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Don’t Conform To Platitudes against Conformity

January 5th, 2007 | blogging, models, poetry, responses, writing

I hope I know L.L. well enough to pick on her in my title. I love her post about conformity.

Here’s a different thought. (Does that make me a non-conformist?)

I heard this on a podcast from Stanford. (Either I’m a geek or these podcasts are so good everyone should buy an Ipod just to hear them. Or maybe both.) Robert Sutton talks about creativity and innovation. And he talks about the importance of conformity. Let me distill those thoughts down to two platitudes (but don’t conform to them!):

Creativity leads to growth, but tends to be unstable.

Conformity provides stabilization, but can lead to stagnation.


Sometimes conformity is good, he said. If I’m going in for surgery, I don’t want a creative surgeon. I want him to conform to the same procedure every other doctor does.

Of course, there is a certain element of creativity involved in every situation. I’m told our organs all look different. My brother is a doctor, and he said the biggest surprise in gross anatomy was that people’s organs aren’t even located in the same places from, um, corpse to corpse.

Still, I don’t want a doctor experimenting on me. I want him to conform to the procedure.

Similarly, as an editor I fight this battle all the time. Sometimes when I tweak a writer’s prose to make it conform to standard English, she will get upset. Usually with a little bit of grumbling and flipping through the Chicago Manual of Style, I can win them over. They’ll usually capitulate.

But what about when I’m asking them to conform to our audience? The works I edit are meant to appeal to a specific demographic. In a sense, we need the articles to look a little different on the outside, but to conform to our same basic set of architectural designs.

It’s the reason I love forms in poetry. The form makes a lot of decisions for the writer. But this isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it creates innovation by imposing arbitrary randomness into a writer’s work. If I need a word to rhyme with “sleep,” my limited options are going to force me to be creative in the way I get from one rhyme word to the next.

If you’ve ever written a sonnet or a villanelle, you know what I mean.

Certainly, the Oulipo group understood the power of randomness in generating new ideas. They were a group of mathematicians and physicists and poets who thought up some new forms for poetry.

Like their N + 7 poems. I won’t explain it here, but you should go check it out. A lot of my creative writing assignments as a teacher came from this book. The students thought I was nuts. I was. Am.
Conforming to the rules is part of the fun of writing. Sure we need creativity. Sure we need innovation. But if a book is too creative, it may have trouble finding an audience. If a book is too innovative, how will your publisher market it?

I like what Nick Hornby said about this. I heard him speak on CSPAN II. You know, BookTV? (OK, I really am a geek. But at least I’m happy.) This is a paraphrase, now. He said that he hates it when a novelist says, I just write for myself. On the one hand, Nick Hornby understood what writers mean when they say that. They need to write with integrity. They need to let their personality come out in their writing. Every writer is a part of his or her implied audience.

But no writer writers for himself or herself. Even Emily Dickinson didn’t do it. Or else why did she keep all the poems in a trunk? She secretly hoped they would be read by others.

Nick Hornby went on to say, don’t write a book that conforms to all of the conventions of a novel in 100,000-130,000 words and say, “I wrote it for myself.” That’s bull. You wrote it with the market in mind. You conformed your creativity to the model required.

And that’s okay.

Sometimes conformity is okay.

Here’s the problem: too often we pervert conformity by turning it into a simple formula or recipe that has no wiggle room. We institutionalize conformity through an oppressive government system or a legalistic church system or an inadequate standardized testing system.

What do you think? When does conformity go beyond a helpful kind of standardization to something more sinister and repressive and fearful?
(L.L., thanks for helping me get back into blogging, today! You’re the best. I hope you don’t mind the friendly jab.)

Viewing 16 Comments

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    • v
    Sure, conformity has its place. The area of theology, especially. "Class, today in Systematic Theology, our goal is to create a new doctrine..." I'll pass on that one, Sir.

    Still, that seems to be what the masses want from their preacher. Too many people want a dynamic presenter who brings a fresh message from Scripture.

    I'd much rather have a conformist in that arena, thank-you very much.

    How exciting life is, knowing that our God provided healthy outlets for both conformity and creativity.
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    • v
    No problem. I'm honored you'd conform to my thoughts for the day. :)

    In fact, I find your ideas very persuasive&mdash a good addition to the conversation!
    • ^
    • v
    Hey, what's this???!!! Your blog doesn't conform to standard HTML code thingies... my em dash up there came out in letters rather than as a symbol.

    Up with conformity! Up with conformity!
    • ^
    • v
    Hmmm. Let me try it—coolness.
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    • v
    (L.L. you forgot the semicolon, I think?)
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    • v
    —
    —
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    Yup. Confirmed. I'm the non-conformist.
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    • v
    haha. Some good thoughts here, as well as good laughs.

    I say, simply be yourself. But be yourself in community with others. Through living, books, etc. Then, I think there might be a good blend between conformity and creativity.
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    • v
    Wow, Ted. Someone thinks I'm funny? I promise not to let it go to my head. My kids remind my constantly, "Daddy, you are NOT funny." In fact, my students used to call me the king of the anti-funny.

