Ever met a conformist?

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To me a conformist is someone who thinks other people's ideas are that much more authoritative than their own. It's never appealed to me, and the Great Pyramid will take up tap dancing long before I have a good word to say about conformists. I'm starting to think conformity is just adapting to the human environment, but when it means conformists by definition don't have opinions, just a position, I'd call it a disease. A lot of so-called public debate is no more than reciting positions on issues. That's not healthy. No ideology is famous for understanding others, and divided societies are sick societies. Youth culture, that strange contradiction in terms, is full of fashion conformity, even crime can be seen as a kind of conformity. You're only as cool as other people say you are... Some social groups demand conformity from their members. At executive level, the common wisdom (hideous expression) is that someone sets the standards, and everyone else had better conform, on principle. Other forms of dictatorship are much the same. It's a pretty long list of social situations, so what do you think? Is conformity just a way of fitting in, or something else?