The Art of Non-Conformity (2): What Non-Conformity Isn't

So we were talking about non-conformity, and how it has nothing whatsoever to do with being prepared to sit around ramshackle airports in poor countries waiting for the pilot of the held-together-by-duct-tape DC3 to sober up and fly the plane, while eating vegetarian tacos and re-coding your client's website. It may sound exotic, and it narrowly beats commuting in suburban London, but it's not non-conformity. Non-conformity in those circumstances would be finding a doctor to give the pilot a vitamin B shot to help him sober up.

Non-conformity isn't about not following rules or not doing what everyone else does. To do anything that resembles an organised activity, from playing chess to driving (even in Naples), requires you to follow some rules. This is one of those points philosophers don't make enough of: to "do" anything that other people can recognise as our doing X means that we have to follow the rules they have for doing X. If we start moving chess pieces around at random, nobody will think we're playing chess. They will either think we're bonkers, or being silly. Even Mornington Crescent has rules - it's just that the rules aren't about what you think they're about.

Conformity is about following the rules when you have forgotten why, or never knew why or just because you like to follow the rules. Bridge clubs are full of old people tut-tutting at the newbies who don't know that a bid of three clubs is never followed by four hearts except when your partner has bid one no trumps and it's the third Thursday after Lent. Professional players will tell you that these "rules" are guidelines: you use them, don't use them, according to your judgement of the situation. Pros always say stuff like that, no matter what the subject. The point for them is to go home with a shed-load of money. But the point for the amateurs is to take part in a ceremony that confirms them as being insiders, members of the club and good social team players. Process is more important than results. (Which is why even now I recoil inwardly when I hear people talking about "process" in business: the point of business is to make a product people want at a price they can afford that leaves you with a profit. Not following a "process" that like as not has no positive effect on profit. But that makes me a non-conformist.)


Non-conformity is not about being random or ignoring common social conventions. If you have the opportunity to bathe on a regular basis and don't, that doesn't make you a non-conformist: it makes you smelly and anti-social. If you don't return things you borrow, that doesn't mean you are questioning notions of personal possession, it makes you a thief. If you do things without thinking the consequences through, that makes you impulsive at best and a dangerous and irresponsible twerp at worst. Some rules and conventions are there to enable co-operation and the smooth passage of business and human affairs. Mess with those when it matters and you're just an a..hole.

Non-conformity is about following the spirit of the law and focusing on the results, not the letter of the law and the ceremonial trappings. Non-conformists treat everything as a guideline, each rule applicable in perhaps many circumstances, but not in all. On a clear road with turns you can see round, why not have fun using the full width of the road? In heavy traffic, stick to your side. As for ceremony and process: those are regarded as optional, content-free and to be performed only if it will result in getting what they need. To a non-conformist, "process", "convention", "the way we do things" are not real. Reality is creation, getting results and making things happen. If there's one thing that most non-conformists do, it's jay-walk.

A conformist gets a large chunk of their identity from following the rules and taking part in the ceremonies. A conformist goes to Church because they like the routine, the feeling of being with other people, and of being in the place. The non-conformist goes because they need the religion: if they wanted to be surrounded by people, they would sit in a cafe. When they don't need the religion, they don't go. The non-conformist is not defined by what they do, and that's scary, if not actually a contradiction, to most people. After all, isn't "you'll do anything to (insert objective speaker doesn't share), won't you" one of the standard junk-drama put-downs?

The downside of non-conformity is steep and deep. I am never going to one of the gang, because being one of the gang means committed, unquestioning acceptance of their rules. Ain't going to happen. There will be something in my body language and facial expression that suggests I'm deciding or otherwise judging for myself. I'm not supposed to do that. Other people want to know that when they do X, I will automatically approve, and when one of the Other do Y, I will automatically disapprove. That way they don't have to worry about being judged they because they know just what to do. I mess all that up, because I insist on starting from scratch every time. And people don't like people who are motivated by results: they prefer ceremony. The merchant middle class that emerged across Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries upset both the aristocracy and the workers exactly because it was focussed on results, on profits and on political change.

The benefits of non-conformity? I can't think of one, to be honest. It's something that you're born with, or start doing very early in your life. At some point you find yourself choosing to be where the crowd is not. And when I think of it, that's the main benefit. And if you understand what I meant by that, you too are similarly cursed.