Norms Best Quotes

The world is so obsessed with defining sexuality for everyone and attaching labels to it. Any time any person openly leaves the sexual norm, their sexuality becomes, more often than not, the absolute defining characteristic of that person. It becomes the first thing people think about and often the first thing they mention. Every other part of that person all but disappears.

social mobility isn’t just about money and economics, it’s about a lifestyle change. The wealthy and the powerful aren’t just wealthy and powerful; they follow a different set of norms and mores. When you go from working-class to professional-class, almost everything about your old life becomes unfashionable at best or unhealthy at worst.

Dads. It’s time to show our sons how to properly treat a woman. It’s time to show our daughters how a girl should expect be treated. It’s time to show forgiveness and compassion. It’s time to show our children empathy. It’s time to break social norms and teach a healthier way of life! It’s time to teach good gender roles and to ditch the unnecessary ones. Does it really matter if your son likes the color pink? Is it going to hurt anybody? Do you not see the damage it inflicts to tell a boy that there is something wrong with him because he likes a certain color? Do we not see the damage we do in labeling our girls “tom boys” or our boys “feminine” just because they have their own likes and opinions on things? Things that really don’t matter?

Yet if women are so flighty, fickle, changeable, susceptible, and inconstant (as some clerks would have us believe), why is it that their suitors have to resort to such trickery to have their way with them? And why don't women quickly succumb to them, without the need for all this skill and ingenuity in conquering them? For there is no need to go to war for a castle that is already captured. (...) Therefore, since it is necessary to call on such skill, ingenuity, and effort in order to seduce a woman, whether of high or humble birth, the logical conclusion to draw is that women are by no means as fickle as some men claim, or as easily influenced in their behaviour. And if anyone tells me that books are full of women like these, it is this very reply, frequently given, which causes me to complain. My response is that women did not write these books nor include the material which attacks them and their morals. Those who plead their cause in the absence of an opponent can invent to their heart's content, can pontificate without taking into account the opposite point of view and keep the best arguments for themselves, for aggressors are always quick to attack those who have no means of defence. But if women had written these books, I know full well the subject would have been handled differently. They know that they stand wrongfully accused, and that the cake has not been divided up equally, for the strongest take the lion's share, and the one who does the sharing out keeps the biggest portion for himself.

Your god, sir, is the World. In my eyes, you, too, if not an infidel, are an idolater. I conceive that you ignorantly worship: in all things you appear to me too superstitious. Sir, your god, your great Bel, your fish-tailed Dagon, rises before me as a demon. You, and such as you, have raised him to a throne, put on him a crown, given him a sceptre. Behold how hideously he governs! See him busied at the work he likes best -- making marriages. He binds the young to the old, the strong to the imbecile. He stretches out the arm of Mezentius and fetters the dead to the living. In his realm there is hatred -- secret hatred: there is disgust -- unspoken disgust: there is treachery -- family treachery: there is vice -- deep, deadly, domestic vice. In his dominions, children grow unloving between parents who have never loved: infants are nursed on deception from their very birth: they are reared in an atmosphere corrupt with lies ... All that surrounds him hastens to decay: all declines and degenerates under his sceptre. Your god is a masked Death.

You are not always right. It’s not always about being right. The best thing you can offer others is understanding. Being an active listener is about more than just listening, it is about reciprocating and being receptive to somebody else. Everybody has woes. Nobody is safe from pain. However, we all suffer in different ways. So learn to adapt to each person, know your audience and reserve yourself for people who have earned the depths of you

Hey, don't call me a cynic but I'm starting to think these blood drinking, moloch worshiping pedophiles who run our government might not have our best interests in mind.

Democracies work best—and survive longer—where constitutions are reinforced by unwritten democratic norms. Two basic norms have preserved America’s checks and balances in ways we have come to take for granted: mutual toleration, or the understanding that competing parties accept one another as legitimate rivals, and forbearance, or the idea that politicians should exercise restraint in deploying their institutional prerogatives.

And you’d correct him, but the thing is, you’re not sure you remember it a hundred percent accurately yourself. It turns out your memory isn’t the precise court stenographer you think it is, getting every word down just so. It’s more like the sketch artist way at the back of the courtroom who is doing his level best to capture images that no longer are.

probably the most important fact about genetics and culture is the delayed maturation of the frontal cortex—the genetic programming for the young frontal cortex to be freer from genes than other brain regions, to be sculpted instead by environment, to sop up cultural norms. To hark back to a theme from the first pages of this book, it doesn’t take a particularly fancy brain to learn how to motorically, say, throw a punch. But it takes a fancy, environmentally malleable frontal cortex to learn culture-specific rules about when it’s okay to throw punches.

You have to understand your best. Your best isn't Barrymore's best or Olivier's best or my best, but your own. Every person has his norm. And in that norm every person is a star. Olivier could stand on his head and still not be you. Only you can be you. What a privilege! Nobody can reach what you can if you do it. So do it. We need your best, your voice, your body. We don't need for you to imitate anybody, because that would be second best. And second best is no better than your worst.

Do we not see the influence we have when we say we believe in one thing, but our children see us living something else? Do we not realize how little we encourage our children to actually decide what they believe, declare what they believe, and then live by it? Whether it’s religion, politics, sports, or societal norms. It is not our place to tell our kids what to think. It is our place to teach our kids to think correctly. If we do this, we need have no fear of what they will decide for themselves and how strongly they’ll stand behind it. A man will follow his own convictions to his death, but he’ll only follow another man’s convictions until he steps in manure.

most cherished desires of present-day Westerners are shaped by romantic, nationalist, capitalist and humanist myths that have been around for centuries. Friends giving advice often tell each other, ‘Follow your heart.’ But the heart is a double agent that usually takes its instructions from the dominant myths of the day, and the very recommendation to ‘follow your heart’ was implanted in our minds by a combination of nineteenth-century Romantic myths and twentieth-century consumerist myths. The Coca-Cola Company, for example, has marketed Diet Coke around the world under the slogan ‘Diet Coke. Do what feels good.’ Even what people take to be their most personal desires are usually programmed by the imagined order. Let’s consider, for example, the popular desire to take a holiday abroad. There is nothing natural or obvious about this. A chimpanzee alpha male would never think of using his power in order to go on holiday into the territory of a neighbouring chimpanzee band. The elite of ancient Egypt spent their fortunes building pyramids and having their corpses mummified, but none of them thought of going shopping in Babylon or taking a skiing holiday in Phoenicia. People today spend a great deal of money on holidays abroad because they are true believers in the myths of romantic consumerism. Romanticism tells us that in order to make the most of our human potential we must have as many different experiences as we can. We must open ourselves to a wide spectrum of emotions; we must sample various kinds of relationships; we must try different cuisines; we must learn to appreciate different styles of music. One of the best ways to do all that is to break free from our daily routine, leave behind our familiar setting, and go travelling in distant lands, where we can ‘experience’ the culture, the smells, the tastes and the norms of other people. We hear again and again the romantic myths about ‘how a new experience opened my eyes and changed my life’. Consumerism tells us that in order to be happy we must consume as many products and services as possible. If we feel that something is missing or not quite right, then we probably need to buy a product (a car, new clothes, organic food) or a service (housekeeping, relationship therapy, yoga classes). Every television commercial is another little legend about how consuming some product or service will make life better. 18. The Great Pyramid of Giza. The kind of thing rich people in ancient Egypt did with their money. Romanticism, which encourages variety, meshes perfectly with consumerism. Their marriage has given birth to the infinite ‘market of experiences’, on which the modern tourism industry is founded. The tourism industry does not sell flight tickets and hotel bedrooms. It sells experiences. Paris is not a city, nor India a country – they are both experiences, the consumption of which is supposed to widen our horizons, fulfil our human potential, and make us happier. Consequently, when the relationship between a millionaire and his wife is going through a rocky patch, he takes her on an expensive trip to Paris. The trip is not a reflection of some independent desire, but rather of an ardent belief in the myths of romantic consumerism. A wealthy man in ancient Egypt would never have dreamed of solving a relationship crisis by taking his wife on holiday to Babylon. Instead, he might have built for her the sumptuous tomb she had always wanted. Like the elite of ancient Egypt, most people in most cultures dedicate their lives to building pyramids. Only the names, shapes and sizes of these pyramids change from one culture to the other. They may take the form, for example, of a suburban cottage with a swimming pool and an evergreen lawn, or a gleaming penthouse with an enviable view. Few question the myths that cause us to desire the pyramid in the first place.

I was thinking that true character surely is best shown in hell, that true goodness must surely be best displayed in an underworld where the very opposite is the norm, when evil is living and goodness is an indulgence, you know what I’m saying?

Mitchell Maxwell’s Maxims • You have to create your own professional path. There’s no longer a roadmap for an artistic career. • Follow your heart and the money will follow. • Create a benchmark of your own progress. If you never look down while you’re climbing the ladder you won’t know how far you’ve come. • Don’t define success by net worth, define it by character. Success, as it’s measured by society, is a fleeting condition. • Affirm your value. Tell the world “I am an artist,” not “I want to be an artist.” • You must actively live your dream. Wishing and hoping for someday doesn’t make it happen. Get out there and get involved. • When you look into the abyss you find your character. • Young people too often let the fear of failure keep them from trying. You have to get bloody, sweaty and rejected in order to succeed. • Get your face out of Facebook and into somebody’s face. Close your e-mail and pick up the phone. Personal contact still speaks loudest. • No one is entitled to act entitled. Be willing to work hard. • If you’re going to buck the norm you’re going to have to embrace the challenges. • You have to love the journey if you’re going to work in the arts. • Only listen to people who agree with your vision. • A little anxiety is good but don’t let it become fear, fear makes you inert. • Find your own unique voice. Leave your individual imprint on the world, not a copy of someone else. • Draw strength from your mistakes; they can be your best teacher.