    I agree that community is so important. Healthy community encourages creativity but also provides stability. So then I wonder what makes a community turn sour?

    I'm thinking of the wonderful churches that became stale and tired. Or the wonderful marriages that became hostile and full of resentment. I always assume such communities began in love, with high hopes.

    Is it really just a matter of remembering to respect each other? Then why do we forget?

    And I fully admit that this is a ridiculous number of questions for a comment.
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    I wouldn't say you were the KING of anti-funny. Maybe more like archduke.
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    • v
    Always good to hear from you, Matt. In middle school, I was the Duke of Earl, falsetto and everything.
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    • v
    I think I'm sensing a distinction among types of conformity: is that possible? Generally, I think I look down on conformity to "trends" or "fads": ideas or standards that may have a group consensus for the moment, but don't stand up to the test of time.

    Conformity to absolutes, or even culturally agreed upon principles that last more than a season, seem to generally be more palatable.

    And yet, the test of time is not the only test for standards to which we should conform. We always hope there are nonconformists in societies ruled by oppressive regimes, in societies who agree upon mistreating a segment of the population, etc.

    Not sure where this is going, just more thoughts . . .
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    Charity, great thoughts! And isn't that the tricky thing? Deciding whether an idea is a fad or an absolute.

    When I buck the system, am I a non-conformist resisting oppression? Or am I just rationalizing to justify my personal preferences?

    I like what Richard Foster said along these lines. He advises people to read at least one "classic" time-tested book for every recently published book. By recent, he meant within the last twenty-five years.

    It is important to stay culturally relevant, sure. But those truths that continue to speak across the generations are going to have a special kind of wisdom.

    This is why I am so surprised by how anti-catholic some protestants can be. They are quick to forget that the first fifteen hundred years of church history are "catholic." If that institution has remained for so long, chances are likely that it has some real wisdom to offer.
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    • v
    Over here from LL's blog.
    I'm enjoying this discussion because, as an artist, I delight in creativity, but REVEL in the challenge of creating within parameters. (Conforming to at least a few rules or boundaries.)
    For instance, once an artist chooses a media in which to work, they are limited by what the media can and can't do. Oil paints will never operate the same way that graphite does. That's the beauty of the variety of media. And that is just a rule of nature to which we must all conform, like it or not.
    The challenge is to make the oil paints stretch to do something different from the what we normally see them do- something that is within their capabilities, but something with a fresh twist or a new variation on the theme.
    An artist that successfully challenges the media, while at the same time allowing the media to challenge him, is a quality artist, in my book.

    I see this in my kids too, when it comes to housecleaning. The end goal may be "clean the mirror," but the route they choose to get there is completely different each and every time. One day they're hosting a TV show about how to clean mirrors properly, the next day they're a band of cleaning fairies scrubbing away while the rest of us slumber, and the next day they're Cinderella slaving away to make it to the ball in time. The goal as accomplished (conform to mom's standard of clean mirrors), but the methods chosen are left up to the creativity of the individual.
    There are some rules to which we all conform, no matter how it chafes- gravity, sin nature, etc.
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    Mark,

    This is a very interesting reflection. We are too enamored with novelty in our culture, and, as you note, it more-often-than-not doesn't stand the test of time. Reminds me of Thomas Merton's determination, toward the end of his life, to quit reading the daily paper; he thought it co-opted his energy for the eternal. Reminds me too of St. Paul's sad observation of the philosophers at the Aereopagus: "they could only talk about something new."

    Thank you also for your kind words concerning my piece on thehighcalling. Let me fess up and admit that I prompted a couple of the respondents to read and reply, but I too was pleasantly surprised to see the brisk activity there.

    Charlie
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    Erin, great stories about your kids sweeping. Your kids do more than just conform to your standard of clean mirrors, though. There are only a certain number of ways one can reach clean mirrors. All of the imagination just breathes new life into the routine. At some point they must get a cloth or a newspaper and clean the mirror. Finding creative ways to work within that limitation is where the real fun is.

    And the real success, you know? Because if I can remember to view everything this way, then my life and my work and my family no longer control me in a bad way. Instead, I embrace the standard and put the burden on myself to find the joy in each gift that has been given to me.

    Charlie, great comments. The Greek marketplace is an interesting example. And yet, if he wasn't open to new ideas, then Dionysius couldn't have been converted.

    That kind of thinking reminds me how important it is that we remember to value paradox. God's truth is bigger than freedom and it's bigger than slavery. It's bigger than structure and it's bigger than creativity.

    Wow, that's a cool thought. God's truth is bigger than creativity.

    And as for your confession. Man, I'm a blogger. I know how these things work! But believe me, just because you ask doesn't mean they come and comment. In fact, often it doesn't mean they'll come at all. A lot of bloggers try to direct traffic, but only the good ones can actually get the traffic to move the direction they suggest.
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    • v
    Which makes you a good one, then.... 'cause, gosh, there's a rush hour here!

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