🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jan4.124326.24398@llustig.palo-alto.ca.us> oleg@llustig.palo-alto.ca.us (Oleg Kiselev) writes:
>In article <kma4f7INNr88@agate.berkeley.edu> jbuck@forney.berkeley.edu (Joe Buck) writes:
>>I'm not going to say it's wrong or "abnormal" to
>>feel some other way about it.  Given the large number of repressed people
>>in our culture, one could probably argue based on the numbers, and the
>>statistical meaning of "normal" (== average) that the reverse is normal.
>
>You can't define "normalcy" by replacing it with "average".

Sure you can.  In fact, that's the only way you can define it.
Humans are herd animals, more or less.  We all do what everyone
else does.  There's no blueprints to define what a 'normal'
human is supposed to be; 'normal' is based on your cultural
references, i.e. what everyone around you does.
That cultural reference comes from the recent history of the
culture you live in, and it can change over time.

For instance, take a South-Pacific Island culture where canabalism
is normal (can't give any names now; my books are at home).  It's
part of the culture, everyone does it at ceremonies when they win
a battle against another tribe.  Assume (for this example) that
they decide, en mass, to stop being cannibals.  Perhaps they
convert to a new religon.  After three generations, they may look
back at cannibalism with disdain, after 10 they might have a big
taboo against it, as we do.  Now, which is 'normal'?  The old
cannibalistic soceity, or the new one?  Ask a member of each, and
they'd reply that their soceity is normal, and the other isn't.



>Even when most members of the population are
>similarly physically or psychologically deformed, the disfigurement is not
>"normal".  It may be "common" or "dominant", but it does not make it
>"normal".  

When it becomes common, both at the current time and in
people's memories (i.e. it's been common for a while), it _will_ be
normal.

>>I'm much more
>>of a toucher now than I was five years ago, for instance, much more open
>>to people, and I'm also happier.
>
>And more "normal" by my definition.

Well, that definition is based on _your_ upbringing and culture.  Based
on mine (lower-middle-class Californian), you only touch lovers, not
friends, and they'd better be opposite-sex lovers, at that.  That's
what is normal for most Americans.  (Yes, I'm no longer true to that
upbringing, though I still don't let strangers touch me, even
friendly ones).

I think what you're calling 'normal' might better be called 'ideal'.



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