[J]ust the sight of this book, even though it was of no authority, made me wonder how it happened that so many different men – and learned men among them – have been and are so inclined to express both in speaking and in their treatises and writings so many wicked insults about women and their behaviour. Not only one or two ... but, more generally, from the treatises of all philosophers and poets and from all the orators – it would take too long to mention their names – it seems that they all speak from one and the same mouth. Thinking deeply about these matters, I began to examine my character and conduct as a natural woman and, similarly, I considered other women whose company I frequently kept, princesses, great ladies, women of the middle and lower classes, who had graciously told me of their most private and intimate thoughts, hoping that I could judge impartially and in good conscience whether the testimony of so many notable men could be true. To the best of my knowledge, no matter how long I confronted or dissected the problem, I could not see or realise how their claims could be true when compared to the natural behaviour and character of women.

Not only was good ole boy intolerance the norm in big sky country, there appeared to be no need or desire to change the way things had been done since Custer tried to take out the original Americans at Little Bighorn.

I am what I am.' Never has domination found such an innocent-sounding slogan. The maintenance of the self in a permanent state of deterioration, in a chronic state of near-collapse, is the best-kept secret of the present order of things. The weak, depressed, self-critical, virtual self is essentially that endlessly adaptable subject required by the ceaseless innovation of production, the accelerated obsolescence of technologies, the constant overturning of social norms, and generalized flexibility. It is at the same time the most voracious consumer and, paradoxically, the *most productive self*, the one that will most eagerly and energetically throw itself into the slightest *project*, only to return later to its original larval state.

Romanticism tells us that in order to make the most of our human potential we must have as many different experiences as we can. We must open ourselves to a wide spectrum of emotions; we must sample various kinds of relationships; we must try different cuisines; we must learn to appreciate different styles of music. One of the best ways to do all that is to break free from our daily routine, leave behind our familiar setting, and go travelling in distant lands, where we can ‘experience’ the culture, the smells, the tastes and the norms of other people. We hear again and again the romantic myths about ‘how a new experience opened my eyes and changed my life’. Consumerism tells us that in order to be happy we must consume as many products and services as possible. If we feel that something is missing or not quite right, then we probably need to buy a product (a car, new clothes, organic food) or a service (housekeeping, relationship therapy, yoga classes). Every television commercial is another little legend about how consuming some product or service will make life better. Romanticism, which encourages variety, meshes perfectly with consumerism. Their marriage has given birth to the infinite ‘market of experiences’, on which the modern tourism industry is founded.

Le Chiffre was serving a wonderful purpose, a really vital purpose, perhaps the best and highest purpose of all. By his evil existence, which foolishly I have helped to destroy, he was creating a norm of badness by which, and by which alone, an opposite norm of goodness could exist. We were privileged, in our short knowledge of him, to see and estimate his wickedness and we emerge from the acquaintanceship better and more virtuous men.

The number of innocents killed by Leftist movements dwarfs the numbers killed by any other movement in a comparable period of time at any time in history, and certainly in the modern world. The Church, a favorite target of the Left, hardly competes. For example, in its nearly five hundred years of existence the Inquisition killed approximately five thousand people. And that ended more than five hundred years ago, when barbarity was the norm.

function. In my previous book, Down Girl, I argued that misogyny should not be understood as a monolithic, deep-seated psychological hatred of girls and women. Instead, it’s best conceptualized as the “law enforcement” branch of patriarchy—a system that functions to police and enforce gendered norms and expectations, and involves girls and women facing disproportionately or distinctively hostile treatment because of their gender, among other factors.

Dworkin, for example, argues that our law includes not only norms found in treaties, customs, constitutions, statutes, and cases, but also moral principles that provide the best justification for the norms found there.5 On his account the things justified by moral

The answer to the question, 'What should I believe, and why should I believe it?' is generally a scientific one. Believe a proposition because it is well supported by theory and evidence; believe it because it has been experimentally verified; believe it because a generation of smart people have tried their best to falsify it and failed; believe it because it is true (or seems so). This is a norm of cognition as well as the core of any scientific mission statement. As far as our understanding of the world is concerned--there are no facts without values.

I personally believe mavericks are people who write their own rulebook. They are the ones who act first and talk later. They are fiercely independent thinkers who know how to fight the lizard brain (to use Seth Godin’s term). I don’t believe many are born, rather they are products of an environment, or their experiences. They are usually the people that find the accepted norm does not meet their requirements and have the self-confidence, appetite, independence, degree of self reliance and sufficient desire to carve out their own niche in life. I believe a maverick thinker can take a new idea, champion it, and push it beyond the ability of a normal person to do so. I also believe the best mavericks can build a team, can motivate with their vision, their passion, and can pull together others to accomplish great things. A wise maverick knows that they need others to give full form to their views and can gather these necessary contributors around them. Mavericks, in my experience, fall into various categories – a/ the totally off-the-wall, uncontrollable genius who won’t listen to anyone; b/ the person who thinks that they have the ONLY solution to a challenge but prepared to consider others’ views on how to conquer the world &, finally, the person who thinks laterally to overcome problems considered to be irresolvable. I like in particular the third category. The upside is that mavericks, because of their different outlook on life, often sees opportunities and solutions that others cannot. But the downside is that often, because in life there is always some degree of luck in success (i.e. being in the right place at the right time), mavericks that fail are often ridiculed for their unorthodox approach. However when they succeed they are acclaimed for their inspiration. It is indeed a fine line they walk in life.

The Left would like to believe that racism—not the breakdown of marriage and family, the absence of religious norms, a degraded popular culture, and other issues that all concern values—is the primary impediment to black progress in America. Therefore the Left declares racism the greatest impediment to black progress.

Stay in the middle of the bell-curve of social norms and follow along, or you will find out the about freedom you never had.

Still, there will come a day when the Trump era is over. In the best-case scenario, it is ended by the voters at the ballot box. In the worst-case scenario, it lasts more than four years. In either case, the first three years have shown that an autocratic attempt in the United States has a credible chance of succeeding. Worse than that, they have shown that an autocratic attempt builds logically on the structures and norms of American government: on the concentration of power in the executive branch, and on the marriage of money and politics. Recovery from Trumpism—a process that will be necessary whenever Trumpism ends—will not be a process of returning to government as it used to be, a fictional state of pre-Trump normalcy. Recovery will be possible only as reinvention: of institutions, of what politics means to us, and of what it means to be a democracy, if that is indeed what we choose to be.

So here’s the big takeaway: if you want people to adopt new behaviors, the best tool is a one-two punch of social norms and pricing, which work as complements and build on each other.

Thirty-six degrees, according to Alphonso, has always proved the best natural level, a kind of magic threshold, and it had sometimes occurred to him, Alphonso, said Austerlitz, that all mankind's misfortunes were connected with its departure at some point in time from that norm, and with the slightly feverish, overheated condition in which we constantly found ourselves.

When confronted with someone who breaks the norm, some people find it easier to call that person's experience a fiction instead of altering their understanding of the world to include something new.

So long as we have done something to the best of our knowledge and our ability, if the results we think we deserved don’t happen as they should have, we should understand that it is the norm of things on this planet.

So,’ continued Bond, warming to his argument, ‘Le Chiffre was serving a wonderful purpose, a really vital purpose, perhaps the best and highest purpose of all. By his evil existence, which foolishly I have helped to destroy, he was creating a norm of badness by which, and by which alone, an opposite norm of goodness could exist. We were privileged, in our short knowledge of him, to see and estimate his wickedness and we emerge from the acquaintanceship better and more virtuous men.

While a good story must give me a role, and must extend beyond my horizons, it need not be true. A story can be pure fiction, and yet provide me with an identity and make me feel that my life has meaning. Indeed, to the best of our scientific understanding, none of the thousands of stories that different cultures, religions and tribes have invented throughout history is true. They are all just human inventions. If you ask for the true meaning of life and get a story in reply, know that this is the wrong answer. The exact details don’t really matter. Any story is wrong, simply for being a story. The universe just does not work like a story. So why do people believe in these fictions? One reason is that their personal identity is built on the story. People are taught to believe in the story from early childhood. They hear it from their parents, their teachers, their neighbours and the general culture long before they develop the intellectual and emotional independence necessary to question and verify such stories. By the time their intellect matures, they are so heavily invested in the story, that they are far more likely to use their intellect to rationalise the story than to doubt it. Most people who go on identity quests are like children going treasure hunting. They find only what their parents have hidden for them in advance. Second, not only our personal identities but also our collective institutions are built on the story. Consequently, it is extremely frightening to doubt the story. In many societies, anyone who tries to do so is ostracised or persecuted. Even if not, it takes strong nerves to question the very fabric of society. For if indeed the story is false, then the entire world as we know it makes no sense. State laws, social norms, economic institutions – they might all collapse.

