(no subject)

[naath]

A thing I am interested in (but not, I think, very good at actually DOING ANYTHING ABOUT; I suck) is in expanding what counts as "normal" in social terms.

A lot of the opposition to ideas of expanding "normal" seem to fret that what I want is to *change* "normal" to be me, not them, and to exclude them. But I don't really want that at all - I want a bigger "normal", not a me-shaped "normal" (if everyone were just like me the world would be a boring place).

I guess expanding "normal" makes it harder for people who conform to the current normal to find like-minded people; because with the narrow normal they get to assume that everyone is "just like me" and that people who aren't will be polite about correcting them (or just let it slide). Whereas in a world where more choices are normal you have to spend more time on working out what option a person has chosen rather than just assuming they are "like me".

I'm not sure how to make it easier for people who are current "normal" to adapt to a new, wider normality that includes them but also many other people.

Comments

[koryne-is-me.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it's so much assuming 'just like me' (although it is at least somewhat) as knowing what is socially acceptable - having a safe default that you can use without having to know details of someone's life.

The example I think of is if a person of gender-A brings someone of gender-B as a guest. It used to be that you could safely say "oh, is this your wife/husband?", but times change and even amongst the older more conservative people I know the 'correct' phrasing would now be "is this your partner?".

It took a long time to catch up with the trend of people being together, but the phrase 'partner' seems likely to stick around as it means you don't need to remember the marital status of the couple and (probably by happy coincidence) can be applied to same-sex pairings as well.

[naath.livejournal.com]

I mean, like that. But also like... say you want a nice, straight, monogamous god-fearing man who wants kids, a house, a dog, a housewife... so 50 years ago (in white middle class culture) this is "normal" so you just have to find a nice man who likes you and the rest is mostly settled.

But these days you have to carefully filter men for all those qualities as well as general nice-ness, liking-you-ness etc. Because being not-those-things is largely acceptable in general society (even if not to you-personally).

I don't really think it ever was that easy; but some people seem to feel that it was and now it isn't.

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

I think that makes sense. Instead of "normal" being a tall, narrow bell-curve, with some "non-normal" outliers beyond the curve, it seems reasonable to suggest that perhaps the bell-curve should be wider and have longer tails, with fewer outliers, encomapassing new defintions of normal that are quite different to you or me but are still functional and valid. Works for me.

I think people have more capacity to be flexible than you think. At least, most intrinsically well-meaning people. It's like, if a new person starts in your office and they're a bit unusual, for a while they might be "That weird person in the office," but for most decent people I'd hope that within a short period, the person would become, "Oh, yeah, that's just the way XXX is. We'd more or less stopped noticing. You get used to it." It probably depends partly on their level of exposure to people outside the ordinary as well though (whether it's appearance or personality or behaviours) - probably hanging out with geeks and the non-neurotypical broadens your horizons!

I guess it's like if you know someone who's being treated for cancer or has a facial disfigurement or something - if you met them for the first time, you might be surprised by their outside-the-mainstream appearance, but if it's someone you've known for a while, you don't sit there thinking, "They look odd," you just think, "They look like YYY," the same as Naath looks like Naath and Eni looks like Eni and whatever.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think people are pretty flexible *in person*; but a bit less so when they don't have a personal experience to fall back on. Of course as more people are more "out" about more things then more people have those personal experiences.

I also want people to be aware that lots of things are possible; so they can go "oh, you can do THAT, I've always wanted THAT but not known how..."

I think the internet really helps with this stuff too. So much variation on display.

[sidheag.livejournal.com]

Do you just mean "people should be more accepting of difference" or is there more to it than that? Because my sense of being not normal was (in the days before I found environments where I'm normal :-) based on there being noone around, in a circle of 100 people or so, who seemed to be anything like me in ways that were important to me. I don't think there was anything much they could have done about that: it was just a fact. [I mean, what I minded wasn't that they didn't accept me; they mostly did their best. What I minded was that with the best wills in the world, we couldn't connect in the ways I wanted.]

[naath.livejournal.com]

I think, yes, accepting of difference. But also not *surprised* by difference, on constantly demanding that difference explain itself (I know I've been guilty of that one before now). And I think more... mixed up, so people meet more people who are not-like-them.

Also I think more willing to make a concious choice, or a concious consideration of one's true self (depending on whether the thing is more choice-like or more inner-self-like) rather than just "going along with the herd" because "that's what everyone does" unless/until it becomes really clear that that's not working for one.