Norms Home Quotes

Rootlessness," I opine, "is the twenty-first century norm." "You're not wrong and that's why we're in the shit we're in, mate. If you belong nowhere, why give a tinker's toss about anywhere?

TO BE A TOURIST is to escape accountability. Errors and failings don't cling to you the way they do back home. You're able to drift across continents and languages, suspending the operation of sound thought. Tourism is the march of stupidity. You're expected to be stupid. The entire mechanism of the host country is geared to travelers acting stupidly. You walked around dazed, squinting into fold-out maps. You don't know how to talk to people, how to get anywhere, what the money means, what time it is, what to eat or how to eat it. Being stupid is the pattern, the level and the norm. You can exist on this level for weeks and months without reprimand or dire consequence. Together with thousands, you are granted immunities and broad freedoms. You are an army of fools, wearing bright polyesters, riding camels, taking pictures of each other, haggard, dysentric, thirsty. There is nothing to think about but the next shapeless event.

I believe that gay people are different, uniquely gifted with the insights and brilliance that stepping outside the heterosexual norm has given us. That is exactly the source of our power.

One of the most common truth in live is that we all take for granted things simply are. Whether a spouse, a friend, a family, or a home, after enough time has passed that person, place, or situation becomes accepted norms of our lives. - Drizzt Do'Urden

The willingness to rebel from the expected norms, rules, and silent contracts of establishment comes out of knowing that one cannot afford to build resentment. Resentment, which comes from the decision to go against one's truth, embitters the self. It somaticizes in the body and takes on the burden of pain as if it were ours alone. The whistleblower, on the other hand, reveals a shared complicity. It says, "I expect more from myself and from you." And in that stance, the pain becomes, in a sense, communal.

I do wish men, when they're taking their leave from a lady at dawn, wouldn't insist on adjusting their clothes to a nicety, or fussily tying their lacquered cap securely into place. After all, who would laugh at a man or criticize him if they happened to catch sight of him on his way home from an assignation in fearful disarray, with his cloak or hunting costume all awry?

I’m not sure if he usually drinks this much or if this is out of the ordinary for him. But then again, grief is like an airport. There are no rules or social norms. You just do what you gotta do to pass the time until you reach your next destination

From the inside, a violent home looks starkly different than it does to outsiders. Children who grow up with cold, narcissistic, or sadistic parents don’t know that a caretaker with the potential for extreme cruelty is not the norm. Even when they see a contrast in the families of friends, they’ve already been robbed of the ability to challenge parental authority. Instead of seeking help, they hunker down and adapt.

Do not be deceived by the outside appearance of order in our plutocratic society. It fares with it as it does with the older norms of war, that there is an outside look of quite wonderful order about it; how neat and comforting the steady march of the regiment; how quiet and respectable the sergeants look; how clean the polished cannon ... the looks of adjutant and sergeant as innocent-looking as may be, nay, the very orders for destruction and plunder are given with a quiet precision which seems the very token of a good conscience; this is the mask that lies before the ruined cornfield and the burning cottage, and mangled bodies, the untimely death of worthy men, the desolated home.

When you leave your old neighborhood for your land, the city streets and businesses will almost instantly fade from your mind. The chirping of birds will replace the yelling of people.

It is customary to have vampires in stories nowadays - they are quite the norm, just like wicked stepmothers used to be. Yes, vampires have sent wicked stepmothers into retirement homes, to brew cups of tea and tend to their arthritic knees.

We have made mistakes. We haven’t always used our power wisely. We have abused it sometimes and we’ve been arrogant. But, as often as not, we recognized those wrongs, debated them openly, and tried to do better. And the good we have done for humanity surpasses the damage caused by our errors. We have sought to make the world more stable and secure, not just our own society. We have advanced norms and rules of international relations that have benefited all. We have stood up to tyrants for mistreating their people even when they didn’t threaten us, not always, but often. We don’t steal other people’s wealth. We don’t take their land. We don’t build walls to freedom and opportunity. We tear them down. To fear the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is unpatriotic. American nationalism isn’t the same as in other countries. It isn’t nativist or imperial or xenophobic, or it shouldn’t be. Those attachments belong with other tired dogmas that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history. We live in a land made from ideals, not blood and soil. We are custodians of those ideals at home, and their champion abroad.