In Debt, the anthropologist David Graeber tells the story of Tei Reinga, a Maori villager and “notorious glutton” who used to wander up and down the New Zealand coast, badgering the local fishermen by asking for the best portions of their catch. Since it’s impolite in Maori culture (as in many cultures) to refuse a direct request for food, the fishermen would oblige—but with ever-increasing reluctance. And so as Reinga continued to ask for food, their resentment grew until “one day, people decided enough was enough and killed him.” This story is extreme, to say the least, but it illustrates how norm-following and norm-enforcement can be a very high-stakes game. Reinga flouted an important norm (against freeloading) and eventually paid dearly for it. But just as tellingly, the fishermen who put him to death felt so duty-bound by a different norm (the norm of food-sharing) that they followed it even to the point of building up murderous resentment. “Couldn’t you just have said no to Reinga’s requests?!” we want to shout at the villagers.

Logic, reason, and common sense are your best tools for synthesizing reality and understanding what to do about it. Be wary of relying on anything else. Unfortunately, numerous tests by psychologists show that the majority of people follow the lower-level path most of the time, which leads to inferior decisions without their realizing it. As Carl Jung put it, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” It’s even more important that decision making be evidence-based and logical when groups of people are working together. If it’s not, the process will inevitably be dominated by the most powerful rather than the most insightful participants, which is not only unfair but suboptimal. Successful organizations have cultures in which evidence-based decision making is the norm rather than the exception.

On the Hunger Games Fan Race fail and the portrayal of POC in fantasy literature: It is as if the POC in the text are walking around with a great big red sign over them for some editors and it reads I AM NOT A REAL CHARACTER. I AM A PROBLEM YOU MUST DEAL WITH. The white characters are permitted to saunter about with their physical descriptions hanging out all over the place, but best not make mention of dark skin or woolly/curly hair or dark eyes (Unless, of course, that character is white. None of my white-skinned dark-eyed characters had any problem being described as such. And I’m pretty sure that Sól’s curly hair never gave anyone a single pause for thought.) As I said, I understand the desire not to define a POC simply by their physical attributes, and I understand cutting physical descriptions if no other character is described physically – but pussyfooting about in this manner with POC is doing nothing but white wash the characters themselves. It’s already much too hard to get readers to latch onto the fact that some characters may not be caucasian, why must we dance about their physical description as if it were some kind of shameful dirty little secret. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of the way homosexuality used to only ever be hinted at in texts. It was up to the reader to ‘read between the lines’ or ‘its there if you look for it’ and all that total bullshit which used to be the norm.

Perhaps the best moral is that when doing science (or perhaps when doing anything at all in a society as judgmental as our own), be very careful and very certain before pronouncing something to be the norm—because at that instant, you have made it supremely difficult to ever again look objectively at an exception to that supposed norm.

Most experts agree that treatment with medication and psychotherapy combined is best, but very little research is being conducted on combined treatment because in the U.S. drug companies fund research, and they’re not interested in supporting that conclusion. So psychotherapy for depression became the exception, and a scrip from your GP became the norm.

Democracies do have written rules (constitutions) and referees (the courts). But these work best, and survive longest, in countries where written constitutions are reinforced by their own unwritten rules of the game. These rules or norms serve as the soft guardrails of democracy, preventing day-to-day political competition from devolving into a no-holds-barred conflict.

Misogyny should not be understood as a monolithic, deep-seated psychological hatred of girls and women. Instead, it’s best conceptualized as the ‘law enforcement’ branch of patriarchy—a system that functions to police and enforce gendered norms and expectations, and involves girls and women facing disproportionately or distinctively hostile treatment because of their gender, among other factors.

The hypocrisy in telling young people who are genuinely desperate for treatment that it’s too risky for them to have it—even after they have jumped through so many safeguarding hoops—while sanctioning, encouraging, other kinds of risk distresses me. It has everything to do with cultural norms, and nothing to do with keeping children safe while still allowing them their autonomy. We have to move forward from the idea that it is somehow a shame, a failure, for a child to grow up to be trans. We have to start approaching this subject with young people’s best interests at heart, not our own concerns and judgments about how we would want our children to conform. Being trans is not a fate anyone needs saving from. But everyone, every child, needs to be loved for who they truly are, without conditions.

In the past few years, I’ve vacationed in Panama and England. I’ve bought my groceries at Whole Foods. I’ve watched orchestral concerts. I’ve tried to break my addiction to “refined processed sugars” (a term that includes at least one too many words). I’ve worried about racial prejudice in my own family and friends. None of these things is bad on its own. In fact, most of them are good—visiting England was a childhood dream; eating less sugar improves health. At the same time, they’ve shown me that social mobility isn’t just about money and economics, it’s about a lifestyle change. The wealthy and the powerful aren’t just wealthy and powerful; they follow a different set of norms and mores. When you go from working-class to professional-class, almost everything about your old life becomes unfashionable at best or unhealthy at worst.

The maintenance of the self in a permanent state of deterioration, in a chronic state of near-collapse, is the best-kept secret of the present order of things. The weak, depressed, self-critical, virtual self is essentially that endlessly adaptable subject required by the ceaseless innovation of production, the accelerated obsolescence of technologies, the constant overturning of social norms, and generalized flexibility.

The best criterion by which to decide whether someone has been forced outside the pale of the law is to ask if he would benefit by committing a crime. If a small burglary is likely to improve his legal position, at least temporarily, one may be sure he has been deprived of human rights. For then a criminal offense becomes the best opportunity to regain some kind of human equality, even if it be as a recognized exception to the norm.

With the growth of market individualism comes a corollary desire to look for collective, democratic responses when major dislocations of financial collapse, unemployment, heightened inequality, runaway inflation, and the like occur. The more such dislocations occur, the more powerful and internalized, Hayek insists, neoliberal ideology must become; it must become embedded in the media, in economic talking heads, in law and the jurisprudence of the courts, in government policy, and in the souls of participants. Neoliberal ideology must become a machine or engine that infuses economic life as well as a camera that provides a snapshot of it. That means, in turn, that the impersonal processes of regulation work best if courts, churches, schools, the media, music, localities, electoral politics, legislatures, monetary authorities, and corporate organizations internalize and publicize these norms.

You’ve probably also noted the impacts of virtual distraction on your own and others’ behaviors: memory loss, inability to concentrate, being asked to repeat what you just said, miscommunication the norm, getting lost online and wasting time you don’t have, withdrawing from the real world. The list of what’s being lost is a description of our best human capacities—memory, meaning, relating, thinking, learning, caring. There is no denying the damage that’s been done to humans as technology took over—our own Progress Trap. The impact on children’s behavior is of greatest concern for its present and future implications. Dr. Nicolas Kardaras, a highly skilled physician in rehabilitation, is author of Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids—and How to Break the Trance. He describes our children’s behavior in ways that I notice in my younger grandchildren: “We see the aggressive temper tantrums when the devices are taken away and the wandering attention spans when children are not perpetually stimulated by their hyper-arousing devices. Worse, we see children who become bored, apathetic, uninteresting and uninterested when not plugged in.”17 These very disturbing behaviors are not just emotional childish reactions. Our children are behaving as addicts deprived of their drug. Brain imaging studies show that technology stimulates brains just like cocaine does.

The colder and more crass the world has become, the more it scoffs at love at first sight. Popular television shows which would have made your grandmother puke, blockbuster movies so banal, vulgar, unfunny and shallow that only the brain-dead could find enjoyment in them, and best-selling fiction featuring either graphic descriptions of brutal, stomach-churning violence, or sexual depravity that drew no lines, had become completely acceptable, even the norm in our desensitized society.

The wealthy and the powerful aren’t just wealthy and powerful; they follow a different set of norms and mores. When you go from working-class to professional-class, almost everything about your old life becomes unfashionable at best or unhealthy at worst. At no time was this more obvious than the first (and last) time I took a Yale friend to Cracker Barrel. In my youth, it was the height of fine dining—my grandma’s and my favorite restaurant. With Yale friends, it was a greasy public health crisis.

I am what I am.' Never has domination found such an innocent-sounding slogan. The maintenance of the self in a permanent state of deterioration, in a chronic state of near-collapse, is the best-kept secret of the present order of things. The weak, depressed, self-critical, virtual self is essentially that endlessly adaptable subject required by the ceaseless innovation of production, the accelerated obsolescence of technologies, the constant overturning of social norms, and generalized flexibility.

In truth, we don’t have any evidence whatsoever that the Bible or the Quran or the Book of Mormon or the Vedas or any other holy book was composed by the force that determined that energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light squared, and that protons are 1,837 times more massive than electrons. To the best of our scientific knowledge, all of these sacred texts were written by imaginative Homo sapiens. They are just stories invented by our ancestors in order to legitimize social norms and political structures.

One of the best things about owning a brain is how you often seem to phase out of normalcy and briefly see your culture with a weirdly objective frame of mind. At some point every child realizes money is made up of slips of paper with no intrinsic value, and wonders why aloud. So, too, will children ask adults what’s up with shaking hands, or putting your fork on one side of the plate, or saying “Bless you” after a sneeze. Parents apply the glue that holds a culture together when explaining to a child that his socks must match, or that punctuality is paramount, or that picking his nose in public is a terrible habit. When a parent tells a boy he shouldn’t play with dolls, or a girl to wait for a boy to ask her to the prom, they are enforcing norms. When a kid asks, “But, why?” she is rightfully bringing to the attention of the adult world that all this stuff is just made up and mostly arbitrary nonsense often clung to for some long-forgotten reason. That feeling you sometimes get when you snap out of your culture for a moment, when the operating system crashes and slowly reboots, has been the subject of literature and drama for thousands of years.

