me thinkin'

Underage drinking stings on the cmu community fool no one.

My Soc prof is incredibly charismatic. Have I mentioned that yet? He's the type of person who walks into the room and everybody immediately snaps to attention; he likes to pace back and forth while he talks, and stop occasionally and look straight at you. If you watched from the back of the classroom (which I do not; I always sit in the front so I can concentrate), you'd see thirty or forty heads slowly swivelling as he walks.
It's not like he's particularly handsome or weird-looking, even; he's short, a little fat, has very short hair and a somewhat bushy heard, dresses in flannel shirts and jeans, sweats a bit, and has very pale, clear greenish eyes. He's very enthusiastic about sociology, particularly the use of sociological principles in everyday life--he believes it is immoral not to use one's knowledge for the betterment of society. Likes to lecture on this. I must say I agree with him; one of the things I always hated about the sociology texts I used to read was that the authors never suggested any ways to overcome one's societal programming.
So we're discussing conformity and groupthink a little while ago, which is a topic I can talk about for hours on end. "Groupthink," by the way, is what happens when the desire for consensus within a group becomes stronger than the need to face reality. Most of the examples the prof is throwing out consist of drastic examples, such as doomsday cults or various presidential administrations. Meanwhile, I'm thinking that groupthink isn't that drastic all the time. It can come in different, subtle forms that are maybe not quite as noticeable or malevolent.
We're talking about American culture; the prof states that there's a trend of Rugged Individualism in American culture that isn't nearly as noticeable or prevalent in most other cultures. I don't know if this is entirely true, not having made an extensive study of other cultures; for the sake of this argument, we'll say that traditional American culture does indeed seem to fetishize individual effort and success. Fetishize being the operative word here; prof also pulls out a saying about how "A dead hero is a live troublemaker." This is just in time for Martin Luther King Jr. day, by the way; the prof points out that the peace marches and talks that CMU is having are ironic, since when MLKJ was actually alive, there's no way the administrators of CMU would have honored him or what he stood for.
I forgot where I was going with this.
Ok, I remember now. The point is this: I don't personally know anyone that has nice things to say about conformity in general. In fact, most of my circle of friends has a kneejerk reaction to the concept. "Normality? What are you, BRAINDEAD?!?! We don't want to be like anyone else! That is for the unwashed sheeplike masses." The fact that I don't personally know anyone who has nice things to say about conformity would naturally lead me to believe that American society in general is rabidly anti-conformist. "But Rachel," I thought to myself, "if everyone hates conformists...then where are all the conformists to hate?" Well? Are they imaginary, perhaps? Or, and this is more likely, I simply imagine that American society is general is rabidly anti-conformist to the point of being reactionary. I am a weird person, after all--some might say almost elitist. I surround myself with other weird people, and therefore my worldview is shaped through that weird-person filter. This is just another form of groupthink.
Question: Since when did nonconformist and intelligent become synonymous in my head? Is this another cultural assumption on my part? Do I need to deprogram myself or is this a sign of not ever having been programmed in the first place?

ETA: Would also like to add that I offically have a beard. And I don't mean a pretend boyfriend, I mean more fuzziness on my neck and chin than some guys. Not that anyone really wants to hear that, but I felt it was important to let all of you know.