If you turn the spotlight on any particular conforming individual, their actions will tend to appear voluntary. Since some individuals always did (and do) dissent from imposed cultural-political systems, this means that it is theoretically possible that any individual might do. And the existence of that possibility, however theoretical, makes any conformist behaviour look voluntary. But if you think about the overall situation, the pressures to conform are so many and so varied that in fact most individuals will always choose to conform, to the extent that the system allows them to. Once proper account is taken of the constraining pressures, therefore, what might look like purely voluntary behavior actually isn’t. People conform because, faced with this much pressure, nearly everyone does. Take away that force, and behaviour will change.
Peter Heather
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