It is the punisher’s mind-set where everything must be changed. The difficulty of this is explored in the superb book The Punisher’s Brain: The Evolution of Judge and Jury (2014) by Morris Hoffman, a practicing judge and legal scholar.31 He reviews the reasons for punishment: As we see from game theory studies, because punishment fosters cooperation. Because it is in the fabric of the evolution of sociality. And most important, because it can feel good to punish, to be part of a righteous and self-righteous crowd at a public hanging, knowing that justice is being served. This is a deep, atavistic pleasure. Put people in brain scanners, give them scenarios of norm violations. Decision making about culpability for the violation correlates with activity in the cognitive dlPFC. But decision making about appropriate punishment activates the emotional vmPFC, along with the amygdala and insula; the more activation, the more punishment.32 The decision to punish, the passionate motivation to do so, is a frothy limbic state. As are the consequences of punishing—when subjects punish someone for making a lousy offer in an economic game, there’s activation of dopaminergic reward systems. Punishment that feels just feels good.

What may be learned from the rebuttals made by the defendants in New Jersey and from the protests that were sparked by the decision of the court? Much of the resistance, it appears, derives from a conservative anxiety that equity equates to "leveling." The fear that comes across in many of the letters and the editorials in the New Jersey press is that democratizing opportunity will undermine diversity and even elegance in our society and that the best schools will be dragged down to a sullen norm, a mediocre middle ground of uniformity. References to Eastern European socialism keep appearing in these letters.

It is not knowledge of actual inferiority in skill or knowledge that gives us an inferiority complex and interferes with our living. It is the feeling of inferiority that does this. And this feeling of inferiority comes about for just one reason: We judge ourselves, and measure ourselves, not against our own “norm” or “par” but against some other individual’s “norm.” When we do this, we always, without exception, come out second best. But because we think and believe and assume that we should measure up to some other person’s “norm,” we feel miserable, and second-rate, and conclude that there is something wrong with us.

Decentralized systems, on the other hand, are a little trickier to understand. In a decentralized organization, there's no clear leader, no hierarchy, and no headquarters. If and when a leader does emerge, that person has little power over others. The best that person can do to influence people is to lead by example. Nevins calls this an open system, because everyone is entitled to make his or her own decisions. This doesn't mean that a decentralized system is the same as anarchy. There are rules and norms, but these aren't enforced by any one person. Rather, the power is distributed among all the people and across geographic regions. Basically, there's no Tenochtitlan, and no Montezuma.

Psychologists and philosophers created a world where anxiety, fear and struggle are the norm, where happiness and peace are impossible to attain or available only to the most adept after long torment, and where existence is, above all, futile. In this world, people must constantly struggle with and repress what is supposedly their true nature for an end that is, at best, an abstract morality. Any outside assistance is impossible as all interpersonal interactions are also a continual existential struggle. Every outside person can only be the subject or the subjugated in this world, and all love is simply object desire. Existence here has no joy, no connection and no purpose. The happy ending is death.

In a test of the theory, Kees Keizer of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands asked whether cues of one type of norm violation made people prone to violating other norms.39 When bicycles were chained to a fence (despite a sign forbidding it), people were more likely to take a shortcut through a gap in the fence (despite a sign forbidding it); people littered more when walls were graffitied; people were more likely to steal a five-euro note when litter was strewn around. These were big effects, with doubling rates of crummy behaviors. A norm violation increasing the odds of that same norm being violated is a conscious process. But when the sound of fireworks makes someone more likely to litter, more unconscious processes are at work.

I don’t buy the idea that there is a one and only. We used to marry till death do us part. Today we marry till love dies. We used to marry and have sex for the first time. Today you marry and you stop having sex with others. You used to have monogamy, one person for life. And today monogamy is one person at a time. And everybody says I’m monogamous in all my relationships. And it supposedly makes sense. So the norms are changing so fast. There is nothing you can do when you leave a person, than to tell them that you are so sorry that you’re hurting them and you have loved them deeply and thank them for everything they’ve given you. And you wish for them the best. And yet you’re going to go and it is just raw pain, you can’t circumvent that. Heartbreak is heartbreak.

People today spend a great deal of money on holidays abroad because they are true believers in the myths of romantic consumerism. Romanticism tells us that in order to make the most of our human potential we must have as many different experiences as we can. We must open ourselves to a wide spectrum of emotions; we must sample various kinds of relationships; we must try different cuisines; we must learn to appreciate different styles of music. One of the best ways to do all that is to break free from our daily routine, leave behind our familiar setting, and go travelling in distant lands, where we can ‘experience’ the culture, the smells, the tastes and the norms of other people. We hear again and again the romantic myths about ‘how a new experience opened my eyes and changed my life’. Consumerism

If companies want to benefit from the advantages of social norms, they need to do a better job of cultivating those norms. Medical benefits, and in particular comprehensive medical coverage, are among the best ways a company can express its side of the social exchange. But what are many companies doing? They are demanding high deductibles in their insurance plans, and at the same time are reducing the scope of benefits. Simply put, they are undermining the social contract between the company and the employees and replacing it with market norms. As companies tilt the board, and employees slide from social norms to the realm of market norms, can we blame them for jumping ship when a better offer appears? It's really no surprise that "corporate loyalty," in terms of the loyalty of employees to their companies, has become an oxymoron.

Restorative justice advocates dream of a day when justice is fully restorative, but whether this is realistic is debatable, at least in the immediate future. More attainable, perhaps, is a time when restorative justice is the norm, while some form of the legal or criminal justice system provides the backup or alternative. Possible, perhaps, is a time when all our approaches to justice will be restoratively oriented. Society must have a system to sort out the “truth” as best it can when people deny responsibility. Some cases are simply too difficult or horrendous to be worked out by those with a direct stake in the offense. We must have a process that gives attention to those societal needs and obligations that go beyond the ones held by the immediate stakeholders. We also must not lose those qualities which the legal system at its best represents: the rule of law, due process, a deep regard for human rights, the orderly development of law.

For a patrimonial state to be stable over time, it is best ruled with consent, at least with consent from the largest minority, if not from the majority. Instinctive obedience must be the norm, otherwise too much effort needs to be put into suppressing disaffection for the regime's wider aims to be achievable. Consent is, however, not always easy to obtain. The collective view of most societies is rather conservative: in the main people prefer to see the social arrangements of their youth perpetuated into their old age; they prefer that things be done in the time-honoured way; they are suspicious of novelty and resistant to change. Thus when radical action must be taken, for whatever reason, a great burden falls on the ruler, the father-figure, who has to overcome this social inertia and persuade his subjects to follow his lead. In order that his will shall prevail, he needs to generate huge respect, preferably adulation, and if at all possible sheer awe among his people.

In the past few years, I’ve vacationed in Panama and England. I’ve bought my groceries at Whole Foods. I’ve watched orchestral concerts. I’ve tried to break my addiction to “refined processed sugars” (a term that includes at least one too many words). I’ve worried about racial prejudice in my own family and friends. None of these things is bad on its own. In fact, most of them are good—visiting England was a childhood dream; eating less sugar improves health. At the same time, they’ve shown me that social mobility isn’t just about money and economics, it’s about a lifestyle change. The wealthy and the powerful aren’t just wealthy and powerful; they follow a different set of norms and mores. When you go from working-class to professional-class, almost everything about your old life becomes unfashionable at best or unhealthy at worst. At no time was this more obvious than the first (and last) time I took a Yale friend to Cracker Barrel. In my youth, it was the height of fine dining—my grandma’s and my favorite restaurant.

IN OCTOBER 2019, just a few months before the novel coronavirus swept the world, Johns Hopkins University released its first Global Heath Security Index, a comprehensive analysis of countries that were best prepared to handle an epidemic or pandemic. The United States ranked first overall, and first in four of the six categories—prevention, early detection and reporting, sufficient and robust health system, and compliance with international norms. That sounded right. America was, after all, the country with most of the world’s best pharmaceutical companies, research universities, laboratories, and health institutes. But by March 2020, these advantages seemed like a cruel joke, as Covid-19 tore across the United States and the federal government mounted a delayed, weak, and erratic response. By July, with less than 5% of the world’s population, the country had over 25% of the world’s cumulative confirmed cases. Per capita daily death rates in the United States were ten times higher than in Europe. Was this the new face of American exceptionalism?

