflakery and conforming for the sake of conforming equally silly. They're two faces of the same issue and point to people not thinking their way through issues and lacking a sense of self.

This.