Substack has a feature where they serve up posts that I might like. Not all of them have been been hits, much less home runs (wait…why the hell am I serving up sports analogies?). But this one was good! “Be myself? I’d rather die“, a post by psychologist Adam Mastroianni, and it looks at many things, but the focus that spoke to me was on the evolutionary value of conformity.
TLDR: social norms are one way we communicate our learnings about survival. He references cassava, which is edible ONLY when prepared correctly. Otherwise, it’s potentially lethal. Makes me think of the Hebrew proscription about pork, as an other example.
It’s rather eye opening to consider that social norms are often survival mechanisms. And, thus, that feeling of “needing to obey them”, even when they don’t seem to match make much more sense.
I want to remind folks, though, that as valuable as those learnings are, it’s the people willing to push through the norms and challenge are the ones that change things. I’m sure, at one point, no one ate cassava as it’s rather problematic until “treated”. Yet someone, somewhere, said, “I think I can eat this”, and, for whatever reason, we stumbled through it and the world was changed.
I appreciate the insights, especially on why the urge to conform is so damn powerful. However, I intend to live my somewhat contrarian life. I’ve enjoyed most of it so far.
