Larry's Philosophy (III)

III

Convention is the real enemy of youth. Not the convention that prompts one to use the same fork that the hostess is manipulating with such charming ineffectuality, or that necessitates a black butterfly instead of a white bat tie; these are relatively unimportant, and have rather a wholesome effect than otherwise. But the convention of which we should be afraid is the insidious something that causes the endless whispering of the crowd: "Conform! Conform! Join us, and be like us!" Individuality is discouraged, personality is disparaged, ingenuity is criticized, novelty is frowned upon.

For because the trend of a cycle of society is reactionary, each unit of society plays its little part in retarding the march of the progressive. Such units as the family, the social set, the fraternity, the college, the business, the political party, or the church of a man exert their own particular pressures on him to make him conform--be one of them--share their views--preach their doctrines--hold their faiths and creeds--in short, the secret aim of each seems to be to turn out all of its members as nearly alike as possible. As these groups are, to a large degree, successful, the result is an overwhelming majority who have conformed, who are average, and who are thus mediocre.

The average is always mediocre, by definition. Psychology has given us the normal curve, holding true for large numbers of individuals, and the maximum height is always at the fifty-per-cent level, the average, tapering down to the subnormals on one side and the abnormals on the other. So we have this large middle group, this mediocre body, the criterion of dress, ethics, manners, intelligence, morals--at once the teacher and critic of the younger generation, who are taught that the acceptance of social pressures rather than the dodging of them, is the pathway to happiness and success.

Naturally, this control exercised by the majority is not the worst thing happening to the youth of today. A certain amount of convention is absolutely necessary, of course. Because of better living conditions, a higher standard of intelligence, and a code of ethics which is progressing all the time, this mediocre body is rising gradually to a new level, and their control is making for better and finer life--slowly, to be sure, but steadily. The common folk are on the upward trend. There is no question that the mediocre is leveling up the standards of the world, bettering conditions in all walks of life.

But as certain as it is leveling up the lower strata of society, it is leveling down the upper! It seems that the sands of progress are running into a huge glass, piling up to a peak, like a cone; but when the cone is nearly pointed, the sand slips down the sides, and while the average level is raised, the cone has lost its peak. The leveling up is a step in advance; it is in the leveling down that I am chiefly interested.

William McFee struck the keynote when he said: "In any sphere where all start at a prescribed age, as in great universities and public services, there is a tendency to become standardized, to be only one example of a prevalent type. Ambition is coordinated, jealousy is neutralized; and the hot lava flow of individualist passion cools and hardens to an admirable degree of solidity and composure. One's exact contemporaries are around in throngs." There's the evil: the tendency to become standardized, to be only one of a prevalent type.

We need to look no farther than our own college for examples. Within four months after their arrival, nearly all of our fraternity freshmen are wearing the same style of clothes as their fraternity brothers, the same tilt of the hat, the same size cuff on their trousers, the coat collar rolled the same way; one can almost recognize a man's fraternity by his dress. The pity of it is that this conformity doesn't stop with the physical appearance of the men; I merely pointed out that these conditions are commonplaces in the relatively unimportant side of college life; when we consider that in much the same way the mental, the social, the moral attitudes of the group, the situation becomes far graver. Each subject alone requires a treatise, but it is fitting to touch a few of the salient points of each.

The majority of men come to college to learn; they are eager to study, to fit themselves for something, however far off in the haze of unmentioned dreams and aspirations that something may be. But a few months with men who have become somewhat hardened to these finer conceptions will, in most cases, cause a dimming of the ideal, a dropping of standard; the student will find that the prevalent idea of his associates is to get by with as little work as possible. There is little thought of meeting education half way. In many instances the desire to get something for nothing leads to the almost accepted practice of using outside aid in examinations. "Conform," the classroom whispers. "All of us are doing it and it won't hurt you just this once. What you do here will never make any difference to you later on in life. Conform!" --and there is the problem of cribbing.

An interesting problem in psychology is to sit with a group of men and hear the accepted social lion give his opinion on topics like dances and girls. Whether the men around him secretly agree with him or not, they all fall in with his opinion, making it the group opinion, and any contrary voice is promptly hooted down. Society begins early in life to play follow the leader, and the shame of it is that so many of the leaders are those who exercise an unwholesome influence. It is interesting also that the usual critic of a group is the man who sits around doing nothing, and who thus has more time to pass judgment on his associates than his busier mates, who are engaged in constructive work rather than destructive criticism. "Don't do that," he gibes the crowd. "That's a wet bunch to work with. Conform!" --and so we have our problem of extra-curricular activities.

