“Otroverts,” ... and why nonconformists often see what others can’t
- sciart0
- Jun 30
- 1 min read
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Kaminski classifies individuals who resist group identity and social conformity to live by independent values as “otroverts.”
Belonging to groups offers many a sense of comfort and direction, but it often requires suppressing individual thoughts in favor of collective norms.
History shows that original thinkers, such as Ignaz Semmelweis, can offer insights that ultimately advance society.
Excerpt: " Emily Dickinson once wrote, “The soul selects her own society.” Yet for many souls, one’s position in society is not so much a choice as it is a function of where we live, what family, religion, or social class we were born into, and what ethnicity and/or race we are. Most people embrace — or at least accept — the social groups to which they have been assigned. Otroverts do not.
[Editor’s Note: Otrovert is Kaminski’s classification for people who, despite being well-adjusted, struggle to belong in groups and even prefer standing separate from social collectives.]
Otroverts place no trust in any group formed around an abstract idea or circumstance of birth, such as ideology, politics, race, economy, religion, and nationality, which exist only in the collective mind. For them, the idea of unquestionable devotion to a group of people linked by a set of tacit criteria agreed upon by the group’s members makes little sense, no matter how venerable that group is in the eyes of the majority.