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You Do You
For a couple of centuries, not falling in line with societies rules and regulations was not a
choice. A few hundred years ago, if you did not believe in what the leaders of your country
believed in, you would have been put to death in a variety of different ways based on the century
you were in. A prime example of this would be the instance of Galileo and the Catholic Church.
Galileo was an astronomer in the seventeenth century. While examining the moon he realized
that our solar system is heliocentric (the planets revolve around the sun) as apposed to geocentric
(everything revolves around the earth) which the Catholic Church had been telling everyone was
the case. As a result of his research conflicting with the Church's beliefs, Galileo was imprisoned
and convicted of heresy. Fast forward some time and now we know that our solar system is
definitely heliocentric.
In the later half of the 1900's the nonconformist turn to the extreme and were against a
majority of what society stood for. This is predominant among people in the time that America
was locked in the war with Vietnam to try and keep it form turning to a Communist government.
At this point the United States government was oppressing the other countries by not allowing
them to be nonconformists and turn to Communism. However in some cases this was a good
thing since some of the countries that turned communism didn't wanted to be, but were forced to
due to take over.
Within America's system, a draft was developed to recruit more soldiers to help fight the
Viet Cong forces of the north that were trying to force communism upon the Capitalist South
Vietnamese government. Many of the younger Americans burned their draft cards in protest to
the war. The protest was to halt America's involvement which cost so many soldiers their limbs

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and lives.
In society's current state the nonconformists are trying to change the system yet again.
This time however, it is for them, the people like them, and for future generations. Today they are
fighting to create a better world for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer community.
We should take into consideration the benefits of embracing nonconformity such as different
solutions, possible advancements in science, and the promotion of peace among people. This
nonconformist society would make it so everyone could be comfortable with themselves since
social standards wouldn't play such a big role.
Accepting the concept of nonconformity would help better society as a whole by bringing
in new perspectives to certain situations that may have a positive outcome. Often if a problem
arises and you don't have a solution, you would turn to someone else in hopes of getting an
efficient solution. With that in mind, society should try this method to tackle it's situations. When
it comes to solving problems, we need to approach it with haste and with the best intentions of
the public in mind. To know what we should do in a situation, we must first get as many ideas as
possible. From there, select the best ideas in an attempt to come up with a more efficient plan
that will ultimately work for the greater parts of society. For that, we need to have creative
minds to come up with compromises on subjects that are important to the people. This is difficult
task since some people will want things done one way, and others will want it to be done another
way, and so on from there. The best thing that we can do is try to please as many people as we
can at one time.
Along with that, we would make more scientific and technological breakthroughs. There
are many prime examples of this happening throughout history, but to name all of the instances

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that this happened would take too much time and space. As stated before, a great example of a
nonconformist challenging the the thoughts of the major leading idea is Galileo against the
Catholic Church. Long story short, the Catholic Church said the solar system is geocentric and
Galileo, with some research, said that the solar system is heliocentric. As a result of that Galileo
was convicted for heresy, but years later turned out to be correct. For a more recent example of a
nonconformist doing his own thing is Steve Jobs. The success story of Steve Jobs is a very
interesting one. He wanted to make computers available for everyone while having them be easy
to use. He worked hard on this with help from others, and no matter how hard it got, Steve and
his partners kept pushing towards their goal. Now years later Mr. Jobs is dead and theres still
many people, especially artist, that buy and enjoy using the products that he helped design and
inspire. Just those two instances should be enough to convince anybody that not conforming to
the social standards is a good thing and people should treat it as such. Even if that isn't, then just
remember that there are way more instances especially in the entertainment industry in both the
musical and the theatrical sides of the spectrum.
In 1992, Los Angeles suffered from a large number of people throughout it's cities joining
together to participate in the infamous Los Angeles riots. Those people that started the riot had
banded together in a way of protesting the verdict of the Rodney King case. This instance shows
how the people's nonconformity, though it helped out with civil rights issues, it caused a lot of
problems at the time for citizens of Los Angeles. This is because the rioters were running around
hurting people, stealing things form stores, and destroying public and private property. One of
the victims of the riot tells Anna Deaver Smith that as a result of being attacked during the riot
that Morphine is what they were givin [him] for pain... (106). This just goes to show that in

