A conversation about conformity, power and the quiet surrender of independent judgment.
Join the conversation
A modern salon for curious people, complicated questions and conversations that don't fit neatly into a comment section.
No expertise required. No assigned reading. Just bring your curiosity.
Houston, Texas
Date + venue coming soon.
Something to think about
When does belonging become obedience?
We need other people.
We build families, friendships, communities, movements and identities around the places where we feel understood. Belonging can give us meaning. It can make us feel brave. It can remind us we're part of something larger than ourselves. But belonging has a price when staying inside the group requires us to stop questioning it.
At what point does being one of us begin to determine what we're allowed to think?
Nobody thinks they're conforming.
It's easy to imagine conformity as weakness — something other people do because they're gullible, uninformed or afraid to stand alone. The reality is much more human.
Groups give us language, identity, protection, purpose and a sense of who we are. And when those things are threatened, independent judgment can become surprisingly expensive. Sometimes nobody has to tell us to fall in line. Instead, we learn to do it ourselves.
The most powerful conformity doesn't require force.
When belonging becomes conditional on agreement, people begin policing their own thoughts long before anyone has to police them.
Agree? Disagree? Good.
Come prepared to make your case.
Are you sure that's your opinion?
- Why are intelligent people just as vulnerable to conformity as anyone else?
- When does loyalty to a group become a surrender of personal judgment?
- And what does it actually take to disagree when disagreement threatens something we need — belonging, identity, status, safety or community?
We aren't gathering to diagnose everyone else's susceptibility to groupthink. We're gathering to examine our own.
Resources
No homework required
But if you'd like to wander a little deeper before we meet:
READ
Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Reflections written under Nazi imprisonment on responsibility, conscience, power and what happens when people surrender independent judgment.
“The Power of the Powerless,” Václav Havel
On how ordinary people participate in systems of conformity and what becomes possible when they stop.
WATCH
The Wave (Die Welle)
On what gets lost when one version of reality becomes the only one we can see.
Interested in coming?
Join the waitlist
