Article January 28, 2008 Issue

A CHRISTIAN DEMAND: TO CONFORM TO GOOD

Maike Byrd with contributions from ANNETTE KREUTZIGER-HERR

Professor ANNETTE KREUTZIGER-HERR teaches musicology and cultural studies at the Hochschule fur Musik Koln [University of Music in Cologne], Germany. From her hometown in Berlin, she shared her thoughts and encounters with conformity and nonconformity in her life and work. The Sentinel's Maike Byrd had the following conversation with her via e-mail.

Let's start out with one of the most famous figures of the 20th century, Albert Einstein, who is known for his free spirit and nonconformity. Talking about himself he said, "It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed." Do you think nonconformity is a springboard to creativity and great accomplishment?

It is interesting that you mention Albert Einstein, who was certainly one of the great thinkers in the 20th century and is often quoted as a model for nonconformist thinking and acting. Yet recent biographies have also brought out that he undervalued women as thinkers and that his insights into politics were often not as brilliant as his insights as a physicist. So evidently when his thought would move freely into "open territory," he could detach himself from traditional modes of thinking and act as an unsurpassed visionary.

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