What is "normal" ??

[joggerjayne]

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Arts-and-Litera ture/Books-and-Authors/Question607176.html

[ruby27]

This is a bit higbrow isn't it

Well

Its what ever the particular society has constructed as being accpetable, desiribale and socially sanctioned. Normal will vary dependant on context, so it changes from different societies and over time.

So simplistically, it was once thought normal that women of a certain class did not undertake certain tasks as their brains were not of sufficient size or capacity to manage. For example they couldn't vote as this was too complex. Whereas now, it is considered normal for women to multi task, so hold down a full time job, and have a greater responsibility for child care and domestic tasks. This is because women's brains are now more adaptable.

[funnygirl]

Blimey, this is cb isn't it??!!!!

[joggerjayne]

Ruby ... "what ever the particular society has constructed as being acceptable" may be as close as we can come to a concept of the "norm".

But it would follow from that idea that a norm could be created by the simple will of the majority.

So much as we may ask "Just what is "normal" nowadays?" we could answer that question by saying "It's whatever most people happen to do, or happen to think".

That, in essence, is what happens at the end of I Am Legend (the book ... I haven't seen the film).

[joggerjayne]

Yes, triggerhippy, and some of those cultures had established their "norms" long before our own society even existed.

So are we saying that because there are now more of us than there are of them, that we we can treat them as "not normal" simply because we have the benefit of sheer weight of numbers?

Clearly, as you suggest, there is no "universal" norm. Each society can only exist as a microcosm in it's own right. Doesn't the danger come when one microcosm decides that other microcosms must reflect or adopt the same values?

And is it the case that the winner always turns out to have been "right" because society adapts to whatever model the winner has called the "norm" ?

[obNOXious]

And this is the very problem one has with Democracy, which is trumpeted the world over as being the only fair and proper way. It is in effect mob rule ( usually done politely), but just because the majority want something to happen frankly doesn't mean that it is right, fair or a decent things to do. It is however percieved as 'normal' , whatever that is.
I was brought up in Belfast and I can tell you that behaviour that was once considered by the local community pefectly acceptable would now , in view of strides made during the peace process, be viwed as something completely unacceptable ( and rightly so. the point being that those behaviours were NEVER right,. They were however tolerated and condoned by the community (generally , there were exceptions) and thus at the time attained a dark and unoleasant normality.

[ruby27]

For me in answer to your points, yes really.

My take on the world as being sort of feminist/marxist, with very strong social constructionist perspective, I see cultural rules and therefore rules about normal, as being made up, but made up and enforced by the powerful rather than the majority.

So in my bitter and twisted opinion, the rules which predominate in western world and to a degree elsewhere, are made up by white men to keep in check, women, non whites and to a much lesser extent working class white men.

Examples of the enforcement are religion, not faith mind, but organised religion. This provides very powerful explanations for why the meek should not worry about the unfairness in the physical world as they will get their turn in the next life. Or women have 2 roles to play, the madonna or the *****. Such inventions also have the advantage of utilising the divide and rule mechanism as obNOXious has probably had experince of.

[ruby27]

w ho re being the word starred out.

[joggerjayne]

Interesting point, Obnoxious.

What is the real difference between Democracy and Mob Rule ??