Quotes About Norms

Our national drug is alcohol. We tend to regard the use any other drug with special horror.

We are more likely to cheat if we see others doing so. We tend to conform to accepted norms of reasonable behaviour, rather than adhere to strict rules.

What concerns me, is the general social tendency to enforce a level, above which nothing rises and stands out.

I have never cared especially for outdoor sports and have no desire to excel at tennis, swimming, or golf. I'll leave those things to the men.

Popular culture is a contradiction in terms. If it's popular, it's not culture.

Masculinity is a terrible problem, as we construe it and shape it.

The terrorist isn't a problem because he doesn't conform; he's a problem because he does. It's what he conforms to that makes him dangerous.

Many Indians and Israelis seem set to elect, with untroubled consciences, those who speak the language of torturers and terrorists. More disturbingly, these corrupted democracies may increasingly prove the norm rather than the exception.

A strong intuition is much more powerful than a weal test. Normals teach us rules; outliers teach us laws. For every perfect medical experiment, there is a perfect human bias.

The double standard means men can run around and women cannot. I think I'm up to testing that.

Sanity is a matter of consensus.

A person can function normally in a million and one ways and hold the most irrational beliefs imaginable, as long as the irrational beliefs are culturally accepted delusions.

La mala palabra no nació así. La sociedad la hizo mala.

Do-saeng finally joined the conversation. Not many men can do without a wife, while all women can do without a husband.

There's this expectation that we should all be sexual beings, but the fact is, not all of us are, particularly.

Two children—one male, one female—to each family unit. It was written very clearly in the rules.

Two children—one male, one female—to each family unit.

I only know that it's the way of the world; and people who set themselves against it, only get laughed at for their pains.

Lo que públicamente se entiende por normal no es lo más habitual, sino lo normativo, lo convencionalmente obligatorio. Pero dentro del secreto de nuestra intimidad, todos nos desviamos de la regla, todos somos de algún modo heterodoxos.

La normalidad es un marco convencional que homogeneiza a los humanos, como ovejas encerradas en un aprisco;

Tan encadenados estamos a nuestro rol, en esta sociedad en la que vivimos a través de estereotipos. Como dice Elena en su ensayo de Pares e impares: hay un rol de hombre, otro de mujer. Uno de anciano, otro de joven. Lo hay de padre y de hijo, de mujer tradicional o liberada, de loco y de cuerdo, de triunfador y de vencido. Son todos personajes rígidos, vacíos, irreales: distorsionados reflejos de personas.

The life history of the individual is first and foremost an accomodation to the patterns and standards traditionally handed in his community. From the moment of his birth the customs into which he is born shape his experience and behavior.

My parents gave me the gift of irreligion, of growing up without bothering to ask people what gods they held dear, assuming that in fact, like my parents, they weren't interested in gods, and that this uninterest was 'normal.' You may argue that the gift was a poisoned chalice, but even if so, that's a cup from which I'd happily drink again.

The concept of "mental health" in our society is defined largely by the extent to which an individual behaves in accord with the needs of the system and does so without showing signs of stress.