Think different

Monday, July 13, 1998

Think different

INDIVIDUALISM: Stand up against the norm … everybody’s doing
it

I went to China earlier this summer, and my trip got me thinking
about a bunch of things that are seemingly unrelated to China. And
yet they are related to China, or else why would China have gotten
me thinking about them?

For instance, my trip to China made me think back to almost a
year ago, when my friend Sellers and I found ourselves walking
around the UCLA campus, each of us holding one end of a big piece
of tree bark that we had found lying on the sidewalk. We were both
pretending that the tree bark was a delicate and valuable item, and
we yelled instructions irritably at each other, all for the benefit
of passers-by.

After a while we tired of this, and we made our way home. As we
walked by Ackerman Union on Bruin Walk, we saw a large group of
school children standing in Westwood Plaza, taking part in some
sort of a tour. They had all seen our earlier performance with the
tree bark, but as Sellers approached them, his eyes widened and he
said, "I have to do something!"

And so Sellers stopped about 30 feet away from the group, pulled
his T-shirt over his head, and let out a blood-curdling scream.

"Somebody help, my shirt is eating me!" he yelled as he
staggered back and forth, trying to free his head from his shirt.
"I can’t get it off! I can’t breathe – it’s eating me alive! Save
yourselves while there’s still time!"

For about 15 seconds, 80 elementary-schoolers stared. They were
captivated, as their jaws dropped. To this day, that remains
perhaps the coolest sight I have ever seen.

I remember another time when I felt like I could have done
something similarly cool, but I didn’t. It was later that summer,
and I was with a group of friends in Westwood watching the movie,
"Hoodlum."

As the movie dragged on toward an ending that would seemingly
never come, it struck me that each member of the audience might be
joining me in the prayer I was silently offering: "Please God, let
this movie end. Please let me leave this movie theater." And I
wondered why, if we all wanted to leave the movie theater, did we
sit there as captives?

So I stood up in the middle of the theater and, in a booming
voice, said, "People! We don’t need to put up with this crap! This
movie could last another two hours – it could go on forever. Let’s
get out of here before we’ve wasted another minute."

"Hip, hip, hooray!" the crowd responded, and we all ran cheering
out of the theater.

Well, that’s what could have happened. But alas, I sat there
waiting for the end of that movie just like everybody else, and
afterward, I felt dirty. I felt like all of us in the audience had
been victims of our own conformity.

When we all walked home from the movie, I felt the need to be
different, if only to make up for having conformed inside that
theater. When I got home, I didn’t go inside; rather I sat on the
curb on the corner of Landfair and Midvale singing "Bye Bye Miss
American Pie."

Across the street, another guy was walking back and forth
between two apartment buildings – apparently, he was locked out.
Eventually he crossed the street to hang out with me on the curb.
He asked me whether sitting outside on a street corner while
singing loudly was part of my daily routine.

So I explained to him about "Hoodlum," and how I just felt the
need to be nonconformist for a little while. And he said something
like, "I think the problem with society today is that too many
people try to be nonconformist."

Well, I had always disagreed. What I’ve always liked to think –
without ever having put that much thought into it – is that the
ability to not conform is an important ability to have. Imagine,
for instance, that you were a German when Hitler came to power; at
that time, conforming involved taking part in discrimination
against Jews, which eventually led to genocide.

My visit to China (yes, here lies the connection) reaffirmed my
views.

As I waded through the various international customs lines and
made my way to the baggage claim at Beijing’s airport, I noticed an
abundance of soldiers. I remembered that China is ruled by an
authoritarian regime, and that just nine years ago (on June 4,
1989), its government put down a peaceful student rebellion in
Tiananmen Square by opening fire on the helpless protesters.

As I remembered this, I looked at the soldiers and thought that
perhaps their presence was meant to intimidate. Indeed, I did not
see one smile among them. And I was intimidated. I imagined that if
my friend Sellers had pulled a stunt like the one he had pulled
back on Bruin Walk, he would have been arrested.

I stayed in China for two weeks, and I have to admit, there was
no place as unfriendly as the airport. Still, soldiers were always
present, and I never went far without remembering that China has no
Bill of Rights.

One reminder for me was The China Daily, the country’s only
English-language newspaper. The Daily – unlike American newspapers
– always features good news. "Growth continues in China’s economy,"
might be the lead story on one day. A banner front-page headline on
another day declares, "Students are key to China’s future!"

Open the paper up, and you can read The Daily’s Viewpoint
section, where only one point of view is represented. Try your
darndest, but you will never find an anti-government viewpoint.

The citizens of China are not granted the right to a free press,
nor are they granted the freedom of speech. Like any authoritarian
government, the Chinese leaders do not want to solicit ideas from
the populace. (By definition, an authoritarian government is ruled
by a select few, and those outside that group hold minimal power.)
Rather, they want a population that is easy to govern.

The easiest population to govern is one that is always in
agreement. Thus, viewpoint sections in China are best when they
have only one viewpoint. And people are easiest to manage when they
are all doing the same thing – when they are all following the
crowd.

Meanwhile, an ideal democracy asks its citizenry to be as
intelligent as possible, because a well-educated citizenry comes up
with the best ideas and viewpoints. I prefer a government that
encourages me to be active and intelligent over one that encourages
me to be just like everybody else.

During my stay in Beijing, I probably fell somewhere in between
– I didn’t suppress my personality much, but I did suppress it a
little. For instance, I thought that it would be funny to get a
picture of myself doing cartwheels in front of all of the famous
landmarks we saw, but I only had the guts to do one cartwheel in
front of one landmark.

It’s nice to be back in a country where self-expression is less
frowned-upon. But even here, it’s hard to express an opinion if no
one else agrees – nonconformity is required. Are you capable of
that type of nonconformity? There is one great way to find out: try
nonconformity for fun.

Try something easy. Take this newspaper and (after reading all
of the articles in it and looking at all the advertisements) tear a
hole in it, and stick your head through the hole so that you are
wearing the newspaper as a necklace. Hopefully, as you walk around
campus, you will see that thousands of other Bruins are joining you
in this social statement. Today is the day to start being
different. Hallelujah!

You see? Nonconformists are not bad for society. Rather, they
are revolutionaries-in-training, the ones best prepared to stand up
for their ideas. Hopefully, you will remember this if you ever see
someone staggering desperately through a public place, trying to
free his head from his shirt. If you ever get the chance to see
this, don’t roll your eyes in embarrassment. Just watch and
appreciate that a great man’s head is being hidden by that shirt,
and realize that our society needs more like him.

Mark Dittmer