|
By Rev. A. Powell Davies D.D.
April 25, 1954
At the present time, when the
pressure for conformity has greatly increased, it may be well to
consider with unusual care the role that should be played by the
constructive non-conformist. I say the constructive non-conformist
because I want, right at the beginning, to disencumber our
consideration of the handicap of what might be called neurotic
non-conformity. There are people, and I think we have to admit it,
who are what the psychologists would call compulsive
non-conformists. Whatever other people want, they feel compelled to
obstruct, just because other people want it. It is not, with them, a
rational choice, but an expression of emotional immaturity.
It is the adult equivalent of a child’s refractoriness: a way of
gaining attention or of feeling a sense of power. It is difficult,
and perhaps impossible, to provide a general description of this
kind of non-conformity except by saying that when we see into it we
discover that it is destructive rather than creative, and it arises
less from conviction and the quiet acceptance of a thought-through
position than from the need to be different and conspicuous. In our
present discussion we shall not deal with this type of
non-conformity even though some of its elements any not be entirely
absent from what I have called constructive non-conformity. People,
of course, and all that they are, but sometimes we have to go by
what they are in the main.
Let us begin with this: there are some matters in which it is an
excellent thing to conform--traffic lights, for instance: and most,
if not all, of the laws that provide for public safety. In the same
way, we may as well conform to the laws of grammar; and to the
multiplication tables; and to daylight saving time; and a great deal
else which makes our more-or-less civilized life convenient. I think
it would be a good thing, too, if we conformed much better than in
fact we do to the conventions of courtesy, especially in driving our
automobiles. When I need to turn to the left and the drivers of all
the automobiles behind me begin blowing their horns to express their
annoyance at the slight delay, I sometimes feel like getting out of
my car and going to each one of them in turn to express my regret at
the necessity of causing them a little inconvenience. But the, this
might be going farther than I should in the direction of
non-conformity. Nevertheless, I have not abandoned the idea: I am
laying it aside for further consideration.
If, however, there are conformities that are wise and useful, there
are also conformities which are the very opposite of wisdom and
utility. And there are some that are actually vicious. It is these
that we need to have in mind. We are being repeatedly told--and not,
I think, by the majority but by a noisy minority--what we must think
and do if we wish to be accepted as good Americans. Sometimes, it is
not what we must do ourselves, but what we must tolerate without
protest--or even applaud--in the behavior of others, unless we are
willing to be regarded with suspicion.
Or again, in matters of public policy there are ideas that we must
not ponder, possibilities that we must not study, even though the
fate of all of us is involved in the decisions that are taken. In
matters of nation security, there are those who have now come to
feel a sort of proprietary right in other people’s destiny. We must
conform to what they want to do--or leave undone--and go on
conforming even when we do not know what they are doing--or failing
to do.
In recent weeks, we have seen the pressure for conformity reach a
point where it is all but incredible. I refer, of course, to the
case of Dr. Oppenheimer. He was non-conformist in the decision to
try to make a hydrogen bomb. He felt, presumably, some doubts
concerning the feasibility of the project; he also felt, as I
understand it, considerable moral revulsion at the thought of
increasing still further the dimensions of destruction. He was wrong
about the feasibility, and in my own view, wrong in being unwilling
to recommend the attempt. It is an evil thing that such a weapon
should be created; but it would be a still more evil thing if the
Soviets had it and we lacked it. But this does not mean in the least
that Dr. Oppenheimer’s view had no merit, or that there was no value
in listening to him. His non-conformity, and his reasons for it,
would at any time deserve a careful study.
But even the basic comprehension for this has been largely lost. A
nuclear physicist is by necessity a non-conformist. He was that when
he departed from the orthodox physics and began to experiment with
the new ones. It was a daring departure. And it produced, for weal
or woe, the atom bomb. Conformists could never have produced and
atom bomb. It is the product, quite precisely, of adventurous
non-conformity.
And if a man is a non-conformist as a physicist, he may very well be
a non-conformist as a citizen and as a man. What should be thought
about his non-conformity is open to discussion--but at least it
should be understood. You cannot expect Mr. Einstein to act like
other people; yet, you should remember that it was he who alerted
President Roosevelt to the likelihood of Germany producing the atom
bomb and using it to defeat us in World War II.
It would be easy to provide examples. However, all I wish to
emphasize is that people who have made unusually independent use of
their minds are likely to be independent in other ways--and because
independent, different. And let me say again, it is precisely this
quality of independence, this non-conformity, which is so rewarding
in their work, as it was with the atomic physicists. Hitler banned
them from Germany--or created conditions which they found
unendurable so that they fled--and there fore lost their services.
