I think there are some people who, by no great virtue but by a happy confluence of personality and perspective, just won’t do things if you try to force them. Donkeys. And we need donkeys, sometimes. Are they heroes? They can be. They might be. But they’re also just very fixed in their own ideas and unwilling and even unable to be coerced.

I hate doing anything for social pressure reasons. And my wife hates going against social pressure. In high school, in a small rural town, I refused to stand for the national anthem at basketball games. Not for any remotely heroic reasons, not to make any kind of statement. But because it was expected and demanded. I was proving my autonomy to myself.

That’s a very pointless and unproductive act. It proves and gains nothing, it’s an act more similar to a belligerent child asserting pure and simple selfhood than any kind of rational, productive, moral act. Having seen myself do things like that, I try not to take too much credit for the other times in my life I have stood up to authorities and social forces much larger than myself because I believed they were wrong.

Nowadays I’m much more cowardly. I’ve learned to invest more in the world around me. I have more to lose. I’m less myopic in my focus on my own identity and my own beliefs and having those connections creates weaknesses. And maybe that’s one reason it’s harder for women in general to be disagreeable. They’re more social and more connected to others. They have more invested in the good of others and also the opinion of others. That makes their claims on you much more compelling.

It may be easier to stand against the crowd by being disinvested and independent and contrary, but it sure does come with downsides too. And it may be harder to stand against the crowd when you are more invested and agreeable and pro-social, but it also comes with advantages. And overall society needs more of the latter than the former. But soemtimes you really do need those people who will not follow and will not be moved.