17/12/2014

FOLLOWING SUIT

Good morning. If you pride yourself on not following fashion, you’ll probably be depressed to know that the odds are stacked against you succeeding. According to recent research from France, when we try not to conform, we end up looking very much like everyone else who’s trying not to conform. I don’t pretend to understand the theory behind the findings, but apparently it’s something to do with the laws of statistical physics.

Of course whole industries are dependent on encouraging people to follow fashion and it would be a curmudgeonly person who can’t see that trying the latest trend can be a lot of fun. Of course at a deeper level some degree of conforming is essential to bind society together. The world would be a chaotic place if most of us didn’t obey traffic laws and respect other people’s property. But there is a worrying side to conforming.

One of the many background articles about the Cambridge graduate accused of the murders in Hong Kong was written by an ex pat banker who knows the culture there well. He was writing - not about the crime itself - but about the prevalent atmosphere in the city. ‘Whatever you want,’ he wrote, ‘is available at a price.’ Another commentator said it’s a place where it’s easy to lose your moral compass because - not all - but many of the people around you are behaving badly.

It is easy to sit half a world away and moralise, but we’re all capable of losing our moral compass if the pressures around us are great enough. The writer of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament put it like this: “There is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.” St. Paul put it more poetically: “We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” But I don’t think either St. Paul or the writer of Ecclesiastes thought we shouldn’t try.

Lord, help us to think for ourselves and stay true to our beliefs. May we dare to be different and not conform simply to please those around us. Amen.