Halo said
I'm talking about what, on the ground, in the daily life of the individual, is going to have the most positive effect for them.
That depends on the individual though, some people are happiest simply being accepted by others.
Other's are happier being themselves, even if society shuns them for it.
This also hits the issue of short-term or long-term positive effect.
Short-term might be better to give in to peer pressure, people stop harassing you and you get accepted.
Long term though? Long after those people to gave in to are gone, you're left with a feeling of hiding your true self and possibly not even understanding yourself because you may not of ever given yourself the time of self-discovery cause it wasn't what those around you wanted out of you.
Halo said
Yes, people should be more accepting and less judgemental, and if we lived in that sort of utopia I'd completely agree with you. But that's not reality, that isn't going to happen, and honestly, sometimes I really do think the best principle to stand by above all others is just to do what benefits you (and others) most. Do what makes you and others happy - don't make people miserable for the sake of some idealistic principle.
Humanity said the same thing about other fields of acceptance, black rights, women rights, LGBT rights but we can see today that is able to change for the better. This is another battle, one that seems tough and hard so people label it as impossible, but it really just takes another strong effort which Humanity has proven capable of many times in the past. But to clarify, I'm not saying such stigma's or pressures will ever be 100% eliminated, humanity will always have it's bad eggs and stuff like bullying will always be present.
But it can be altered, changed and reduced by our efforts as a collective species.
Halo said
Oh, and if you think friendship and companionship is nothing to do with personal growth and happiness, I don't really know what to say to you.
I never said this.
It does play a role, a rather huge one for the majority of people. But there are some individuals who can grow and be happy without friends.
But those people are a minority for a reason, most people do not have the ability to handle not being accepted like that.
So Boerd said
Not bullying is tolerance. Encouraging or celebrating is acceptance. I will tolerate being a PETA nut. I will never accept it. The least the bullied could do is stop threatening the bully with force. If you don't want to bake a cake for a gay couple, that should be tolerated.
That's your own right. To tell you "You must think ________" is just as discriminatory as those who do things such as keep Gay Marriage illegal.
Though how in the world is the bullied the one threatening? In almost all cases of bullying it was the bully you threatened the victim, not the other way around.
As for the cake thing, allowing that is basically legalized homophobia and discrimination.
Like for example if you walked in a business and were told something like "Because you are a male/white/tall/blue eyed/straight/christian etc. we refuse to serve you would you honestly be fine with it?".
What if a lot of places you went to, perhaps places your friends use a lot and spoke highly of do this to you?
Maybe it's somewhere you were a loyal customer for years and now it get's a now employee or manager and that individual now chooses to throw you out? Is that fair?
So Boerd said
That's a discussion for another thread.You wouldn't want to live in a perfectly accepting or even tolerant society tolerant of whatever nonconformists do. There would be no laws preventing companies from not serving black people, and certainly Donald Sterling wouldn't be banned from the NBA as all he did was say dumb stuff, not do anything.
As long as the argument is "Are people accepting?" I'd say it's relevant for this thread. It's a clear example of how people are not.
And the whole point of not trying to conform people is to be open and accepting to people of all different types. Laws that refuse service of certain people is going backwards with that idea, because it is not accepting people but rejecting them. So a world designed to not make people conform would still be a society that wouldn't allow situations like the ones you're describing.
The Nexerus said
It's naive to believe that people are capable of not being influenced by their surroundings. Every decision that every person has ever made was weighed in based on what the reactions of their peers would be.
That isn't what's being argued.
Obviously people are influenced, but the idea is if despite that influence people decide they don't want to act like the others and be different in someway should society accept it? Or reject them until they change?
The Nexerus said
'Conformists' ARE those individuals that you're describing. The precise people that you're labelling non-conformists, the ones who generally adhere to the norms of society because it's what they believe in, are the people that anti-conformists would call conformists. They're individuals who, using their individual thought, create a general consensus that wavers in either direction according to the changing views of the individuals that make up that social consensus. Individuality IS accepted in society. It's what determines society, even.
Like Halo said, Anti-Conformists are Conformists, just in a reverse fashion.
People who are conformists are those who conform because it is popular and they want to be accepted.
Anti conformists are those who conform to whatever the conformists don't simply because they don't want to follow the herd.
But in the end they are still conforming, and simply changed herds rather than going herd-less.
Then there's Non-conformists, those who don't really conform. If they happen to like the same as most people, that's cool. If they happen to like something's that's not, that's cool too.
They are normally a mix of popular and not popular interests, fashions and behaviors. Very rarely do you find a non-conformists who naturally happens to majority like mainstream/conformed things or someone who majority likes non-conformed/hipster things.
To word it differently in case my example there isn't worded well.
It's not just mainstream people and hipsters, the world would be terrible if that was the case.
You've got your in between people too who don't either care to follow the crowd or care to move against the crowd either.
They just do what they like, don't do what they don't like.
Alkeni Synair said
Because in a given community, the number of such customers on hand may not be enough to fund a shop that specifically caters to them. Not to mention the possibility of attack or 'reprisal'.
Then there's also a fact a society becomes generally less effective as a whole if more business needs to be opened with the exact same function not for competitions sake but merely because the existing businesses are rejecting a part of the audience.
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