I began to think of myself as a perennial tourist. There was something agreeable about this. To be a tourist is to escape accountability. Errors and failings don't cling to you the way they do back home. You're able to drift across continents and languages, suspending the operation of sound thought. Tourism is the march of stupidity. You're expected to be stupid. The entire mechanism of the host country is geared to travelers acting stupidly. You walk around dazed, squinting into fold-out maps. You don't know how to talk to people, how to get anywhere, what the money means, what time it is, what to eat or how to eat it. Being stupid is the pattern, the level and the norm. You can exist on this level for weeks and months without reprimand or dire consequence. Together with thousands, you are granted immunities and broad freedoms. You are an army of fools, wearing bright polyesters, riding camels, taking pictures of each other, haggard, dysenteric, thirsty. There is nothing to think about but the next shapeless event.

Getting ready is that point in the day when the rivalry between the two needs is likely to peak, because we are making transition from being at home and pleasing ourselves (ego) to going out and having to conform to a series of norms an conventions (superego). We become less ego and more superego with each button we fasten

such an atmosphere of lies infects and poisons the whole life of a home. Each breath the children take in such a house is full of the germs of evil.

Yes, ma’am, but can I get a piece of the chocolate cake to go?” She gave me a long look. “You that hungry?” Laughing, I shook my head and decided to go for it. She wasn’t going to let it drop, anyway. “No, Cooper’s waiting for us at their house”—I gestured to a wide-eyed Sawyer—“because he had to work late, so this will be a nice surprise.” The wily old woman gave me a knowing look. “Nice to think of his roommate.” “No, he’s our other boyfriend.” And it was out. Sawyer was waiting for the ceiling to come crashing down, but she grinned. “I got a book like that at home. I’ll get you boys a big piece to take to your fella.” Alice walked off, still grinning and mumbling something about how she wished things had been different back in her day. I had to laugh. She’d have been hell on wheels when she was young no matter what the social norms had been then. Shaking his head and clearly trying to figure out what had happened, Sawyer watched her walk away. He and Cooper must have had a difficult time growing up, but I was glad he was getting to see that there were people out there who wouldn’t care. And then there were dirty old ladies who were going to have entirely too much fun caring.

Mixed accents are the norm these days. Even if you don’t travel, you’re not immune from accent shift. Innumerable voices enter your home every day through radio, television, the telephone, and the internet.

[He] goes home and says he got forty-nine out of fifty questions right, his dad merely asks in an expressionless voice: ‘What did you get wrong?’ Perfection isn’t a goal in the Erdahl family, it’s the norm.

We live in graves and call them home, and we further sustain the neurotic structure of those graves with elements of so-called sociological, cultural, traditional, religious, political and intellectual significance.

When people become self-centred and self-enclosed, their greed increases. The emptier a person’s heart is, the more he or she needs things to buy, own and consume. It becomes almost impossible to accept the limits imposed by reality. In this horizon, a genuine sense of the common good also disappears. As these attitudes become more widespread, social norms are respected only to the extent that they do not clash with personal needs.

Imagine,” I thought, “a world in which brothers and sisters grow up in homes where hurting isn’t allowed; where children are taught to express their anger at each other sanely and safely; where each child is valued as an individual, not in relation to the others; where cooperation, rather than competition is the norm; where no one is trapped in a role; where children have daily experience and guidance in resolving their differences.

In the act of balancing, we come alive. Sensations change moment by moment; sometimes we feel secure, sometimes precarious. In the long run we develop tolerance for instability. As we come to accept this insecurity as the norm, as our home ground, it becomes familiar and less frightening. We can stop trying to flee from the wobble. And sometimes this sense of being off balance is exhilarating and reminds us of the impermanence and fragility of life, nudging us to appreciate each imperfect, teetering moment we are alive. Perhaps, like surfers, we can come to feel the power of the waves, the majesty of the elements, and a sense of our own place in this swirling universe.

