Who Is Colin Wilson's The Outsider?

“The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain.” – Colin Wilson. Colin Wilson is a well-known English non-fiction writer who focuses on the human potential, psychology, existentialism, criminality, literary criticism, and the occult. One of his most renowned pieces of work is his book, The Outsider. In this book, Colin introduces his thesis that the health of a society can be measured by how it treats its outsiders, or people who don’t fit in. All of Wilson’s work is centered on the human condition and how it can be solved. Criticizing the human condition is exactly what Colin Wilson is doing in his famous quote stated previously. Colin Wilson is absolutely right about what he says about the average individual for many reasons. …show more content…
The term conformist is defined as, “a person who conforms, or behaves according, to accepted behavior or established practices.” Stoicism is defined as “the endurance of pain or hardship without a display of feelings and without complaint.” Clearly, it isn’t too difficult to decipher what Colin is implying about most individuals in society. Many people have to suffer hardships and injustice in their life, whether it be a loss of a loved one, a divorce, etc. As a response, individuals often respond by being paralyzed, not because they lack the will, but because they are afraid of the outcome. Just like cows standing in the