Sociological Normalcy

Factual Questions
1

I was reading a book about salesmanship and I was struck with the feeling that reading books about salesmanship is not something that very many people do. It’s a perfectly normal thing to do, but in terms of percentage of the population that does it, you’re at the bottom of the bell curve, so it’s definitely not “average?”

One way of looking at that “bottom of the bell curve” deal is that “normal” people are, by definition, in the middle of the curve, not at the extremes. But I feel like that can’t be right, so WTF is normalcy, anyway?

It isn’t normal to eat soap, but it’s normal that people do weird stuff. Is there any such thing as “normal” when it comes to what people do? Is it even an idea that tells us anything useful?

2

“Normal” is one of those words that always requires further context. Nobody is normal in every way, but everyone is normal in some ways.

3

If “normal” only means “not weird,” then it will be highly correlated with “average,” because if the average person did it…it wouldn’t be weird.

The average guys pops his pimples. It’s a normal behavior. Only a very few people taste the extruded pus; that’s both abnormal and far from average.

(Ew, I just made myself queasy…)

4

You’re talking about two different things. Normality implies a value judgment; it’s implied that whatever is abnormal is something that we shouldn’t do or be, something that’s inappropriate. The field of abnormal psychology is rife with examples.

On the other hand, there’s the statistically average. This has no implication as to whether the subject or behavior is appropriate or desirable, but a simple statement of whether something is usual or exceptional.

Both of these descriptors can of course change over time, as society’s attitudes and statistics change. It used to be considered normal for a man to beat his wife; today, thankfully not. The average person used to dance the waltz; today, not so much.

5

I like to think of normalcy as having everything going as expected. Of “knowing” the correct response to a situation that life throws at you, because it has been successfully dealt with before many times.

If an old rural Chinese person comes over to the US, they might find what we find normal (sit down toilets, our relative “lack of face/honor," children not being expected to take care of their parents/grandparents, etc) at odds with what they think of as normal. Just as we would find his way of thinking and acting as strange.

The (what is the opposite of normal in this sense? Strange/novel?) respective strangeness we mutually feel towards each other’s customs is a short-circuiting, or a blindness, of our ways of thinking/acting before this novel experience presented itself.
I feel that to live a normal life, is to live by a “complete enough” rulebook that your society/ecology has taught you and your ancestors over the years. This way of life, if followed, will lead to your success within the community; as everyone you know plays by the same rulebook and gives them all, more or less, the same preconceived notions. But once met with the different value system of another society, all sorts of misunderstandings will happen.

The more normal a person seems, means that that person conforms more closely to society’s standards. But it also means that that person cannot innovate, as innovation requires breaking society’s preconceived notions.

Take the Persians, for example: everyone in the known world at the time had red and blue dyes; but the Persians had a natural source of Purple. Wars were fought over this new royal color. But all of that death could have been avoided if only people realized that if they mixed red and blue dyes together, they could make their own Purple.

Or take writing, or art, or comedy, or anything else. All of those things, in order to touch your soul or spark your mind with an Aha! moment, either gave you a new way of seeing/experiencing something (otherwise if it was the same, it would be common and boring) or it gave you a new idea that was wrapped up in just enough familiarity to keep it both relatable and enticingly alien.

Like how no one painted in perspective until the renaissance; or how comedians present us with something normal, and then twist it enough for us to see it in a light that highlights its absurdity.

6

Normal people act like everyone around them does. This implies that they notice what other people do and adjust their behavior accordingly.