Here’s my first post ever. It’s about conformity.

If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good.
– Thomas J. Watson

With the tanked economy people are scared. No one wants to lose his or her job or change or adjust like a leaf in the wind to the uncertainty of the economy. Colleges are aware of this phenomenon just like every other people to people business. Their acknowledgement of this is in a new form of exploitation and censorship of the student.  In colleges there is no longer room for the freedom of expression. Just go to any administrative office or teacher and confide that you need help and guidance. The response will be the same as if you went to Home Depot. “Let me help you to aisle 7, you’ll fit right here in this nail bin”. The employees in colleges are being trained just like everyone else to conform. The economic environment shouts that you will lose your job if you do not memorize this script we have given you and tell it to everyone that comes to this office. The ulterior motive is to get the student to take the requirements and get them out ASAP. And the script requires that the employees of the colleges to smile as they misdirect the student, have no feelings, be stoic, there is no rooms for thinking, just conform or we will find someone who will.

This dilemma is truly frightening. Colleges are employing robots and dolling out robots to do the work of the invisible economy monster.  This monster stays invisible so it cannot be challenged. What a coward. Working behind the scenes so it can’t be seen in the light of truth. The message to college students is to find the bin you fit in and stay there even if it’s wrong. What happened to the time when colleges where a place for the freedom to figure out where you wanted to be and live up to personal potential then go on to enhance the world at large?

These are fear tactics used by college institutions to squash individual freedom and creativity. Or are college’s victims of the economy monster too? (Bastards) Perhaps colleges are just as scared of folding as any other business.  Colleges are the first line of defense in creating competent workers. Maybe colleges have no choice either. It’s likely the funding bullies of the government shaking their fingers at colleges saying if you don’t train the students in the way we want there will be no funding. How sad for us.

In light of this we as students are kept in the dark so we won’t revolt against the status quo. Students are not allowed to ask questions without getting a generic answers. To reiterate what Thomas J. Watson has stated in the last sentence of this quote “A man flattened by conformity stays down for good” is a perfect warning against colleges conforming to threats of no funding and the harassment of fear.

Will it take students paying their entire tuition directly out of pocket or increased tuition costs for the chance to express themselves in a safe college environment? Or is this the end of innovative thinking that emerges from safe colleges? Are students being knocked down and defeated? In my opinion there are still some who are see through this veil of deception (like me). Those few will quietly navigate and circumvent the status quo. It may take getting knocked down and rising again many times but from here freedom will win.