What is the origin of nonconformity?
There have always been those who choose their own paths.
Biblically speaking, Cain was the first non-conformist, being a
farmer in a family of hunters.
Secularly speaking, every new innovation has been by some
non-conformist who thought that there was a better way to do
something.
How does it originate? People want to excell. If in the only
fields there are, there are already top men that you aren't going
to be able to replace, the inclination is to find a new field to
excell in.
Thus one could say that pride and the desire to be noticed are
the origins of non-conformity. From both a Biblical and Seculary
perspective.
(Note: That those who help us progress are non-conformists does
not mean that those who are non-conformists help us progress. There
are many more ways of being newly wrong, than newly right.)