Standardization

Standardization is the practice, in short, of making everything the same. We standardize testing for education to ensure everyone is at least on the same page. We standardize machine parts to make the process of maintenance easy and as vulgarity-free as possible. We try to get everything to a uniform baseline for ease and efficiency of function, essentially.

We at Berkeley tend to think this is a Big Damn Problem. A significant subset of students here believe that the idea is to be as classically non-standard as possible. These are the people who represent the Berkeley stereotype, who listen to the most underground music possible and have a high percentage chance of having dreadlocks. You know the ones I mean.

Indeed, we have a more generalized attitude that everyone is unique and has a unique perspective and a unique contribution to make. I think this is the right attitude to have; for better or worse, there is no one quite like you, no matter how "normal" or "weird" you think you are.

It bears repeating, however, that "unique" and "special" are different words with different meanings. The members of that subset of Berkeley students tend to act under the assumption that they are special. Their problems only happen to them and are more severe than those of "ordinary" people. Their opinions are incredibly more enlightened than anyone else's; after all, it would take a true visionary to come up with something as incredibly stupid as anarchism.

Reminding such people that their opinion is just that, an opinion, usually results in indignant outcries about "repression," or, in the truly enlightened groups, about how the "sheeple need to wake up." This group of people, those who assume themselves to be the enlightened intelligentsia privy to the underlying mechanisms of The Man, are a very small group responsible for giving all of us a bad name. Our college was a nexus of activism in the '70's, and these are generational echoes without an actual cause. They are why people raise their eyebrows when you say you go to UC Berkeley.

The point I'm getting at in a very muddled, circuitous way is this: it's perfectly all right to be different from everyone else. As far as I'm concerned, it's impossible not to be. You might espouse doctrine or act a certain way as you put on someone else's coat, but you as a person are unchanged. The underlying you is unique.

However, being unique is not the same as being special or superior. The idea of standardized education, whether it's working or not, is to hold everyone to the same (ideally high) standard. This isn't repression; this is preparation. There are a set of standards the world will hold you to as an adult, and whether you make the choice to fulfill them or strike out against them, you need to at least know they are there.

Humanity is not a homogeneous species. We're comprised of infinitely varying individuals. It's been said that people are like individual, beautiful snowflakes, each with a unique crystal pattern that can never be replicated. I think that's true, but the damn things are still made of snow. The way your pieces are arranged might be different and unique, but we're all made of essentially the same things. Everybody is divine, which means no one is any more divine than anybody else.

The parts of machinery are standardized because the machine will simply be unsustainable otherwise. "Well, a rotating gear gave out and it was entirely unique. Guess we have to open a new steel mill." We're all part of a massive, complex social machine of sorts, but I don't think that's a problem. As long as we all know we're part of the workings and understand how they turn (and are not dominated by them), we're all good.

TL;DR You're unique, exactly like everybody else.