She fell in love with freedom. In the Sommers' home she had lived shut up within four walls, in a stagnant atmosphere where time moved in circles and where she could barely glimpse the horizon through distorted windowpanes. She had grown up clad in the impenetrable armor of good manners and conventions, trained from girlhood to please and serve, bound by corset, routines, social norms, and fear. Fear had been her companion: fear of God and his unpredictable justice, of authority, of her adoptive parents, of illness and evil tongues, of anything unknown or different; fear of leaving the protection of her home and facing the dangers outside; fear of her own fragility as a woman, of dishonor and truth. Hers had been a sugar-coated reality built on the unspoken, on courteous silences, well-guarded secrets, order, and discipline. She had aspired to virtue but now she questioned the meaning of the word.

The things sane societies loved, it hated. The things sane societies hated, it loved; the things sane societies tried to do, it tried to avoid; the things sane societies tried to avoid, it did with relish. It pursued chaos and hated order, it worshipped ugliness and loathed beauty. If sane people wished to dress as neatly and well as they could, these people were persuaded to dress as hideously and grotesquely as possible; if sane people wanted music to be melodious, these people (whether we are speaking of their "popular" or their "serious" music) were cozened into believing they liked raucous and tuneless noise. If women had been feminine, if home life had been secure, if children had been innocent, if men had been gallant, if art had been beautiful, if love had been romantic, then all these things must be stood on their heads. Of course, life was not always like that. Of course things had often fallen short of their ideals, or even of their minimal norms; but at least most people tried to do things properly and at least the surrounding civilisation encouraged them to try. Never before had the deliberate aim been an inverted parody of all that should be. Everywhere, in every area of life, a single principle reigned: inversion; the worship of chaos; the creed of the madhouse.

at home, sneaking glances of hypersexualized women in popular culture, confused until she realized that these norms belonged to a different world; and later in college, listening quietly as everyone around her flaunted their stories of drinking, smoking, having sex—a lifestyle that contradicted the conservative values she was raised on.

When I stopped viewing girls as potential girlfriends and started treating them as sisters in Christ, I discovered the richness of true friendship. When I stopped worrying about who I was going to marry and began to trust God’s timing, I uncovered the incredible potential of serving God as a single. . . . I believe the time has come for Christians, male and female, to own up to the mess we’ve left behind in our selfish pursuit of short-term romance. Dating may seem an innocent game, but as I see it, we are sinning against each other. What excuse will we have when God asks us to account for our actions and attitudes in relationships? If God sees a sparrow fall (Matthew 10:29), do you think He could possibly overlook the broken hearts and scarred emotions we cause in relationships based on selfishness? Everyone around us may be playing the dating game. But at the end of our lives, we won’t answer to everyone. We’ll answer to God. . . . Long before Seventeen magazine ever gave teenagers tips on dating, people did things very differently. At the turn of the twentieth century, a guy and girl became romantically involved only if they planned to marry. If a young man spent time at a girl’s home, family and friends assumed that he intended to propose to her. But shifting attitudes in culture and the arrival of the automobile brought radical changes. The new “rules” allowed people to indulge in all the thrills of romantic love without having any intention of marriage. Author Beth Bailey documents these changes in a book whose title, From Front Porch to Backseat, says everything about the difference in society’s attitude when dating became the norm. Love and romance became things people could enjoy solely for their recreational value. Though much has changed since the 1920s, the tendency of dating relationships to move toward intimacy without commitment remains very much the same. . . . Many of the attitudes and practices of today’s dating relationships conflict with the lifestyle of smart love God wants us to live.

There is a difficult discussion that rarely happens among American funeral directors: viewing the embalmed body is often an unpleasant experience for the family. THere are exceptions to this rule, but the immediate family is given almost no meaningful time with the body. Before the family has time to be with their dead person and process the loss, coworkers and distant cousins arrive, and everyone is forced into a public performance of grief and humility. I wondered what it would be like if there were places like Lastel in every major city. Spaces outside the stiff, ceremonial norm, where the family can just be with the body, free from the performance required at a formal viewing. Spaces that are safe, comfortable, like home.

