What’s in common between Albert E., Leonard D.V., Wolfgang A.M., Winston C. and a few others, less popular? A kind of difference, a mental dysfunction or genius. These four guys suffered from dyslexia, had a difficult time at school, but we know what happened next. Other different geniuses didn’t suffer from dyslexia. However they left us too a great legacy.

Enlarging the spectrum, we find alternative people, shifted from social and cultural conventions, zebras, sassy individuals. Disrupting and wacky profiles, causing from light laughing to deeper concern, tiredness, at the borderline of politically correct spirit. Alternative mindsets, sometimes ahead of the rest of the crowd. Actually is it up to the society to adapt to this kind of individuals, or reversely is it up to them to adapt to a society’s inertia?

During the XIXth Century, there was a strong demand for obedient workers, accompanied by a flock of supervisers as well docile and conformist. Until the mid-XXth Century, taylorist habits rooted deep into our society and our economy. A mechanistic society could only give birth to a mechanistic educational system (sticking to the needs of the Industrial Revolution in Europe and in the USA). A century later this paradigm is ‘slightly’ out of fashion. But beware of its inertia!

School was hit by social evolution, mainly the loss of authority, and IT. A double shock!! The corporate world keeps asking for more innovation capability and agility. So isn’t it time to better value originality? Feel like changing the way we see the world, our vision of work ? Surely, at the beginning of our lives we weren’t all born wacky, original or « alternative ». And a hard core of conformist people remains needed to claim others are nonconformists. Anyway, we should always keep in mind the precious gift of the wackies, the original ones! Let us welcome them warmly, without prejudice or early judgement. Let’s learn from them, their special way of seeing the world, for the wellness of the whole society!

Laurent

To read or re-discover:
– Alexandre Jardin and his « Trois zèbres »
– Rupert Sheldrake, a nonconformist scientist claiming – further to the separation of Church and State – to separate Science from the State. www.sheldrake.org