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some cases nonconformity can help out in one way but be harmful in a different way.
However, to show that nonconformity is good, we look to Luis J. Rodriguez. He used to
be in a gang but wanted to leave after learning about the power of knowledge. Rodriguez wrote
books to try to help people, mostly children, to convince them not to go down the path of gangs
and violence. He states that, ... the battle lines are between the idealized, super-ficial and
insular-minded way of looking at the world... and the actual conditions of our lives with all its
multiplicity, struggle, shading and nuances. (Rodriguez xiii). How Rodriguez feels means that
we as society needs to help out these children so that they know in our world. It is okay to be
different. Lana Buchanan also argues that nonconformity leads to not having war. She states that
the citizens, Failure to question the government led to the loss of 58,000 American lives in
Vietnam. Our failure to question the government also led us into the Iraq and Afghanistan wars
with the cost of American lives lost still growing. (Buchanan). Which is true, it wasn't until we
started protesting the Vietnam War that we got out of it.
If we promoted nonconformity, then there would be more places in the world where
peace would be obtained. This would put everyone on the right track to creating world peace.
Wouldn't everyone love for there to be a world in which all of it's citizens no matter what could
live in perfect harmony? Everyone would love that and want that to be a reality if they could
make it one. Well, they can make it a reality. Our reality. If we were to make nonconformity the
standard, then together as a world we could fight the differences that have been keeping our
fellow humans apart and arguing about for thousands of years. This is because everyone in that
instance would be different than everyone else and that would be alright with everyone doing
there own thing, so everyone would be more likely to get along with everyone else.

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However, conforming to make nonconformity the social standard has it's issues. The first
major issue would be getting everyone on board with the idea. It's hard to believe, but people
tend not to like things that are different than them, that's why most people don't like
nonconformists to begin with. On top of that, there are the certain nations, religions, and people
who thing that just because they're whatever that they are better that everyone else on the planet.
Tim Dean brings up the point in his online article that, many bad things have occurred through
conformity. Nazism is the obvious example. Teenage drunkenness would be a second. Past that
to really make things work we would probably have to make a much larger world governed
world, in that case problems arise on how it would be governed and and who would be in charge
and whatnot. But once all of that is figured out, we will be able to have world peace and
everyone can be happy together.
As anyone can see, making nonconformity the social standard would be beneficial for
humanity. Even though on a worldwide basis it would definitely be hard starting out we could
gradually work our way into it. This means starting out on the local level and slowly easing to
national, multinational, and then worldwide. The key to being happy is nonconformity. Stay
unique my friends.

Annotated Bibliography
Buchanan, Lana. "Why Non-Conformity Is a Good Thing." Portland Occupier. Portland
Occupier, 28 Feb. 2012. Web. 19 Nov. 2016.
This article is all about how nonconformity is a good thing. It expresses this by

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reminding the viewer that through nonconformity, advances have been made. This
source is credible because the author has clearly done the proper research to talk
about it. I will use this source to to help further prove my point that
nonconformity is overall a good thing for society.
Dean, Tim. "What's so Bad about Conformity?" Socratic Society. WordPress, 01 Sept. 2008.
Web. 19 Nov. 2016.
In this article Dean makes the point that conforming to society is a good thing. As
an example, the author brings up the point that rebels that reject everything about
society are bad people. This author is seems knowledgeable about the topic but is
biased in the sense of saying that not conforming is bad. I can use this source as a
way to develop a counterargument.
Rodriguez, Luis J. Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. Willimantic, CT:
Curbstone, 1993. Print.
Rodriguez explores many topics in this book and one of them is nonconforming in
society. This is one of the overall points of the book as he is trying to get leave the
gang life. Rodriguez is a reliable source because he lived this so he should know
better than anyone about it. I can definitely use this in my essay, it displays a lot of
nonconformity throughout the pages. There will surely be something I can use.
Smith, Anna Deavere. Twilight--Los Angeles, 1992. New York, NY: Dramatists Play Service,
2003. Print.
Twilight is a bunch of interviews as a result of the the Los Angeles riots following
the Rodney King case. Smith is credible because the words in the book are exactly

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what the people she interviewed had said. I will be able to use this as a source
because it shows the dangers of conforming to society.