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Cadwell NOT Caldwell

Internalised Conformity

[4 minute read ] 

A long time ago, I used to read anything: cereal boxes at breakfast; the ingredients on cake wrappers; even the address on the plastic wrapping on multi-packs of toilet paper. However, I rarely read the little quotes that acted as prefaces or indicators at the very beginning of books. I would just dive right into the story. These quotes were included by the publishers, editors and writers to provide an idea of what to expect in the story. Usually they always seemed to be wistful. Writers might regard these quotes as foreshadows or foreshadowing. 

Just like moving home to a new area and not knowing that one end of a road I pass each day in the new town or city would be the best route to take me closer to where I want to be because I never read the street name at both ends, and then one day making that choice to pay attention and discovering a short-cut, yesterday I made a similar link in my head.

A long time ago, I was struck by the title of a Wilbur Smith book, 'The Angels Weep' and on this occasion I read the little quote in the first few pages:

...But man, proud man,

Dressed in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he is most assured,

His glassy essence, like an angry ape

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven

As makes the angels weep

 - Isabella

Act 2, scene 2, 146 - 151

That quote, particularly the angels weeping bit, stayed with me for many years. I couldn't remember the words but I remembered the angels. A while ago, I found that quote as a picture file online and saved it, and read it today. In the Wilbur Smith book the reference was not included. It is from 'Measure for Measure' by William Shakespeare, a play I need to study under the auspices of understanding how literature relates to power and whether it writes back to power. 

While it is not the other end of the 'road' I frequently pass and it does not provide a shortcut to anywhere, it does make me feel more at home in a place I have lived in for a long time. Of course, I am talking metaphorically; the 'place' is of course where I am in my learning, in my education and level of understanding stuff. It is to some extent the elusive 1% that helps to bind many strips of information together into a cohesive whole. Perhaps one day the address on the toilet-paper wrapper will also be as poignant. We know the ingredients on the cereal box is ever relevant.

Well! That was a private moment!

Striving to read and retain information is a self-imposed directive that I ruthlessly impose on myself. On a motorway, I hate missing my exit. There are two reasons for this and the first is by far the worst part for me. Suddenly I am lost; not so lost that I can't find my way back to the correct route but instead in a position of not knowing; not knowing how far the next exit is. The second reason I hate missing the exit is because I was asleep; I never know whether that exit was a restricted exit - can I come back down the other carriageway and still exit at this junction? Do I have to make my way across country, through congested towns? Of course, SatNav would take care of getting me to where I need to be to continue my journey but I eschew technology as being inferior to human understanding. Technology tends to be linear in its approach to providing information. Maps show me both ends of a street and how they link one place to another and SatNav just gives me a route. I cannot learn from SatNav.

In a book on psychology, 'Simply Psychology' by Michael Eysenck, there is a chapter called 'Social Influence and territorial behaviour'. I have the book open on a page that has a section subtitled as 'Kinds of conformity' (p260 Psychology Press Ltd. 1996). There are three main reasons to conform according to Kelman (1958) 'compliance, identification, and internalisation'. Briefly, they seem to be in order of actually wanting to conform. Complying with the majority even if an individual does not agree; Identifying with a role in society that someone has chosen; and conforming when someone is really in agreement with the views of those who are seeking to influence them. 

I suppose I like to conform to my own idea of what I should do. I am, however, not the first to read widely or do it deliberately just in case it reveals the other end of a metaphorical street of learning. My sister bought me a book on Psychology for my thirteenth birthday. I suspect she was thinking, 'Heal yourself, weirdo!' at the time. No matter; it was the best present I have ever received because it provided me with an idea that there is a conduit to understanding. I wrote about nostalgia a while back with a knowledge that we all might conform with a majority. If my family are in agreement about how an event unfolded in which we all attended and it differs from my memory, I have to conclude that any nostalgia I have is fictional. That would be like having the carpet whipped from beneath our feet, I suspect. Scary Monsters!I got the idea of nostalgia needing to conform with the memories of a majority from reading books on psychology. Wide reading has never been wasted. 

I am delighted that reading everything is 'internalised' in me. I continue to conform to my original idea, when I was sixteen, that everything is important and anything could be the missing 1% that provides the key to unlock the bonus prize of making sense of things. 

Indubitably, next year I shall be asked to consider power and corruption as Shakespeare showed it in 'Measure for Measure' with Angelo taking control in the Duke's absence. Just reading the play is like following SatNav for me. It will start at the beginning and finish at the end and it will, despite any sub-plots along the way that Shakespeare intended to enhance the journey, still be quite linear for me. The whole journey I might consider to be run in a train carriage at night. Being able to see anything outside, through the window, is nigh on impossible. Yet, if I re-read 'The Angels Weep', which for me is an easy and very enjoyable read, I am certain I will be able to glean something that will allow me to appreciate what Shakespeare was saying in 'Measure for Measure'.

Of course, I have already started to read about what was going on at the time of writing 'Measure for Measure' and I know where Shakespeare got the plot from. Linking the two will certainly add to my comprehension of the play and its intended audience.