From student blogs about conformity and grandparents:
· Born and raised in a Communist country, my grandparents dealt with the pressures of Stalin's suppressive government.
· At a school like Buckley, students seem to judge others on what clothes they wear, what car they drive but also what type of person they are
· My grandmother was never taught to read or write because women were not allowed to so when she was younger. To this day she has still not been taught to read or write because that is how she was raised: thinking that women are not supposed to read or write.
· The conflict "between what we profess to be and what we are": Can we conform outwardly but be nonconformist on the inside?
· it is our own insecurities that let others affect our thinking. In the 40's, my grandma probably dealt with the pressure of migrating to America. I imagine that she had to alter everything she knew before she came here, like dress, conversation, values, hairstyle, etc...
· Lost in the sea of society, trying to be someone you're not, is a much more painful way of living, rather than doing what you feel. No other person's satisfaction is worth your own. I'm sure when my grandmother was 17, her morals and expectations were very different.
· I'm currently hypothesizing that in my grandparents era conformity was more necessary and prominent because it was way worse at the time to be different.
· My grandpa, the first person in our family to move to America, overcame the pressures of conformity in his society to make a name for himself.
· The conformity aspect of is most directly the loss of identity, that one might become just another cog in the machine. Habituation alone is not conformity however, although to the artist or philosopher it might seem so. Ritual, habituation, or any sort of repeated scheduling often help people become more efficient in what they do. Conformity then is taking on the goal of efficiency as the most major aspect of one's character, ignoring why they might actually desire habituation or efficiency.
· In relation to conformity, I think that Samsa is now terrified of the fact that he can no longer blend in with society and seems to believe that he will be soon ostracized and isolated.
· Survey questions:
If your parent told you to you were getting a hair cut this afternoon would you:
a) agree
b) disagree
c) question why
