Can we ever be free of conformity or is it just, as in Atlas Shrugged, part of what John Galt says, “part of escaping the necessity of choice.” Is the idea of making a choice, making decisions, a form of conformity? Ayn Rand, this Russian immigrant is certainly an enigma. She represents a mythical figure , allegorically unearthed in Constance Rourke’s History of American Humor; the archetypical figure who re-invents herself in a new context, who changes identity. She recalls Herman Melville and his assertion that the reinvention of identity is a central American theme. Rand was a performer. As Rourke said, American culture is inherently theatrical, it craved performance, and it’s all about performance. It can even be argued that American popular performance itself is the necessary foundation for our modern culture, and Rand is another traveling performer who made the leap from minstrel to burlesque to the big stage.
“Every man builds his world in his own image,” he said. “He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice. If he abdicates his power, he abdicates the status of man, and the grinding chaos of the irrational is what he achieves as his sphere of existence – by his own choice.” ~ John Galt

Thomas FranK:Despite the extreme hostility of punk rockers with which Rollins had to contend all through the 1980s, it is he who has been chosen by the commercial media as the godfather of rock `n' roll revolt. It is not difficult to see why. For Rollins the punk rock decade was but a lengthy seminar on leadership skills, thriving on chaos, and total quality management. Rollins' much-celebrated anger is indistinguishable from the anger of the frustrated junior executive who finds obstacles on the way to the top. His discipline and determination are the automatic catechism of any small entrepreneur who's just finished brainwashing himself with the latest leadership and positive-thinking tracts; his poetry is the inspired verse of 21 Days to Unlimited Power or Let's Get Results, Not Excuses. Henry Rollins is no more a threat to established power in America than was Dale Carnegie. And yet Rollins as king of the rebels--peerless and ultimate--is the message hammered home wherever photos of his growling visage appears. Read More:http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/f/frank-dissent.html image:http://www.clashmusic.com/newsletter-signup
So, conformity has many sides to it. And conformity and non-conformity may not be as different as they seem. Ayn Rand is documented on her remark of nonconformity as a fashion statement: “There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist. ” And it seems this “fashionable nonconformist” is a major driver in all modern marketing. I wonder how Rand would perceive that the private sector today is a large advocate of using “rebel” behavior, nonconformity and expounding the virtues of individualism as a central to their marketing platform which isolates this archetype within a consumer necessity of choice.
Joseph Heath, in Rebel Sell, and Thomas Frank of the Baffler have been erudite and comprehensive in exposing some generally held fallacies on the nature of individualism and “liberty, freedom” etc. which in a sense show corporations vigorously and ingeniously reworking the Edward Bernays model where individualism is a commodity. So,Ayn Rand can be appropriated into the market as well, another casualty of the “laissez-faire” . Rand’s philosophy of objectivity tends to extol the virtues of selfish individualism which suggests that individuals and the collective are naturally antagonistic, with a destiny to be mutual exclusive. This is exactly the basis of almost all current advertising and marketing based on distinction and first, and still relevantly theorized by Veblen. Rand is not really a satanist as some have said, but she does drag baggage into an Orwellian labyrinth where up is down and truth is false; and the poor and minorities seem reserved the role as “pets” and Kissingerian ”cannon fodder” in Rand’s own admission to influential white society.

---Thomas Frank:...or a computer scientist who is also "a rabble rouser, an agent provocateur, a product of the 1960s who never lost his activist fire or democratic values." He is what sociologists Paul Leinberger and Bruce Tucker have called "The New Individualist," the new and improved manager whose arty worldview and creative hip derive directly from his formative sixties days. The one thing this new executive is definitely not is Organization Man, the hyper-rational counter of beans, attender of church, and wearer of stiff hats. In television commercials, through which the new American businessman presents his visions and self-understanding to the public, perpetual revolution and the gospel of rule-breaking are the orthodoxy of the day. You only need to watch for a few minutes before you see one of these slogans and understand the grip of antinomianism over the corporate mind: Sometimes You Gotta Break the Rules --Burger King If You Don't Like the Rules, Change Them --WXRT-FM The Rules Have Changed --Dodge The Art of Changing --Swatch There's no one way to do it. --Levi's This is different. Different is good. --Arby's... Read More:http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/f/frank-dissent.html
Thomas Frank:Today that beautiful countercultural idea, endorsed now by everyone from the surviving Beats to shampoo manufacturers, is more the official doctrine of corporate America than it is a program of resistance. What we understand as “dissent” does not subvert, does not challenge, does not even question the cultural faiths of Western business. What David Rieff wrote of the revolutionary pretensions of multiculturalism is equally true of the countercultural idea: “The more one reads in academic multiculturalist journals and in business publications, and the more one contrasts the speeches of CEOs and the speeches of noted multiculturalist academics, the more one is struck by the similarities in the way they view the world.” What’s happened is not co-optation or appropriation, but a simple and direct confluence of interest….