In the last chapter I suggested that humans are, like our primate ancestors, innately equipped to live in dominance hierarchies that can be quite brutal. But if that’s true, then how come nomadic hunter-gatherers are always egalitarian? There’s no hierarchy (at least among the adult males), there’s no chief, and the norms of the group actively encourage sharing resources, particularly meat.26 The archaeological evidence supports this view, indicating that our ancestors lived for hundreds of thousands of years in egalitarian bands of mobile hunter-gatherers.27 Hierarchy only becomes widespread around the time that groups take up agriculture or domesticate animals and become more sedentary. These changes create much more private property and much larger group sizes. They also put an end to equality. The best land and a share of everything people produce typically get dominated by a chief, leader, or elite class (who take some of their wealth with them to the grave for easy interpretation by later archaeologists). So were our minds “structured in advance of experience” for hierarchy or for equality? For hierarchy,

If you’re comfortable, I’m not teaching and you’re not learning. It’s going to get uncomfortable in here and that’s okay. It’s normal and it’s part of the process.” The simple and honest process of letting people know that discomfort is normal, it’s going to happen, why it happens, and why it’s important, reduces anxiety, fear, and shame. Periods of discomfort become an expectation and a norm. In fact, most semesters I have students who approach me after class and say, “I haven’t been uncomfortable yet. I’m concerned.” These exchanges often lead to critically important conversations and feedback about their engagement and my teaching. The big challenge for leaders is getting our heads and hearts around the fact that we need to cultivate the courage to be uncomfortable and to teach the people around us how to accept discomfort as a part of growth. For the best guidance on how to give feedback that moves people and processes forward, I turn to my social work roots. In my experience the heart of valuable feedback is taking the “strengths perspective.” According to social work educator Dennis Saleebey, viewing performance from the strengths perspective offers

I confess, I have setbacks like anyone. But they don’t cause distress or coalesce in a mess for I’ve learned to step back, to reflect and assess where I’m at and enact a simple plan of attack — to press forward, progress; not digress, not give up nor express my despair but address what I can, my mistakes and my faults, with a head-on assault. For I’m blessed with my faith and belief and a chest that encases a heart that does not know the meaning of “quit" or “give up" or “there there” or “oh well”, “never-mind” or “bad luck” or “just try something else”, no. Me and myself, my reflection and I, we are not of that ilk, we aren’t ones to comply. We aren’t ones to conform or accept that the norm is a one-size-fits-all way to simply exist for we strive to be different, incredible, unique. Not irrelevant, invisible, insignificant or meek. We strive to resist and we fight to excel, so setbacks to us are a thing to be quashed, to be quelled, to be squished, to be left in our wake as we go on our way, as we sail right on by to impossible ends, to what few dare to try. This is why – this is why – as my reflection attests, there is no time to rest. The struggle is unending … but I will give it my best.

Apple's approach to career development is yet another way it runs contrary to the norms at other companies. The prevalent attitude for workers in the corporate world is to consider their growth trajectory. What's my path up? How do I get to the next level? Companies, in turn, spend an inordinate amount of time and money grooming their people for new responsibilities. They labor to find just the right place for people. But what if it turns out all that thinking is wrong? What if companies encouraged employees to be satisfied where they are because they're good at what they do, not to mention because that might be what's best for shareholders? Instead of employees fretting that they were stuck in terminal jobs, what if they exalted in having found their perfect jobs? A certain amount of office politics might evaporate in a corporate culture where career growth is not considered tantamount to professional fulfilment. Shareholders, after all, don't care about fiefdoms and egos. There are many professionals who would find it liberating to work at what they are good at, receive competitive killer compensation, and not have to worry about supervising others or jockeying for higher rungs on an org chart.

Nowadays, enormous importance is given to individual deaths, people make such a drama out of each person who dies, especially if they die a violent death or are murdered; although the subsequent grief or curse doesn't last very long: no one wears mourning any more and there's a reason for that, we're quick to weep but quicker still to forget. I'm talking about our countries, of course, it's not like that in other parts of the world, but what else can they do in a place where death is an everyday occurrence. Here, though, it's a big deal, at least at the moment it happens. So-and-so has died, how dreadful; such-and-such a number of people have been killed in a crash or blown to pieces, how terrible, how vile. The politicians have to rush around attending funerals and burials, taking care not to miss any-intense grief, or is it pride, requires them as ornaments, because they give no consolation nor can they, it's all to do with show, fuss, vanity and rank. The rank of the self-important, super-sensitive living. And yet, when you think about it, what right do we have, what is the point of complaining and making a tragedy out of something that happens to every living creature in order for it to become a dead creature? What is so terrible about something so supremely natural and ordinary? It happens in the best families, as you know, and has for centuries, and in the worst too, of course, at far more frequent intervals. What's more, it happens all the time and we know that perfectly well, even though we pretend to be surprised and frightened: count the dead who are mentioned on any TV news report, read the birth and death announcements in any newspaper, in a single city, Madrid, London, each list is a long one every day of the year; look at the obituaries, and although you'll find far fewer of them, because an infinitesimal minority are deemed to merit one, they're nevertheless there every morning. How many people die every weekend on the roads and how many have died in the innumerable battles that have been waged? The losses haven't always been published throughout history, in fact, almost never. People were more familiar with and more accepting of death, they accepted chance and luck, be it good or bad, they knew they were vulnerable to it at every moment; people came into the world and sometimes disappeared at once, that was normal, the infant mortality rate was extraordinarily high until eighty or even seventy years ago, as was death in childbirth, a woman might bid farewell to her child as soon as she saw its face, always assuming she had the will or the time to do so. Plagues were common and almost any illness could kill, illnesses we know nothing about now and whose names are unfamiliar; there were famines, endless wars, real wars that involved daily fighting, not sporadic engagements like now, and the generals didn't care about the losses, soldiers fell and that was that, they were only individuals to themselves, not even to their families, no family was spared the premature death of at least some of its members, that was the norm; those in power would look grim-faced, then carry out another levy, recruit more troops and send them to the front to continue dying in battle, and almost no one complained. People expected death, Jack, there wasn't so much panic about it, it was neither an insuperable calamity nor a terrible injustice; it was something that could happen and often did. We've become very soft, very thin-skinned, we think we should last forever. We ought to be accustomed to the temporary nature of things, but we're not. We insist on not being temporary, which is why it's so easy to frighten us, as you've seen, all one has to do is unsheathe a sword. And we're bound to be cowed when confronted by those who still see death, their own or other people's, as part and parcel of their job, as all in a day's work. When confronted by terrorists, for example, or by drug barons or multinational mafia men.

An English silence – one in which the unspoken words are perfectly understood by both parties. What did I dislike and distrust about adulthood? Well, to put it briefly: the sense of entitlement, the sense of superiority, the assumption of knowing better if not best, the vast banality of adult opinions, the way women took out compacts and powdered their noses, the way men sat in armchairs with their legs apart and their privates heavily outlined against their trousers, the way they talked about gardens and gardening…… their docile obedience to social norms, their snarky disapproval of anything satirical or questioning, their assumption that their children’s success would be measured by how well they imitated their parents, the suffocating noise they made when agreeing with one another… But I do believe now that when two lovers meet, there is already so much pre-history that only certain outcomes are possible. Whereas the lovers themselves imagine that the world is being reset and the possibilities are both new and infinite. On the one hand – and this is the part to do with the past – love feels like the vast and sudden easing of a life long frown. In love everything is both true and false; it’s the one subject on which it’s impossible to say anything absurd Misunderstanding is democratically distributed. Some men mistook boorishness for honesty. Just as others mistook primness for virtue.

Irony in postwar art and culture started out the same way youthful rebellion did. It was difficult and painful, and productive—a grim diagnosis of a long-denied disease. The assumptions behind early postmodern irony, on the other hand, were still frankly idealistic: it was assumed that etiology and diagnosis pointed toward cure, that a revelation of imprisonment led to freedom. So then how have irony, irreverence, and rebellion come to be not liberating but enfeebling in the culture today’s avant-garde tries to write about? One clue’s to be found in the fact that irony is still around, bigger than ever after 30 long years as the dominant mode of hip expression. It’s not a rhetorical mode that wears well. As Hyde (whom I pretty obviously like) puts it, “Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time, it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage.” 32 This is because irony, entertaining as it is, serves an almost exclusively negative function. It’s critical and destructive, a ground-clearing. Surely this is the way our postmodern fathers saw it. But irony’s singularly unuseful when it comes to constructing anything to replace the hypocrisies it debunks. This is why Hyde seems right about persistent irony being tiresome. It is unmeaty. Even gifted ironists work best in sound bites. I find gifted ironists sort of wickedly fun to listen to at parties, but I always walk away feeling like I’ve had several radical surgical procedures. And as for actually driving cross-country with a gifted ironist, or sitting through a 300 page novel full of nothing but trendy sardonic exhaustion, one ends up feeling not only empty but somehow… oppressed. Think, for a moment, of Third World rebels and coups. Third World rebels are great at exposing and overthrowing corrupt hypocritical regimes, but they seem noticeably less great at the mundane, non-negative task of then establishing a superior governing alternative. Victorious rebels, in fact, seem best at using their tough, cynical rebel-skills to avoid being rebelled against themselves—in other words, they just become better tyrants. And make no mistake: irony tyrannizes us. The reason why our pervasive cultural irony is at once so powerful and so unsatisfying is that an ironist is impossible to pin down. All U.S. irony is based on an implicit “I don’t really mean what I’m saying.” So what does irony as a cultural norm mean to say? That it’s impossible to mean what you say? That maybe it’s too bad it’s impossible, but wake up and smell the coffee already? Most likely, I think, today’s irony ends up saying: “How totally banal of you to ask what I really mean.” Anyone with the heretical gall to ask an ironist what he actually stands for ends up looking like an hysteric or a prig. And herein lies the oppressiveness of institutionalized irony, the too-successful rebel: the ability to interdict the question without attending to its subject is, when exercised, tyranny. It is the new junta, using the very tool that exposed its enemy to insulate itself.