One of the most common truths of life is that we all take for granted things that simply are. Whether a spouse, a friend, a family, or a home, after enough time has passed, that person, place, or situation becomes the accepted norm of our lives. It is not until we confront the unexpected, not until the normal is no more, that we truly come to appreciate what once we had. I

Perhaps because same-sex or gender-nonconforming partners have already confronted so many gender norms by virtue of their existence, rethinking their roles at home is simply not that big a deal. They don’t subscribe to the gender roles dictating that one person should take on all the emotional labor, so they can challenge the imbalance without challenging their very identity.

With President Trump, however, the masculine archetype seems to have regressed. Trump is less the strict father than the petulant child: a boyish figure who rejects advice, shirks discipline and refuses to be beholden to behavioral norms. He is rarely even seen as the patriarch of his own family; as Melania Trump said after he was caught boasting about assaults on tape, “Sometimes I say I have two boys at home.

Where did secular liberalism go wrong? It has been undone by its own ideas. The first idea is that matters of conscience — religion, ethics, and values — are private matters. The privatizing of conscience started with two important principles: religion should be separated from the state and people should not be forced to believe one way or the other. But it went further to say that belief has no place in the public sphere. Conscience belongs in homes and houses of worship, not in the marketplace. By making conscience private, secular liberals had hoped to prevent believers from introducing sectarian beliefs into politics. But of course they couldn’t, since freedom of belief means believers are free to speak their minds in public. Instead, secularism imposed a gag order on itself. Because “private” is equated with “personal” and “subjective,” questions of conscience were placed out of bounds of serious critical evaluation. … … The mistake lies in thinking that because conscience is free from coercion, it must be free from criticism, reason, truth, or independent, objective standards of right and wrong. The indispensable principle of freedom of belief has mutated into an unthinking assumption that matters of belief are immune to critical public inquiry and shared evaluative norms.

Maybe this is a bad time to bring this up, but you need to pay your credit card bill. It’s maxed out, and you’ve missed the past two due dates. And the thing is—and this is going to sound selfish, because it is—but your Netflix account got suspended, and I was only halfway through season three of Cheers. The laugh track is a bit off-putting, but it’s still a good show. I really love the plot twist that Norm’s nagging wife, Vera, turns out to have been dead for ten years, and Norm has kept her memory alive by continuing a fictional narrative about her. Sam and Diane knew that Vera wasn’t really alive and that Norm was delusional, but in episode seven, when they go to check in on Norm, they find him cuddled up next to her decayed corpse and reading her Lord Byron’s “The First Kiss of Love,” and he’s crying. The stench is unbearable, but less unbearable than the brutal truth of the moment. My point is, I didn’t get to finish watching Cheers because you’re behind on your credit card payments. I need you to deal with that.

It wasn’t the fluidity that stymied the crew—that was common enough—but they had trouble getting used to the meteorological aspect of Jerico’s personal system. Having been raised in a place where such things were the norm rather than the exception, it never even occurred to Jerico that it could be an issue, until leaving home. Some things simply made a person feel feminine; other things made a person feel masculine. Wasn’t that true of everyone regardless of gender? Or did binaries deny themselves the things that didn’t fit the mold?

Most societies no longer require high fertility rates. Infant mortality has fallen to a tiny fraction of its 1950 level. Effective birth control technology, labor-saving devices, improved child care facilities, and low infant mortality make it possible for women to have children and full-time careers. Traditional pro-fertility norms are giving way to individual-choice norms that allow people a broader range of choice in how to live their lives. Pro-fertility norms have high costs. Forcing women to stay in the home and gays and lesbians to stay in the closet requires severe repression. Once high human fertility rates are no longer needed, there are strong incentives to move away from pro-fertility norms—which usually means moving away from religion. As this book demonstrates, norms concerning gender equality, divorce, abortion, and homosexuality are changing rapidly. Young people in high-income societies are increasingly aware of the tension between religion and individual-choice norms, motivating them to reject religion. Beginning in 2010, secularization has accelerated sharply.

