Pursuit of "Harmony" Backfires

Collectivism conveys the idea of being rewarded when we successfully follow the group norms in order to bring harmony (while individualism is the opposite). However, it seems that the idea of reward-and-punishment that lies behind this concept of culture may follow with implications that do not bring the members of the group actually come to harmony. Moreover, it might lead to disharmony instead. The root of this may be is the different beliefs people hold about the norm itself, and the norm itself is vital because it defines what actions or attributes that deserve to be rewarded and/or punished. How this is the case can be related to how the human mind works.We all know how extraordinary the human mind works that even one behavior or mental activity cannot be reduced to simple elements of the brain, and instead they are distributed across the brain. It makes associations so fast; sometimes we are aware of them and sometimes we are not. Simple pressure to conform with the group norm may lead to development of internal motives to be the same as the other member of the group, especially if the member's attribute is thought as a desirable quality one has to have; while in reality, there never exists such pressure to be the same (the norm never says so), and we simply invented it ourselves. This also applies the other way; the pressure to conform with a certain group norm may lead to development of internal motives to make/force other people to be the same as us.

Basically, both motives are developed in order to eliminate differences, up to those that are not listed on the shared norm in the first place. People feel that they have to always be in a harmony, perhaps up to the point this unconsciously makes them feel they have the right to control other people when that harmony is translated into "sameness", again, without their own awareness. Maybe they thought that they are trying to do something good, but what they are doing is actually violating other people's rights and is no other than being disrespectful. What is right and wrong becomes blurry when people do not have a clear basis, but clear basis, in form of the consensual rule/norm, can actually have been there all along. It is our own doing (thinking) about that basis that drives us away from what it actually says. Of course, one can join different groups at once, for one has so many aspects in his/her life that need to be expressed through interaction with other people with the same characteristic of such aspect (one can join sports team and debate team at once in school). Usually, this phenomenon happen in a group that particularly has no clear grounding rules; perhaps merely brought together by liking or the positive emotional feelings one have when being with the members of the group, such as friendship - the bond that satisfy one's personal need for well-being. Because we open ourselves to our friends this may create a sense of psychological ownership distributed through all the group members; we feel we own our friends that we can do anything about them.

"You're wrong if you're not with me.
No explanation, just wrong; especially
with most of everyone agrees with me
as well." -from this source.

Problem rises when one expresses that he/she is right as differences rise among the group members, for one can easily get hurt for being accused to be wrong when he/she simply has different code of conduct which serves as the basis of his/her own concept of right and wrong, making this a disrespectful act. While this is a form of ignorance of differences, other problem may occur due to an anxiety or uneasy feeling one has as he/she sees a discrepancy underlying the qualitative difference he/she has with other member/s of the group. In the first case, the difference is simply rejected or claimed that it is not supposed to exist; thus, leading to conformity pressure toward the member that is claimed wrong based on one's own concept of right and wrong (to be elaborate: I think right and wrong is a very serious concept; it involves morality which so far I believe is valued everywhere as long as humans feel the need to get along with others. One feels guilty when he/she does something immoral, and for that he feels not worthy. Thus, to claim someone wrong on such matter means to claim him/her not worthy, and it can be considered a personal attack to the person).

Portrait of a woman suffering
from envy; Jean Louis
Théodore Géricault
(1791-1824), from
this source.

In the second case, the  subject of difference becomes the focus on which one believe he/she is supposed to deal with, not by rejecting it, but by minimizing the discrepancy that creates such difference. This can only happen when one acknowledges the subject of difference to be a desirable quality (in contrast with the first case, where one rejects the difference right away, thus claiming it to be undesirable or even despicable). Here, one can try to make oneself closer to the desirable quality, or make the one possessing cease to have it. Which of these one will choose to do may have to do with one's own concept of control/agency over such discrepancy, for minimizing it always involves an activity and an activity always depends on one's own sense of agency. Problem exists when one takes the latter action, for it can also be considered as a personal attack by the member possessing the desirable quality. However, back to where we start, the main problem lies on whether people think they have the right to do all these effort in eliminating differences in their own group, including ones that involve personal attacks.

Harmony never states that differences are to be eliminated, and I am sure assuming the group is sane (by this,  I mean still holds into moral principles) it will never state doing personal attacks to the other members of the group is worthy of reward. Instead, it tries to find the common ground among the members, and common ground itself would always involve respect. Therefore, if there is an effort for harmony, it is an effort to minimize the differences (not eliminating them), and it can be done not necessarily by removing them one by one literally (seriously, who is able to do that?), but by shifting focus to the original norm: what drives us together in the first place and not the ones we created based on our own elaborative thought that goes beyond it; thus, making us more comfortable standing the differences that exist around us, and eventually accepting and if possible embracing them. We all join and create groups to have a good time or at least making something good out of it; this reason behind should always be kept in mind if it is harmony we seek.