I think you're right, and my wording isn't as precise as it could be. There's still the concept of societal violence though, where society is set up to form or force its inhabitants into shapes they would naturally not be able to contort into. Its a matter of degrees. The more a society has exacting expectations of its inhabitants, the more there will become troublesome elements.
> The stunning irony of millennials is that they were raised to “follow their bliss.”
Citation please! Not my experience.
> But they grew up, and what’s their number one complaint? That they can’t find steady work that will let them afford a house in the suburbs and a couple of kids.
Citation please! Not my experience. Just complaining that it takes a 90th percentile income to afford housing in most areas now instead of 60th decades ago.
I’m from an Asian society and I’ve seen the pain the strict social framework can cause people who biologically cannot conform to social expectations. However, I feel like your phraseology sweeps more broadly than necessary. Society should think very hard about what would be good social norms, and evolve them as appropriate. (For example, the social norms against women on the front lines may need to be re-evaluated in the age of fly-by-wire F22.) And society should accommodate people who for biological reasons are different.
But that does not require unstructured, wholesale accommodation of how people “choose to express their individuality.” You can accommodate people without abandoning the rule that, “in general, society expects you to be a certain way and do certain things.” Abandoning that rule is a recipe for unhappy, directionless people and a disharmonious society. The fact of the matter is that (1) society is better and more well functioning when people conform; and (2) most people are pretty similar and will be made happy by the same things. The stunning irony of millennials is that they were raised to “follow their bliss.” But they grew up, and what’s their number one complaint? That they can’t find steady work that will let them afford a house in the suburbs and a couple of kids.