Women are often convinced by many different social norms, expectations, and incentives to live within constraints that similarly placed (in terms of race, class, culture, and time period) men need not consider. This sort of internally constrained vision, whether it is because of false consciousness, shame, stereotype, or trauma, is the kind of violation of their positive freedom that should most concern feminists. Capitalism, by providing an option outside kin and traditional community norms for independence and social power, can allow women the wherewithal to escape these constraints. Even if a particular woman does not choose to work outside the home or compete in the marketplace as an entrepreneur, the fact that women have this option under capitalism increases the freedom of all women. Enlarging the set of things that women are seen as capable of can reduce the sense that women have that they are inferior, and this can increase their confidence in a wider set of social circumstances. It puts the lie to the idea that women are incapable, and helps women to stand up to ill-treatment and violence.

Many modern readers assume teachings about wives submitting to their husbands appear exclusively in the pages of Scripture and thus reflect uniquely “biblical” views about women’s roles in the home. But to the people who first heard these letters read aloud in their churches, the words of Peter and Paul would have struck them as both familiar and strange, a sort of Christian remix on familiar Greco-Roman philosophy that positioned the male head of house as the rightful ruler over his subordinate wives, children, and slaves. By instructing men to love their wives and respect their slaves, and by telling everyone to “submit to one another” with Jesus as the ultimate head of house, the apostles offer correctives to cultural norms without upending them. They challenge new believers to reconsider their relationships with one another now that, in Christ, “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female” (Galatians 3:28). The plot thickens when we pay attention to some of the recurring characters in the Epistles and see a progression toward more freedom and autonomy for slaves like Onesimus and women like Nympha, Priscilla, Junia, and Lydia.

All of those theories are essentially ways of saying that the criminal is a personality type —a personality type distinguished by an insensitivity to the norms of normal society. People with stunted psychological development don’t understand how to conduct healthy relationships. People with genetic predispositions to violence fly off the handle when normal people keep their cool. People who aren’t taught right from wrong are oblivious to what is and what is not appropriate behavior. People who grow up poor, fatherless, and buffeted by racism don’t have the same commitment to social norms as those from healthy middle class homes. Bernie Goetz and those four thugs on the subway were, in this sense, prisoners of their own, dysfunctional, world. But what do Broken Windows and the Power of Context suggest? Exactly the opposite. They say that the criminal—far from being someone who acts for fundamental, intrinsic reasons and who lives in his own world—is actually someone acutely sensitive to his environment, who is alert to all kinds of cues, and who is prompted to commit crimes based on his perception of the world around him. That is an incredibly radical—and in some sense unbelievable—idea.

(Inevitably, someone raises the question about World War II: What if Christians had refused to fight against Hitler? My answer is a counterquestion: What if the Christians in Germany had emphatically refused to fight for Hitler, refused to carry out the murders in concentration camps?) The long history of Christian “just wars” has wrought suffering past all telling, and there is no end in sight. As Yoder has suggested, Niebuhr’s own insight about the “irony of history” ought to lead us to recognize the inadequacy of our reason to shape a world that tends toward justice through violence. Might it be that reason and sad experience could disabuse us of the hope that we can approximate God’s justice through killing? According to the guideline I have proposed, reason must be healed and taught by Scripture, and our experience must be transformed by the renewing of our minds in conformity with the mind of Christ. Only thus can our warring madness be overcome. This would mean, practically speaking, that Christians would have to relinquish positions of power and influence insofar as the exercise of such positions becomes incompatible with the teaching and example of Jesus. This might well mean, as Hauerwas has perceived, that the church would assume a peripheral status in our culture, which is deeply committed to the necessity and glory of violence. The task of the church then would be to tell an alternative story, to train disciples in the disciplines necessary to resist the seductions of violence, to offer an alternative home for those who will not worship the Beast. If the church is to be a Scripture-shaped community, it will find itself reshaped continually into a closer resemblance to the socially marginal status of Matthew’s nonviolent countercultural community. To articulate such a theological vision for the church at the end of the twentieth century may be indeed to take most seriously what experience is telling us: the secular polis has no tolerance for explicitly Christian witness and norms. It is increasingly the case in Western culture that Christians can participate in public governance only insofar as they suppress their explicitly Christian motivations. Paradoxically, the Christian community might have more impact upon the world if it were less concerned about appearing reasonable in the eyes of the world and more concerned about faithfully embodying the New Testament’s teaching against violence. Let it be said clearly, however, that the reasons for choosing Jesus’ way of peacemaking are not prudential. In calculable terms, this way is sheer folly. Why do we choose the way of nonviolent love of enemies? If our reasons for that choice are shaped by the New Testament, we are motivated not by the sheer horror of war, not by the desire for saving our own skins and the skins of our children (if we are trying to save our skins, pacifism is a very poor strategy), not by some general feeling of reverence for human life, not by the naive hope that all people are really nice and will be friendly if we are friendly first. No, if our reasons for choosing nonviolence are shaped by the New Testament witness, we act in simple obedience to the God who willed that his own Son should give himself up to death on a cross. We make this choice in the hope and anticipation that God’s love will finally prevail through the way of the cross, despite our inability to see how this is possible. That is the life of discipleship to which the New Testament repeatedly calls us. When the church as a community is faithful to that calling, it prefigures the peaceable kingdom of God in a world wracked by violence.

