Assimilation Lecture experience

Wednesday's lecture given by Jim Langholz was on the topic of Assimilation. Rather than give answers or concrete conclusions, Jim instead added more questions to my mind (which was already swimming with questions before the lecture.) Before the lecture Doug Knick emailed all of the Paideia students telling us to assemble in the basement instead of the lecture hall and about 2 munutes after class was supposed to start to go to class as a large group. Initially, it didn't even cross my mind that I was just blindly following the instructions of Doug. Knowing Doug and Jim's relationship and Jim's sense of humor, I just figured it would be a funny joke. While Doug's experiment was obviously an example of assimilation, so is going to the lecture and class on time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and following all of the norms and criteria of the course in order to achieve what? a good grade? life enrichment? I'm trying to understand why we do these things we do? But on the flip side, wouldn't the world just be a crazy place if everyone just did whatever the heck they wanted? Questions questions questions!