Naomi Klein, Avi Lewis. ---Heath:The problem is that all of these comparative preferences generate competitive consumption. “Keeping up with the Joneses,” in today’s world, does not always mean buying a tract home in the suburbs. It means buying a loft downtown, eating at the right restaurants, listening to obscure bands, having a pile of Mountain Equipment Co-op gear and vacationing in Thailand. It doesn’t matter how much people spend on these things, what matters is the competitive structure of the consumption. Once too many people get on the bandwagon, it forces the early adopters to get off, in order to preserve their distinction. This is what generates the cycles of obsolescence and waste that we condemn as “consumerism.” Read More:http://this.org/magazine/2002/11/01/the-rebel-sell/ image:http://www.smh.com.au/news/film/whos-the-boss/2005/08/11/1123353434133.html
Thomas: The problem with cultural dissent in America isn’t that it’s been co-opted, absorbed, or ripped-off. Of course it’s been all of these things. But it has proven so hopelessly susceptible to such assaults for the same reason it has become so harmless in the first place, so toothless even before Mr. Geffen’s boys discover it angsting away in some bar in Lawrence, Kansas: It is no longer any different from the official cultur
’s supposed to be subverting. The basic impulses of the countercultural idea, as descended from the holy Beats, are about as threatening to the new breed of antinomian businessmen as Anthony Robbins, selling success & how to achieve it on a late-night infomercial. Read More:http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/f/frank-dissent.html

---Heath:Of course, tweaking the tax code is not quite as exciting as dropping a “meme bomb” into the world of advertising or heading off to the latest riot in all that cool mec gear. It may, however, prove to be a lot more useful. What we need to realize is that consumerism is not an ideology. It is not something that people get tricked into. Consumerism is something that we actively do to one another, and that we will continue to do as long as we have no incentive to stop. Rather than just posturing, we should start thinking a bit more carefully about how we’re going to provide those incentives. Read More:http://this.org/magazine/2002/11/01/the-rebel-sell/ image:http://www.blogto.com/city/2010/06/g20_protest_videos_capture_chaos_on_toronto_streets/
And Joseph Heath:
We find ourselves in an untenable situation On the one hand, we criticize conformity and encourage individuality and rebellion. On the other hand, we lament the fact that our ever-increasing standard of material consumption is failing to generate any lasting increase in happiness. This is because it is rebellion, not conformity, that generates the competitive structure that drives the wedge between consumption and happiness. As long as we continue to prize individuality, and as long as we express that individuality through what we own and where we live, we can expect to live in a consumerist society. Read More:http://this.org/magazine/2002/11/01/the-rebel-sell/
…..What we need to see is that consumption is not about conformity, it’s about distinction. People consume in order to set themselves apart from others. To show that they are cooler (Nike shoes), better connected (the latest nightclub), better informed (single-malt Scotch), morally superior (Guatemalan handcrafts), or just plain richer (bmws).(Heath )
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As a religiously agnostic person, I don’t really care about Rand’s atheism. However, as with the Christian groups, I believe Rand’s selfish driven, utopian vision morality of capitalism and individualism to be, in fact, immoral. One of the many Bible texts the Christians are quoting to counter the GOP’s worshiping at the altar of selfishness is Luke 27 – 30:
“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.” Read More:http://dailycensored.com/2011/06/10/republicans-ayn-rand-and-satanism/
Read More:http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/alexknapp/2011/05/17/lessons-learned-from-parodying-ayn-rand/