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From: barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: The use of '-type' (misfits)
Message-ID: <1070@ames.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 6-Aug-85 23:10:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: ames.1070
Posted: Tue Aug  6 23:10:36 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 10-Aug-85 23:00:29 EDT
References: <968@peora.UUCP> <1424@mtx5b.UUCP> 
Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
Lines: 35

From Frank Silbermann (unc!fsks):
>The whole purpose of educating children is so that they will gradually
>become the type of person that will fit well into society -- i.e. to
>be able to earn a living and associate in normal ways with other people,
>according to society's norms and standards.  The idea that each one of
>us should develop our own behaviors independently of what society expects
>is pure bunk. 
 
	I've been reading along on this discussion, pretty much sitting
on a fence, but I think you go too far here, or at least have worded
your position in a way that invites misinterpretation. Yes, we all have
to learn to conform to some degree, and teaching us to conform is, indeed,
one of the most important lessons we teach our children. But it's a matter
of degree. Maximal conformity is not an ideal I would pursue. It can
be worth paying the price to insist on one's own approach to life. The
fact that we may all have to make compromises with our neighbors' notions
of proper behavior from time to time should be seen as no more than that,
a compromise. It's good to try to get along with people, but we also
need to preserve our own individuality.

>Some of us, for whatever reason, came out of childhood as misfits.
>We can choose to remain misfits and make the best of it, accepting
>society's punishments, or we can re-educate ourselves and redo whatever
>went wrong in our childhood.

	If you are only saying that *minimal* conformity is also not a
worthy goal, I agree. But your article seemed to imply that, even
though we have a right to *choose* to be ornery, no sensible person
would ever make that choice. I disagree with that implication.

-  From the Crow's Nest  -                      Kenn Barry
                                                NASA-Ames Research Center
                                                Moffett Field, CA
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