Besides these problems of dress, intellectual laziness and negligence of social responsibilities--and more important--most of the troubles in morals and ethics that arise from this conformance to social pressure. Here the leveling down is helped to such an unfair extent by the natural desires and frailties of human nature, that only the strongest of personalities, the most indomitable of wills, can successfully resist the opinion of the crowd. Ridicule is such a fearful weapon, and men find it so hard to face! "Come on," grins the crowd, "don't think that you're too good for us. Better men than you have done it; come with us tonight--conform, conform!" With fiendish persistence the mediocre exerts its tyrannical pressure--and there we have our most serious problems of intoxication and prostitution.

I have taken examples from college because they are most vital to us now, but the pressures of later life are as monstrous and as persistent. If a man joins a firm and finds himself in the midst of crooked dealings, he is not supposed to impart his knowledge; if an honest man tries to become a virile progressive politician--and a pathetic few are trying for that--he finds his way blocked by those who may lose money if conditions are improved. If a man wants to clean up a college campus, or put a finer type of play on the stage, or innovate fairer business methods, or preach his own interpretation of the truth, he has to buck the wall of conformity, the Great Mediocre, that sits back comfortably and complacently and sneers: "You can't do that while you're with us. We can't have our group open to criticism and ridicule; stay with us and conform, or away with you!" Not so much that they are defending dishonesty, but, as Randolf Bourne says, "It is simply the instinctive reaction of the herd against anything which savours of the unusual. It is the tendency of every social group to resist change."

Apparently few are willing to resist social pressure to expose themselves to the scoring that is sure to follow a definite stand for the individualist theory. Yet when we look to men who have been and are great, we find that in every case they have determined what they wanted to do, have had the courage of their convictions, and then have proceeded to the task, snapping their fingers at conformity and convention. Lincoln did it when he pledged himself to the defense of the Union; Roosevelt did it in his Civil Service Reform program; Wilson did it when half the world was laughing at him. Harry Emerson Fosdick is still preaching and he draws the largest congregations; Fred Stone is still putting on clean plays and he is getting the largest audiences. These men and others are giving the truth as it is in them, and the Great Mediocre, whether it approves or not, is forced to acknowledge its respect!

But it is of no use to criticize existing conditions unless a remedy is suggested, for to break away from the old pressures without a definite objective is obviously as radical and detrimental as accepting them blindly or willingly. So I want to make my plea a plea for personality and individuality. I am not advocating the overthrow of responsibility, but the realization of a greater responsibility to one's self, one's contemporaries, and one's nation.

First, a man must have his eyes open to the pressures exerted on him. If he conforms to the prevailing mode of dress, he must realize that he is conforming, and that all htose who do not are probably as intelligent as himself. He must watch himself to see that he is not being forced into accepting the standards of thought and action of those about him. If he plays the violin, for instance, and dreams of the concert stage, it is entirely permissible for him to make money playing jazz if he realizes that he is conforming for the time being in order to further his training. If he has to stop college because of financial difficulties, it is perfectly proper that he should work at any job to make money only if he sees clearly that he is conforming temporarily so that he can later finish his college education. He must not compromise his conscience.

And as he must see the present clearly, so must he see the future; he must have vision. He must put first things first; see life in its true perspective; have no delusions as to the relative values of things. And if he has a vision, let him keep it sacred and well guarded; if he wants to be a musician or a bricklayer, a painter or a minister, an architect or an ornithologist--in God's name, let him carry on in spite of criticism and ridicule, fitting himself for the task; dreaming, planning, working--dodging the pressures of society.

Let him leave them to their conformities and their conventions; they are impotent and permanently harmless. Let him ignore their scoffing, laugh at their jesting, and set his face toward the problem ahead, keeping his body and mind and soul clean for the conflict. Let him develop into a great personality; for if he continues to work, to think, to love, he may, by the grace of God, become a Man. Banish conformity! Substitute the Supremacy of the Individual for the Tyranny of the Mediocre!