The Conformist

I was born just seven and a half years after World War Two ended.  The Korean War was, however, still being fought, though it was nearing its climax, with the cease-fire and Armistice only months away.  I say that the Korean War ended before I was born, but one week before my 60th birthday, on 13 March 2013, North Korea officially withdrew from the Armistice, meaning that the war, which never actually ended, is technically "hot" again.

The Cold War was raging in earnest while I was growing up, and like all children raised in times of war, my classmates and I were indoctrinated with a world view and set of values that justified our country's on-going, albeit cold, war. We were taught that we were "free" and that people governed by our enemy ("communists" in general) were brutally repressed and lived in conditions tantamount to slavery.

"Totalitarians" (another term for our enemy) spied on their own people, coerced them into informing on one another, and controlled every aspect of their lives, telling them where to live, what jobs or careers to pursue, and with whom to socialize.  Totalitarian states sought to destroy the family as the fundamental unit of society, pitting brother against brother and child against parent, claiming a loyalty that superseded these family ties.  We were taught that the essence of our "freedom" lay in the political supremacy of the individual and a concomitant rejection of the "group".

When I was young, one of the most often talked about social and intellectual concerns was "Conformism."  We were taught that the greatness of our society lay in the respect it held, both socially and legally, for The Individual.  This Individual was allowed Freedom, a right recognized as God-given and beyond the power of the state to deny.

The existence of "freedom" was never questioned.  In fact, there was major debate about which if any circumstances might limit our presumed absolute liberty.  Some argued forcibly that liberty could be limited, that "Liberty is not License," pointing out that neither society nor government would sanction "shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theater."  The common sense notion was that "You can do anything you want as long as you don't hurt anybody else."  [I must note that this is an absurd, if not ridiculous, formulation, since you cannot know in advance the eventual consequences of anything that you do and that anything you do has the potential to cause harm to others.  Furthermore, such ethical niceties have never been applied to businesses: their freedom to do things that harm millions upon millions of people, and to do them not just accidentally (being unforeseen consequences to other actions) but knowingly, has, on the other hand, been absolute.

During the 1950s, when I was growing up, the empirical fact easily observed by even the least inquisitive was that upon returning from the war(s) American men continued to behave as they had been trained to do by the military.  They wore uniforms to work:  blue collar workers actually called their work clothes uniforms, whereas white collar workers used the term ironically to refer to the nearly identical dark suits, white shirts, neckties, leather shoes, and, in certain climates, overcoats which they wore.  This conformity of dress extended to conformity of address as well:  these returning soldiers were the generation that built the suburbs, huge communities of nearly identical houses, which they preferred to the houses, mostly unique structures built on small lots, in crowded cities.  Those cities were left to the Others who were "different":  "Negroes", Jews, Latinos, et al.  Instead they preferred the suburbs which were full of "People Like Us" or "Our Kind."

I remember the use of the word "different" to mean suspect, morally or possibly mentally unstable.  Disapproval of someone was often expressed by saying something like "Well, I don't know -- he's just kind of 'different', you know?"  These days, what used to be a vague form of social snobbery or discrimination has become an element of political policy.  Our government now tells us to report any suspicious behavior among our neighbors, friends, and family and that it frequently harasses the family and friends of citizens who resist its abrogation of the constitution and its pursuit of illegal forms of domestic surveillance and population control.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to see the movie "Citizen Four", which tells the story of Ed Snowden's efforts to expose to us all the level to which our government, in clear violation of the Constitution, is spying on us all in everything we do.  Many of you will ignore me and ignore the movie because you think that you know about this surveillance and it does not really worry you.  You do not feel immediately threatened by it.  Some of you who do worry about it will ignore me and the movie because even though government surveillance worries you, you feel that you cannot do anything about it and that seeing the movie would only upset you to no purpose.  But if you do not see this movie you will remain ignorant of the true nature of "our" country's government.

If you do see this movie, you will find yourself realizing, as I did, that it is probably time to get out of this country, before the repression becomes intolerable, at which time emigration will no doubt be impossible.

If you do not see this movie, you will not be dealing with reality when making the most basic decisions in your life.