Conformity is important for learning behaviors that will help you survive (or figure out what to do in a situation that you are unwary of).

Individuality, however, is you ensuring that you do what you feel is truly right, either for you or for society. To conform when you don't need to leads to you no longer being in power of your own destiny.

This is why the Japanese commit hara-kiri. Honoring the collective is very important for them.

Society should lean toward bringing out the best in people, instead it brings out the worst in them. Making the individual conform to the majority is neither healthy for society or the individual. Every one has both strengths and weaknesses, the strengths need put to better use. Society always fears that which they cannot grasp. The compulsion to change the individual who strays from the mainstream is overwhelming.

Orientation,

1a: the act or process of orienting or of being oriented

b: the state of being oriented; broadly: arrangement, alignment

2 a: a usually general or lasting direction of thought, inclination, or interest

Everyone wants to be theirselves but people bring us down and we feel that we are left out or we don't belong here. Thats the reason many people commit suicide especially teenagers. We're unique, a one of a kind, and we were made to stand out. Conformity is just us being a follwer. We're not embracing ourselves. We're just acting like people we arent and is the reason some people are depressed and don't feel good about themselves. Individuality helps us find our own path to freedom. It's the freedom we have to express ourselves.