No one acts in a void. We all take cues from cultural norms, shaped by the law. For the law affects our ideas of what is reasonable and appropriate. It does so by what it prohibits--you might think less of drinking if it were banned, or more of marijuana use if it were allowed--but also by what it approves. . . . Revisionists agree that it matters what California or the United States calls a marriage, because this affects how Californians or Americans come to think of marriage. Prominent Oxford philosopher Joseph Raz, no friend of the conjugal view, agrees: "[O]ne thing can be said with certainty [about recent changes in marriage law]. They will not be confined to adding new options to the familiar heterosexual monogamous family. They will change the character of that family. If these changes take root in our culture then the familiar marriage relations will disappear. They will not disappear suddenly. Rather they will be transformed into a somewhat different social form, which responds to the fact that it is one of several forms of bonding, and that bonding itself is much more easily and commonly dissoluble. All these factors are already working their way into the constitutive conventions which determine what is appropriate and expected within a conventional marriage and transforming its significance." Redefining civil marriage would change its meaning for everyone. Legally wedded opposite-sex unions would increasingly be defined by what they had in common with same-sex relationships. This wouldn't just shift opinion polls and tax burdens. Marriage, the human good, would be harder to achieve. For you can realize marriage only by choosing it, for which you need at least a rough, intuitive idea of what it really is. By warping people's view of marriage, revisionist policy would make them less able to realize this basic way of thriving--much as a man confused about what friendship requires will have trouble being a friend. . . . Redefining marriage will also harm the material interests of couples and children. As more people absorb the new law's lesson that marriage is fundamentally about emotions, marriages will increasingly take on emotion's tyrannical inconstancy. Because there is no reason that emotional unions--any more than the emotions that define them, or friendships generally--should be permanent or limited to two, these norms of marriage would make less sense. People would thus feel less bound to live by them whenever they simply preferred to live otherwise. . . . As we document below, even leading revisionists now argue that if sexual complementarity is optional, so are permanence and exclusivity. This is not because the slope from same-sex unions to expressly temporary and polyamorous ones is slippery, but because most revisionist arguments level the ground between them: If marriage is primarily about emotional union, why privilege two-person unions, or permanently committed ones? What is it about emotional union, valuable as it can be, that requires these limits? As these norms weaken, so will the emotional and material security that marriage gives spouses. Because children fare best on most indicators of health and well-being when reared by their wedded biological parents, the same erosion of marital norms would adversely affect children's health, education, and general formation. The poorest and most vulnerable among us would likely be hit the hardest. And the state would balloon: to adjudicate breakup and custody issues, to meet the needs of spouses and children affected by divorce, and to contain and feebly correct the challenges these children face.

According to the [evolutionist explanation of the instinct of animals], instinct is the expression of the heredity of a species, of an accumulation of analogous experiences down the ages. This is how they explain, for example, the fact that a flock of sheep hastily gathers together around the lambs the moment it perceives the shadow of a bird of prey, or that a kitten while playing already employs all the tricks of a hunter, or that birds know how to build their nests. In fact, it is enough to watch animals to see that their instinct has nothing of an automatism about it. The formation of such a mechanism by a purely cumulative . . . process is highly improbable, to say the least. Instinct is a nonreflective modality of the intelligence; it is determined, not by a series of automatic reflexes, but by the “form”—the qualitative determination—of the species. This form is like a filter through which the universal intelligence is manifested. . . The same is also true for man: his intelligence too is determined by the subtle form of his species. This form, however, includes the reflective faculty, which allows of a singularization of the individual such as does not exist among the animals. Man alone is able to objectivize himself. He can say: “I am this or that.” He alone possesses this two-edged faculty. Man, by virtue of his own central position in the cosmos, is able to transcend his specific norm; he can also betray it, and sink lower; "The corruption of the best is corruption at its worst." A normal animal remains true to the form and genius of its species; if its intelligence is not reflective and objectifying, but in some sort existential, it is nonetheless spontaneous; it is assuredly a form of the universal intelligence even if it is not recognized as such by men who, from prejudice or ignorance, identify intelligence with discursive thought exclusively.

When the time comes, & I hope it comes soon, to bury this era of moral rot & the defiling of our communal, social, & democratic norms, the perfect epitaph for the gravestone of this age of unreason should be Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley's already infamous quote: "I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing... as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.” Grassley's vision of America, quite frankly, is one I do not recognize. I thought the heart of this great nation was not limited to the ranks of the plutocrats who are whisked through life in chauffeured cars & private jets, whose often inherited riches are passed along to children, many of whom no sacrifice or service is asked. I do not begrudge wealth, but it must come with a humility that money never is completely free of luck. And more importantly, wealth can never be a measure of worth. I have seen the waitress working the overnight shift at a diner to give her children a better life, & yes maybe even take them to a movie once in awhile - and in her, I see America. I have seen the public school teachers spending extra time with students who need help & who get no extra pay for their efforts, & in them I see America. I have seen parents sitting around kitchen tables with stacks of pressing bills & wondering if they can afford a Christmas gift for their children, & in them I see America. I have seen the young diplomat in a distant foreign capital & the young soldier in a battlefield foxhole, & in them I see America. I have seen the brilliant graduates of the best law schools who forgo the riches of a corporate firm for the often thankless slog of a district attorney or public defender's office, & in them I see America. I have seen the librarian reshelving books, the firefighter, police officer, & paramedic in service in trying times, the social worker helping the elderly & infirm, the youth sports coaches, the PTA presidents, & in them I see America. I have seen the immigrants working a cash register at a gas station or trimming hedges in the frost of an early fall morning, or driving a cab through rush hour traffic to make better lives for their families, & in them I see America. I have seen the science students unlocking the mysteries of life late at night in university laboratories for little or no pay, & in them I see America. I have seen the families struggling with a cancer diagnosis, or dementia in a parent or spouse. Amid the struggles of mortality & dignity, in them I see America. These, & so many other Americans, have every bit as much claim to a government working for them as the lobbyists & moneyed classes. And yet, the power brokers in Washington today seem deaf to these voices. It is a national disgrace of historic proportions. And finally, what is so wrong about those who must worry about the cost of a drink with friends, or a date, or a little entertainment, to rephrase Senator Grassley's demeaning phrasings? Those who can't afford not to worry about food, shelter, healthcare, education for their children, & all the other costs of modern life, surely they too deserve to be able to spend some of their “darn pennies” on the simple joys of life. Never mind that almost every reputable economist has called this tax bill a sham of handouts for the rich at the expense of the vast majority of Americans & the future economic health of this nation. Never mind that it is filled with loopholes written by lobbyists. Never mind that the wealthiest already speak with the loudest voices in Washington, & always have. Grassley’s comments open a window to the soul of the current national Republican Party & it it is not pretty. This is not a view of America that I think President Ronald Reagan let alone President Dwight Eisenhower or Teddy Roosevelt would have recognized. This is unadulterated cynicism & a version of top-down class warfare run amok. ~Facebook 12/4/17

If Nixon set out to be the man who redefined the Republican political center in the post–New Deal, post–Fair Deal age, he did not, nor did any other young Republican politician, dare campaign by suggesting a return to the America that had existed before the New Deal. The phrase “creeping socialism” was about as close as they got to attacking the New Deal on its domestic reforms. Rather, the catchphrases were about a need to return to Americanism. It was better to attack Communism and speak of domestic treason than it was to be specific about reversing the economic redistribution of the New Deal. In fact, Nixon’s essential response to all issues was to raise the specter of Communism: “The commies,” Nixon told the Chicago Tribune’s Seymour Korman during his harsh 1950 senatorial campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas, “don’t like it when I smash into Truman for his attempted cover-up of the Hiss case ... but the more the commies yell, the surer I am that I’m waging an honest American campaign.” He was, he liked to say, the number one target of the Communists in America. In those early campaigns, he was, it seemed, a man who needed an enemy and who seemed almost to feel that he functioned best when the world was against him. Such men, almost surely, eventually do get the enemies they so desperately want. If the leaders of a nation as powerful as the United States needed, above all, personal confidence—Oliver Wendell Holmes once said of the young Franklin Roosevelt that he had a third-rate intellect but a first-rate temperament—Nixon was ill-prepared for his long journey in American politics. Emotional strength and self-confidence were missing from him. Everything with Nixon was personal. When others disagreed with him, it was as if they wanted to strip away his hard-won veneer of success and reduce him to the unhappy boy he had once been. In political terms that had bitter consequences: He would lash out at others in attacks that seemed to go far beyond the acceptable norms of partisanship; if others struck back at him, he saw himself as a victim. Just beneath the surface of this modern young politician was a man who, in Bob Taft’s phrase, seemed “to radiate tension and conflict.” He was filled with the resentments of class one would have expected in a New Deal Democrat.

