Self-actualizers
Some people who are different are mentally ill or criminals. Most people who are different are just conforming to different sets of norms -- i.e. they aren't "non-conformists" at all! But a few people are truly independent of conformity pressures and use their freedom for the good. The term that has become popular for these people is self-actualizers.
Abe Maslow believed that, when you are no longer pushed around by your physical needs, by your fears, by your social anxieties, or by your inferiority complexes, you are essentially free to do what you want to do -- you are free to "be all that you can be." You are a self-actualizer.
Maslow reviewed the lives of a number of people he felt were prime examples of self-actualizers, including some famous people such as Abraham Lincoln and Eleanor Roosevelt. He ended up with a list of characteristics these people seemed to have in common. I'm not going to give them all, but a number of them are quite significant to the idea of non-conformity at its best.
Self-actualizers strive for (1) autonomy and independence, and they (2) resist enculturation, that is, the social pressures most of us can't seem to resist. They are not impressed by authority or fashion. Instead, they rely on themselves, their values, conscience, reason, and experience.
They have (3) democratic values, meaning that they are open to and comfortable with cultural and individual variety. But they are not just tolerant, they are actually drawn towards variety. And they are more (4) accepting of others and themselves, as they are rather than as anyone says they should be.
More subtle indications of their non-conformity are their preferences for (5) spontaneity over the contrived or the calculated, and (6) simplicity over pretense and artificiality. They have the ability to (7) appreciate things that others take for granted, and a capacity for (8) creativity that allows them to rise above the mundane. All this doesn't mean we are dealing with someone flamboyant, however, or with radical non-conformists: Their love of simplicity often means that they appear rather ordinary on the surface, and their ability to accept self and others often means accepting much of the social order as it is.
But non-conformity is not, by any means, the only quality of the self-actualizer: They also enjoy warm (9) intimate relations with a few friends, and have a great capacity for (10) Gemeinschaftsgefühl -- social concern. In fact, running parallel to the element of non-conformity in their personalities is an even more important element of compassion.
Copyright 1999, C. George Boeree
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