The pressure for conformity under a dictatorship meant that the
dictatorship lost the war. It is this that has been lost sight
of--and it is amazing that it has been lost sight of! As for denying
Dr. Oppenheimer access to atomic secrets, it is like denying to
Beethoven the scores of his own symphonies--yes, and like preventing
him from writing further ones. There may, of course, be a reason for
it, but until I hear it and am unexpectedly impressed, I shall
remain skeptical.
But, to return to our main theme, the constructive non-conformist in
any sphere is essential to us. To exclude him is to exclude the
possibility of progress. It was the non-conformist in primitive days
who saw that there was something better than violent reprisal who
gave us the beginnings of law. It was the non-conformist who was
repelled by human sacrifice who diminished the cruelties of
religious ritual. It was the non-conformist in a multitude of ways
who gave us the entirety of science and modern knowledge, and the
possibility of democracy both as a way of governing and as a way of
life. Always it has been the non-conformist who has opened up new
territories and led the way to further stages of advance.
Minds that conform abjectly to prevailing patterns do very little to
help us solve our human problems. For the problems emerge in any
case--because nothing for very long is static. To meet them, new
ways of thinking are necessary, new measures, new devices, and these
can only come by challenging existing beliefs and established
patterns. Actually, therefore, the non-conformists should be
welcomed, irrespective of whether we are likely to agree with him.
We do not know--until he has been heard--whether we agree with him.
It certainly looks to me as though the stalemate that now exists in
the world, preventing negotiations for security and peace, will
never be broken by existing ways of thinking merely. These ways of
thinking have hardened very dangerously. They can be just as great a
threat as the agencies of physical destruction. It is counted
non-conformist--even flagrantly heretical--to suppose that there may
some time be a way of negotiating with the Russians. Whether there
is a way, I do not know--but I think that we ought to keep trying to
find out.
I do rather suppose that the Russian people do not want to be
incinerated by hydrogen bombs any more than we do, and perhaps their
leaders are not entirely stupid. So far as we, ourselves, are
concerned, I am inclined to think that, once we understand the
matter, we might prefer to live in a world with a lot of live
communists to get along with, rather than perish with a lot of dead
ones. It is a fantastic fact to accept, but I think it is a fact
that to think along these lines is now regarded as decidedly
non-conformists.
Yet, to pursue the matter further, if the Russian leaders are still
Marxists, they must believe, as they have all along, that the
capitalist world will fall apart without the need of trying to
destroy it by force. They must also therefore believe that the one
thing they have to fear is a war that would eliminate them and
prevent their exploitation of the capitalist collapse. So they ought
to be afraid of war--modern war with its immensity’s of devastation.
If, on the other hand, they have ceased to be Marxists and think
that capitalist countries may manage to avoid collapse, there is an
incentive for working out some sort of peaceful arrangement with
them. What I mean by this suggestion is that fresh
thinking--non-conformists t5o prevailing patterns--is highly
necessary. It is true that it may not succeed; but it is even more
true that our present approach is not succeeding; it should
therefore be obvious that we should be thinking in ways that are
new.
Of course, actually, the non-conformist, whether in matters of this
sort or any other, is not just the antagonist of the more conforming
viewpoint; he may represent something that the conforming person has
almost allowed himself to consider and then has set aside. At least,
this is sometimes so. As Emerson has put it, “In every work of
genius, we recognize our own rejected thoughts.” That is what the
non-conformist restores to us--whether we wish it or not: our own
rejected thoughts.
And this is the reason that the non-conformist can make the rest of
the people so uncomfortable. It is not because he thinks
differently--but because they see that they might, too. And they are
afraid of it.
Here we come to something that Jesus very plainly demonstrated. He
was a non-conformist--as he was bound to be, since he was a
spiritual and ethical genius. He attacked prevailing views. He
stated his own views clearly and emphatically. And the people who
heard him recognized that they were hearing voices out of their own
minds and memories. When he said that we should love and not hate,
he said something that his hearers already recognized as a thought
which they themselves had almost entertained. So with most else that
he said. When he spoke, he was reinforced by insights that his
hearers had rejected.
Religion has always been in need of non-conformists. And never more
than now. The old ways are not meeting the new needs, and they
cannot meet them. There must be fresh thinking, adventurous and yet
deeply realistic thinking--which is only possible if the old
patterns are challenged and the weary, unsufficing creeds of
yesterday discarded. Yet, the non-conformists is greatly feared and
misunderstood.
|