Nietzsche's case is an especially interesting one for whoever wishes to undertake a critical examination of the “neotraditionalist” path. Two main reasons justify this evaluation: ― Nietzsche's work, on the one hand, explicitly and in an exemplary manner articulates the critique of democratic modernity and the denunciation of the argumentative foundation of norms: in this way it permits us ―better than does the work of other philosophers― to grasp all that is involved, within the choice between tradition and argumentation, in the rejection of the latter. ― On the other and perhaps more important hand, the way Nietzsche went about this rejection illustrates in a particularly significant fashion one of the main difficulties this type of philosophical projects comes up against: the neotraditionalist avoidance of democratic modernity makes it necessary to look for and ―we insist on this― whatever could be today's analogue of a traditional universe: the analogue, for (as Nietzsche knew better than anyone) it is out of question that in a time when “God is dead”, tradition should function as it does in theological cultures, in which whatever renders the value of tradition “sacred” and gives it its power is never unrelated to its rootedness in the divine will or in the world order supposed to express this will. Situating as he does his reflections at the same time after the “death of God” and after the (inseparably associated) discovery that the world once “dedivinized”, appears to be devoid of any order and must be thought of as “chaos”, Nietzsche take into account the end of cosmological and theological universe, an end that in general defines the intellectual and cultural location of the Moderns: we are thus dealing here, by definition and, we could say, at the stage of working sketch (since Nietzsche is, in philosophy, the very man who declared the foundations of the traditional universe to be antiquated), with a very peculiar mixture of antimodernism and modernity, of tradition and novelty ―which is why the expression “neotraditionalism” seems perfectly appropriate here, right down to the tension expressed within it. The question is of course one of knowing what such a “mixture” could consists of, both in its content and in its effects. Since, more than most of the representative of ordinary conservatism, Nietzsche cannot contemplate a naïve resumption of tradition, his “neo-conservative” approach permits us to submit the traditionalist option to an interrogation that can best examine its limitations and unintended consequences ―namely: what would a modern analogue of tradition consist of?

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American conservatism is best characterized as the process of identifying, articulated, and refining principles both gleaned by natural reason and revealed by Jewish and Christian scriptures, but perfected and specified as norms growing out of English, and then American, experiences.

Before designing their interventions, the investigators, in the best Lewinian tradition, carefully analyzed the motivational factors and group processes that restrained productivity in general and resulted in particular resistance to procedural changes. The specific techniques employed to increase productivity similarly incorporated a number of subtle features (for example, the manner in which the workers were encouraged to adopt the proposed changes and implementation details as their own group’s norm, and not as something imposed upon them without their advice or consent).

And I remember looking at him like it was all going in slow motion and I was thinking that true character surely is best shown in hell, that true goodness must surely be best displayed in an underworld where the very opposite is the norm, when evil is living and goodness is an indulgence.

Now that I'm directing my attention straight at her, it's hard not to look at her crotch, given her cross- legged position. Her black bikini briefs are perfectly in place, without a hair, or even a follicle, to be seen. I wonder if she waxes everywhere? Or if she's had electrolysis? I've heard that's the norm for singletons in the US-the Tinder generation. A doctor friend told me that even in the UK, everybody he sees under the age of thirty is entirely de- void of pubic hair these days.

But as for the rest of you, sisters, when anyone says to you, this, that or the other is natural, then fight. Nature does not know best; for the birds, for the bees, for the cows; for men, perhaps. But your interests and Nature’s do not coincide. Nature our Friend is an argument used, quite understandably, by men.

was thinking that true character surely is best shown in hell, that true goodness must surely be best displayed in an underworld where the very opposite is the norm, when evil is living and goodness is an indulgence, you know

For generations, linguists had very little idea what to make of this kind of variation. On the whole, most linguists were inclined to consider the speech of educated people as the primary object of description and investigation, while the vernacular speech of uneducated people was usually dismissed as being of no consequence – except in dialectology, in which the speech of elderly, uneducated, rural speakers was commonly considered to be the most suitable for investigation. Since earlier linguists were overwhelmingly male, there was perhaps also a comparable tendency to treat men’s speech as the norm, while women’s speech, where it differed, was often disregarded as inconsequential. Otherwise, however, the very high degree of variation within a single community was, for the most part, simply ignored: at best it was considered to be a peripheral and insignificant aspect of language, no more than erratic and even random departures from the norms, while at worst it was regarded as a considerable nuisance, as a collection of tiresome details getting in the way of good descriptions.

Ganesh Chaturthi is one of the major festivals in India and is celebrated on a large scale in many states of India. This popular festival is approaching and these celebrations are done all over with a lot of enthusiasm. During the pandemic, the celebrations are set to be different as the mode of celebrations has become somehow reformed. The widespread celebrations across 11 days of the festival might turn out to be great for you. The good times might bring the best for your life. The government has insisted on various measures for safeguarding the general health and well-being of people and with this approach, the virtual world has become quite open to new ways of getting various services. There are some of the important tips to follow for finding your best match during this phase. Find your soulmate The people planning to get the best matches for their life can find this as the most auspicious phase to search for the prospective match and make proceeding to have them in their life. Lord Ganesha gets the prime worshipping place and this festival will allow growing your life’s scope with finding the most loving soulmate. TruelyMarry can make the occasion of Ganesh Pooja to accomplish the most important event in your life, i.e., your marriage. · Virtual Selection In this Covid struck phase, the virtual selection of your life partner could be done with the sophisticated website platform and application. There is no longer any worry and you can choose the best matches by shortlisting the different matches. It is no longer difficult to find your better half as the online platform can make it obtain with ease. · Following social norms TruelyMarry platform assures that there are only valid profiles available on their platform. They make sure that the social norms are followed and you get the most amazing matches for the distant relationships. You can choose your interests and the profiles with similar matches will be revealed to you. This Ganesh Chaturthi can bring a lot of happiness to your life. It is the motive of every person to find the perfect life partner and TrulyMarry.com will be your assistance in becoming your associate for the same. You can find every profile with details through the enhanced research and the membership assures being capable of knowing all the details in the most responsible way. The list of handpicked profiles will be presented to you to make the right selection. The initial registration is free of cost followed by an option to choose the membership plans. There are several ways for making the selection, by applying filters or making the selection based on community, religion, caste, and profession. TruelyMarry.com majorly focuses on the Indian community Matrimonial Services and is a unique portal for finding the perfect soulmate. May the blessings of the Lord on Ganesh Chaturthi make you successful in obtaining your best match through online or offline consultation. Our team is highly efficient and would assure you meeting your life partner at our matrimony platform. Bappa will be with you for every new beginning in life..!! Wishing you & your family a very Happy Ganesh Chaturthi.

Social media, smartphones, gaming, and computers have created an alternate reality for most people. We don’t need to use our imaginations anymore because everything we desire is available to us at the click of a button. Instant gratification is the norm, and there’s no such thing as boredom because we can find something on the Internet to entertain us for hours at a time. Technology has made us so comfortable that we despise being uncomfortable. We want our children to have the best lives possible; we don’t want them to suffer. But in our quest for this, we are actually handicapping our children.

Digging into Myanmar's Statistical surveying Scene: Investigating AMT Statistical surveying from there, the sky is the limit Myanmar, a country wealthy in culture and legacy, is likewise a developing business sector with tremendous potential for business development. As organizations hope to venture into Myanmar, statistical surveying assumes a urgent part in understanding buyer conduct, market patterns, and business open doors. In this article, we will dive into the scene best market research companies in Myanmar, zeroing in on one of the conspicuous players in the business, AMT Statistical surveying, as well as other key parts of the statistical surveying scene in the country. AMT Statistical surveying: A Main Player in Myanmar AMT Statistical surveying has set up a good foundation for itself as one of the most mind-blowing best market research companies in Myanmar, known for its far reaching and quick examination administrations. With an emphasis on giving significant experiences to organizations, AMT Statistical surveying offers an extensive variety of exploration administrations custom-made to meet the different requirements of clients working in Myanmar. From customer conduct examination to industry-explicit exploration, AMT Statistical surveying has reliably conveyed top notch research reports, acquiring the trust of neighborhood and global organizations the same. The organization's profound comprehension of the neighborhood market elements, combined with its powerful examination systems, separates it as a significant accomplice for organizations hoping to explore the intricacies of the Myanmar market. By utilizing both quantitative and subjective examination draws near, AMT Statistical surveying guarantees that its clients gain a comprehensive comprehension of the market scene, empowering informed navigation and vital preparation. Statistical surveying Scene in Myanmar: Amazing open doors and Difficulties Past the presence of driving statistical surveying firms like AMT Statistical surveying, Myanmar's statistical surveying scene presents a blend of chances and difficulties. As the nation keeps on going through quick monetary and social change, there is a developing interest for exact and solid market knowledge. This request is driven by the requirement for organizations to adjust to advancing purchaser inclinations, administrative changes, and serious elements inside the market. In any case, directing best market research companies in Myanmar isn't without its difficulties. Factors like restricted admittance to solid information, social subtleties, and the requirement for limited research approaches present huge obstacles for statistical surveying firms working in the country. Exploring these difficulties requires a profound comprehension of the nearby setting, as well as the capacity to adjust research systems to suit the exceptional qualities of the Myanmar market. Arising Patterns in Myanmar's Statistical surveying Industry In spite of the difficulties, Myanmar's statistical surveying industry is seeing a few arising patterns that are forming how examination is directed in the country. One such pattern is the rising reception of innovation driven research devices and information investigation. Statistical surveying firms are utilizing progressed information assortment strategies, including versatile studies and online entertainment checking, to catch continuous bits of knowledge and patterns. Moreover, there is a developing accentuation on supportability and moral examination rehearses inside the business. As organizations look to line up with worldwide norms of corporate obligation, statistical surveying firms are integrating ecological, social, and administration (ESG) factors into their exploration structures, furnishing clients with a more thorough perspective available scene. Taking everything into account, Myanmar's statistical surveying scene is advancin

