The Beatles, the greatest and most influential band of all-time would not have existed if it weren’t for American bands in the nineteen-fifties such as Buddy Holly and the Crickets or Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. The Beatles were heavily influenced by these aforementioned groups and used their sound as a jumping off point in their music. The Beatles would eventually branch out from the rockabilly sound of American bands of the fifties and venture off into a more experimental and complex sound that is synonymous with the band today. However, one can argue that in taking the music of American artists and developing it into their own, the Beatles weren’t entirely original. It’s not to say that the Beatles did not revolutionize Rock and Roll and created something different, it is however worthy to note that the music did not necessarily come about organically. It had come from the music and styles of others and was simply developed even further, like the artists who influenced the Beatles and the artists who influenced those artists and so on and so forth. Today, this cycle continues with our influences coming from individuals who have become before us, be it musicians, activists, artists or simply anyone who has made an impression on us. Unfortunately, the attempts of philosophers, in particularly, Ralph Waldo Emerson come in vain for no one can be entirely original due to the overload of suffocating information that anyone is exposed to on a given day.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was a philosopher from the early nineteenth century who wrote some brilliant pieces around the idea of originality and self-fulfillment like, “The American Scholar,” “Nature,” and “Self-Reliance.” I know it sounds like something one would learn about in high school and never care to read again but trust me, these essays are dope and will have you reconsidering which way is up. His ideas are so compelling and truly provoke an existential crisis that are we truly individual or just an amalgamation of other people’s thoughts. I even wrote a poem about self-reliance but that’s neither here nor there…
Getting back to the nitty gritty, in his essays Emerson preached specifically about individuality and the dangers of conformity within a society. That to listen and to become engrossed with the ideas or simple words of others is detrimental to one’s livelihood in that it separates the person from him or herself. The persona, characteristics, traits of the person will dissipate and become unrecognizable in the pool of people who had convinced him or her to conform into the collective thought. This is a troubling notion, as what can be worse than to hand one’s self over to others who want nothing more than to hinder self-expression and think together as one person? For the destruction of a person comes from conformity and attempts to please others while in worriment of those same people for how they will be judged because their opinion is like that of the divine.
The theme of
individual impressions on one another was apparent in the mid nineteenth
century when Emerson had questioned its impact on man but today people have
become more dependent than ever. We have surrounded and coddled ourselves in
the comforts and reliance of others so much that we need to constantly search
for communication be it with a friend, neighbor, stranger or just through a
mass medium that broadcasts and shares the opinions and actions of others
(Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.). It is as if we must inform ourselves with
what our society deems acceptable and the opinions created for every facet of
our beings. Collective opinion becomes a fascist (fascism, I know) endeavor as
it controls our thoughts to think and perceive something a certain way. This
shuns any individualism that attempts to challenge that conformity due to an
internal propaganda that automatically labels differences to an idea as wrong.
An example that is extremely harmful and relative is of body image. Anybody
that does not fit into the ideal body-type presented by society is labeled as
ugly and that person is shamed for not meeting those requirements or standards.
It is impossible to ignore body shaming and not fulfilling other societal norms
due to technologies that constantly surround us and enforces this propaganda through
social media or other mass mediums. People have always used technology as a
tool for survival but it has now become our own personal gods and a tool for
the demise of our individuality.
How can someone remain an individual with the amount of influence that is circulating us? Advertisements, television programs, radio broadcasts, cell phones, and computers are just a few examples of devices that people are exposed to daily and have shaped our thoughts and ideas. These devices, which have now become our own vices (I told you I was a poet), distract a person from being mindful of themselves and their surroundings. We are blind to the nature that surrounds us and who we are as a person. Just as I write this piece I am mesmerized by a video of a puppy eating peanut butter off a spoon (it’s too hard to look away). Our minds are no longer self-reliant due to our vices that do nothing more than shove collective opinions down our throats. Even the puppy video I mentioned is an example of such an act due to the popular opinion that the puppies are cute and it has been exposed on a mass medium (in this case, Facebook) to remind us all that WE think this to be cute. What flows through the mind is no longer original; it has been replaced by the ideas and impressions of others. The thoughts and philosophies we ourselves come up have become the developments of what we have seen, heard or read before.
Let us consider the idea that actions and art produced occur because those individuals had inspirations or influence from a common practice or another individual, can it be original? If the piece or action had not been done before but was inspired by another’s work is it still unique? Music and art in general are extremely important to humanity and is definitive in proving our membership to the human race (ask John Keating). It has the ability to take us to the moon and become someone else but is it ever truly original? Stories have been the earliest forms of communication and are constantly being told, and re-told with sometimes subtle and not so subtle differences, just as a development to make a story more relevant to the time. An example can be the tale of an underdog. The meeker individual/team/group defeats or surpasses the thought-to-be stronger adversary and shocks a community or any variety of people. This story is told time after time and is varied in its telling’s but can be found as early as the story of David and Goliath, where the smaller and weaker David takes down the giant that is Goliath with a sling-shot. David and Goliath, although an ancient tale, could have been influenced by another tale of the same variety that pre-dates the bible. It does not seem so farfetched.
It is not necessarily our fault; we have grown up in a world dominated by collective thought that preaches unity and societal norms are what is necessary. It is why we find different cultures around the world, different religious practices, and differences in general odd and we look down upon them. It comes ordinary to us and we do not realize we are doing it unless we become more aware of ourselves. People will always attempt to shun what’s different because it’s scary and not what they have been accustomed to. However, genius and wisdom branch out from individuality so it must be protected and praised. If the act of accepting and encouraging individualism is in effect, there may come a time where true originality comes about but is not conformity necessary in society? Without conformity in society there would be chaos, as everyone is off doing whatever it is they wish to do, which would lead us to revert back to a primitive, animalistic state. We bolster laws and rules to keep us ‘civilized’ but can there not be a happy medium? The process of separation from nature may bring about more comfort and safety from natural threats but this endeavor is causing us to forget the talents and ingenuity we possess as humans. Moving away from nature also makes us take it for granted, that we do not need to pay attention to the earth and the environment because we think we have tamed it and we can use it for our benefits. I do not want to go on an environmental rant here (although I am tempted) but if we forget that we are part of nature, then we will forget to be unique and individualistic. For the only true unbiased and natural influence is nature and without it, we are doomed to regurgitating the same old shit.
