A Culture of One and Misfit Phobia

I think most people in America are often consciously or unconsciously concerned about the negative consequences of being considered a misfit, and this fear is an obstacle for self growth. To the extent that you fear being considered a misfit you are likely to act accordingly to make sure that upon any possible comparisons with others you are not judged by others as different, weird, unconventional, etc. This fear leads to conformity and a lack of diversity among individuals. Curiously, scientists have created plenty of labels for "disorders" connected to the notion of not being able to function in society with others (e.g., social phobia, avoidant personality disorder) but there are no disorders associated with overly conforming to cultural convention at the expense of losing personal identity (arguably, this can be associated with depression, but depression is definitely not currently defined in this manner). That's because the implicit assumption is that your culture must give you a proper identity. A person supposedly must assimilate (to use Piaget's term) aspects of one's cultural environment to properly develop and function. The implicit assumption is that it's "good" to be like everyone else, and that is the message our scientific approach to psychology helps pass down to the public as an agent of convention.

Scientists "average" behavior and determine what is "normal" from this process, or so they think. The contradiction is that our American society is supposed to be about the importance of being an individual, having personal freedom, and making choices for yourself, but you see, it was never really allowed. In practice these principles become quite dangerous to most people because the principles regarding real freedom (i.e., the freedom from cultural convention) potentially lead to thinking and acting unlike others. For example, in America you're supposed to eat meat and you're expected to drive a car regardless of any apparent negative consequences (mistreatment of animals, consuming saturated animal fats, environmental pollution, economy and politics dependent on oil, etc.). The people who don't conform to this way of life are often considered to be misfits or maladapted. People fear the negative consequences associated with not being able to "fit in" if you are different compared to everyone else. Hence, there is a form of misfit phobia manifested by rampant conformity. Our society is structured in such a way that it is skewed in favor of the conformist (the center of the bell curve for all you scientists reading this) and does this at the expense of allowing for only limited acceptance of diversity among individuals. It is very important to understand the limitations of such approach in developing yourself as a culture of one.

In effect, the conventional approach for the empiricist goes like this: If most people seem to act a certain way, it must be normal. Meanwhile, the only thing they have really uncovered is a statistically normative condition. But normal and normative have been confounded with each other for years because of a large majority of people who don't understand the limitations of the scientific method, even professionals, and somehow the public learns what is "normal" and what is "abnormal" in our culture based on a normative pattern of behavior. What we really have is a matter of conforming to specific values, and in the absence of being the person who can be placed somewhere under the center of the bell curve one risks being considered a misfit. For most people, the answer to this dilemma is NOT to stop playing the empiricist's game. Their answer is to do whatever everyone else is doing.

If you don't value the current cultural convention (i.e., in America the importance of making as much money as possible, accomplishing goals in favor of appreciating your experience, possession of material objects in favor of personal or spiritual development, being scientifically rational in favor of artistically creative) you run the risk of demonstrating for others who conform to the convention that their world view may be "wrong." Their defense to this can very well be that they reject you, not because what you are doing is morally wrong or an actual threat to anyone, but because it is different. They find strength in numbers. For this reason alone, many people will be careful to not think or act in such ways that make it more likely they will be considered a misfit—even at the expense of personal development and life meaning. Their aim is not to be genuine; it is to escape rejection and condemnation by others.

Moreover, because people become too afraid to be genuine, they remain unable and unwilling to see beyond the half-truths of the reality that their culture creates. Instead of critically thinking about what they are conforming to, they practice ways of fitting in. They become the problem solvers and not the problem finders. They frown on those individuals who say something is seriously wrong with our society. They are more willing to believe that people act the way that they do because of their "nature," and they relinquish choices that are an existential part of personal freedom in contrast to the prescribed way of life that their culture provides. For a culture of one, this is no way to live. A person must find ways to deal with the fear of being considered a misfit (or what I call misfit phobia).

More to come...

(Image above is a digital photograph by the author.)