Digging into Myanmar's Statistical surveying Scene: Investigating AMT Statistical surveying from there, the sky is the limit Myanmar, a country wealthy in culture and legacy, is likewise a developing business sector with tremendous potential for business development. As organizations hope to venture into Myanmar, statistical surveying assumes a urgent part in understanding buyer conduct, market patterns, and business open doors. In this article, we will dive into the scene best market research companies in Myanmar, zeroing in on one of the conspicuous players in the business, AMT Statistical surveying, as well as other key parts of the statistical surveying scene in the country. AMT Statistical surveying: A Main Player in Myanmar AMT Statistical surveying has set up a good foundation for itself as one of the most mind-blowing best market research companies in Myanmar, known for its far reaching and quick examination administrations. With an emphasis on giving significant experiences to organizations, AMT Statistical surveying offers an extensive variety of exploration administrations custom-made to meet the different requirements of clients working in Myanmar. From customer conduct examination to industry-explicit exploration, AMT Statistical surveying has reliably conveyed top notch research reports, acquiring the trust of neighborhood and global organizations the same. The organization's profound comprehension of the neighborhood market elements, combined with its powerful examination systems, separates it as a significant accomplice for organizations hoping to explore the intricacies of the Myanmar market. By utilizing both quantitative and subjective examination draws near, AMT Statistical surveying guarantees that its clients gain a comprehensive comprehension of the market scene, empowering informed navigation and vital preparation. Statistical surveying Scene in Myanmar: Amazing open doors and Difficulties Past the presence of driving statistical surveying firms like AMT Statistical surveying, Myanmar's statistical surveying scene presents a blend of chances and difficulties. As the nation keeps on going through quick monetary and social change, there is a developing interest for exact and solid market knowledge. This request is driven by the requirement for organizations to adjust to advancing purchaser inclinations, administrative changes, and serious elements inside the market. In any case, directing best market research companies in Myanmar isn't without its difficulties. Factors like restricted admittance to solid information, social subtleties, and the requirement for limited research approaches present huge obstacles for statistical surveying firms working in the country. Exploring these difficulties requires a profound comprehension of the nearby setting, as well as the capacity to adjust research systems to suit the exceptional qualities of the Myanmar market. Arising Patterns in Myanmar's Statistical surveying Industry In spite of the difficulties, Myanmar's statistical surveying industry is seeing a few arising patterns that are forming how examination is directed in the country. One such pattern is the rising reception of innovation driven research devices and information investigation. Statistical surveying firms are utilizing progressed information assortment strategies, including versatile studies and online entertainment checking, to catch continuous bits of knowledge and patterns. Moreover, there is a developing accentuation on supportability and moral examination rehearses inside the business. As organizations look to line up with worldwide norms of corporate obligation, statistical surveying firms are integrating ecological, social, and administration (ESG) factors into their exploration structures, furnishing clients with a more thorough perspective available scene. Taking everything into account, Myanmar's statistical surveying scene

There was rationing of rubber, sugar, gasoline, heating oil, milk, coffee, soap, nylon stockings, and even used cars. The merrily dancing worker/spender bees were gone; thrift, not the “spreading of money,” became the desired norm. The “Consumer’s Pledge,” sung to the tune of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” urged Americans to eschew canned goods in favor of “fresh fruits and vegetables [to] save tons of tin” and to “take the best care of your wearables, and mend them when they tear.” Waste was reviled, and recycling elevated to a patriotic duty.

The best leaders create, sustain, and improve their organizations’ social circuitry,* the overlay of the processes, procedures, routines, and norms that enable people to do their work easily and well. While individual specialists are focusing their attention on the problems immediately in front of them, this social circuitry establishes the patterns by which information, ideas, materials, and services flow, setting up people for success and integrating individual efforts for common purpose.

Men have been packaged by society so well as elusive and mysterious that if you score one for yourself, you are suddenly deemed worthy of respect. This form of advertising has aided men for years, with women placing their best foot forward to present themselves to be found worthy of a man’s approval.

Queer, in all senses of the word, is probably the best word to describe me. Queer is political. Queer is something “off the norm.” Queer is sexual and gender minorities. Queer rejects traditional sexual and gender identities. Queer is outside the bounds of normal society. Queer is breaking the rules for sex and gender. One can be queer and bi. For that matter, one can be queer and straight.

In reply to philosophical perplexities, Wittgenstein recommended that we seek to get words back into their everyday language-games, proposed that we thereby engage the clearest or best uses of language, and insisted that philosophy not let its language go on holiday or simply idle like an engine. However, he failed to follow through with his program, for he could not specify which norms should govern the proper use of terms. Which are the best uses? When is language on holiday? What counts as a word operating in an alien language-game? Whose ordinary language is superior? Are some language-games being arbitrarily cut off? Such critical questions leave Wittgenstein very much in the same condition as Dewey: namely, recommending an arbitrary personal choice to us. In this light, we can uncover new significance in Wittgenstein's statement that there is no single philosophic method, just different therapies. He likened his work to persuasion and propaganda: 'I am in a sense making propaganda for one style of thinking as opposed to another. I am honestly degusted with the other....Much of what I am doing is persuading people to change their style of thinking.' However, philosophy is deeper than a recommendation about forms of life; it peruses not merely the sociology of knowledge but the justification of knowledge. Otherwise it becomes concealed prejudice.

Many studies in the human rights and democracy promotion fields present evidence that shaming works best in easy cases where civil society resistance to the repressive state is already strong,36 where the state is less able to hide compensatory repressive moves,37 where the state has signed a treaty consenting to an obligation,38 or where the state has fewer opportunities to engage in “counter-norming”—for example, invoking sovereignty and illiberal cultural traditions or denouncing the decadence of liberal sex and gender norms

From the anthropological perspective, culture is “the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place or time.” From the business perspective, culture is “a way of thinking, behaving, or working that exists in a place or organization.”5 Strong cultures typically exhibit the following traits:   Common language: Words and phrases that hold a common meaning within a community based on opinions, principles, and values6   Learned behaviors: A set of learned responses to stimuli7   Shared beliefs: The acceptance of something as true8   Heroes and legends: People who are admired or idealized for their qualities, behavior, and/or achievements and the stories told about their heroic actions9   Rituals and norms: Consistent behavior regularly followed by an individual or a group10

Internal communicators are creative professionals. They are writers, creators, designers, strategists and leaders who are capable of creative thinking and thoughtful problem-solving. And yet here we are, an industry of creative thinkers, mired in a sea of 'best practice' and a frenzy of imitation. Perhaps internal communication professionals are using 'best practice' as a security blanket, finding safety in its norms.

Even under the best of circumstances, sexual experience does not – indeed cannot – transfer in any simple fashion form one generation or one body to another. Each of us has our own particular body, mind, history, and soul to get to know, with all our particular kinks, confusions, traumas, aporias, legacies, orientations, sensitivities, abilities, and drives. We do not get to know these features in a single night, a year, or even a decade. Nor is whatever knowledge we gain likely to hold throughout the course of a life (or even a relationship, or a single encounter). None of us is born knowing how to manage our sexual drives and disappointments; none of us is born knowing how to content with the various limitations, persecutions, and allowances of sexual freedom society has prepared for us prior to our arrival. We can work against noxious norms and laws that curtail sexual and reproductive freedom; we can create generations of people less likely to be injured, persecuted, or driven to self-harm on account of gender or sexuality; we can educate each other about mutuality and communication, the location of the clitoris, and difference beyond a gender binary; we can challenge ourselves to accept “benign sexual variation”…: these are a few good starts. But each sexual exchange – particularly once performed with partners you haven't repeatedly had sex with, but even then – is going to resemble a certain wandering into the woods, because of the fundamental unknowability of ourselves and each other, and the open question of what any new interaction might summon.

And it’s no accident, I’d add, that the transsexual is the only thing that trans can describe that queer can’t. The transsexual is not queer; this is the best thing about her. Take Agnes, the pseudonymous transsexual woman who famously posed as intersex at UCLA’s Gender Identity Clinic in the late fifties in order to obtain access to vaginoplasty. Agnes’s case was chronicled by Harold Garfinkel in an article that’s now taught in trans studies courses. Agnes is regularly celebrated as some kind of gender ninja: savvy, tactical, carefully conning the medical-industrial complex into giving her what she wants. What no one wants to talk about is what she actually wanted: a cunt, a man, a house, and normal fucking life. Whatever intuition she may not have had about gender as a “managed achievement” was put toward a down payment on a new dishwasher. If there’s anything Agnes “reveals” about gender, it’s that actually existing normativity is, strictly speaking, impossible. Norms, as such, do not exist. (If Gender Trouble knew this, it did a poor job explaining it.) That doesn’t mean that norms don’t structure people’s desires; what it means is that the desire for the norm consists, in terms of its lived content, in nonnormative attempts at normativity. Agnes was a nonnormative subject, but that wasn’t because she was “against” the norm; on the contrary, her nonnormativity was what wanting to be normal actually looked like. Like most of us, Agnes was making do in the gap between what she wanted and what wanting it got her. We can argue, and people have, about whether queer theory is possible without antinormativity. But whatever comes after trans studies—can I suggest transsexual theory?—will be impossible with antinormativity. The most powerful intervention scholars working in trans studies can make, at this juncture within the academy, is to defend the claim that transness requires that we understand, as we never have before, what it means to be attached to a norm—by desire, by habit, by survival.

HGs gossip endlessly, and as studied by Polly Wiessner of the University of Utah, it’s mostly about the usual: norm violation by high-status individuals.77