Lives to Serve Before I Sleep (The Poem) Lives to serve before I sleep, Cause service is my salvation; Wounds to heal before I sleep, Cause time is wailing for absolution; Bridges to build before I sleep, Cause too many walls are raised already; Peoples to unite before I sleep, Cause civilization is trembling and walking unsteady. Shackles to shatter before I sleep, Cause corruption festers in the stagnant norm; Labels to erase before I sleep, Cause they've only confused our global dorm; Sects to humanize before I sleep, Cause segregation has weakened the human bond; Blades to burn before I sleep, Cause they've turned the world into a bloody pond. Tears to wipe before I sleep, Cause the society is lost in fun; Homes to heal before I sleep, Cause ego has wrecked the nests a ton; Biases to alleviate before I sleep, Cause bigotry has outweighed compassion; Purity to pour before I sleep, Cause all are chasing petty gratification. Spirits to lift before I sleep, Cause the minds are running dry; Gods to build before I sleep, Cause orthodoxy makes humanity cry; Wars to end before I sleep, Cause no life is expendable and puny; Humans to raise before I sleep, Cause where humans act human there reigns harmony.

It wasn’t the fluidity that stymied the crew—that was common enough—but they had trouble getting used to the meteorological aspect of Jerico’s personal system. Having been raised in a place where such things were the norm rather than the exception, it never even occurred to Jerico that it could be an issue, until leaving home. Some things simply made a person feel feminine; other things made a person feel masculine. Wasn’t that true of everyone regardless of gender? Or did binaries deny themselves the things that didn’t fit the mold? Well, regardless, Jerico found the faux pas and overcompensations more humorous than anything else.

People of color may also hold prejudices and discriminate against white people, but they lack the social and institutional power that transforms their prejudice and discrimination into racism; the impact of their prejudice on whites is temporary and contextual. Whites hold the social and institutional positions in society to infuse their racial prejudice into the laws, policies, practices, and norms of society in a way that people of color do not. A person of color may refuse to wait on me if I enter a shop, but people of color cannot pass legislation that prohibits me and everyone like me from buying a home in a certain neighborhood.

It is so easy, from the outside, to put the blame on the woman and say, "You just need to leave." It's not like my home was the only home where there was domestic abuse. It's what I grew up around. I saw it in the streets of Soweto, on TV, in movies. Where does a woman go in a society where that is the norm? When the police won't help her? When her own family won't help her? Where does a woman go when she leaves one man who hits her and is just as likely to wind up with another man who hits her, maybe even worse than the first? Where does a woman go when she's single with three kids and she lives in a society that makes her a pariah for being a manless woman? Where she's seen as a whore for doing that? Where does she go? What does she do?

Procuring the house in Ballister was a desperate bid for respect, for recognition, the ultimate gesture (or sacrifice, as it turned out) that would prove him a worthy successor to the Flo and Walter Prices of the world. To my mind, the Culver was Norm’s way home, the only way he knew. It was an ever-evolving means to an ever-evolving end that eventually ended him. Who or what led Norm down that thorny path—devotion, economic pressures, family cynicism, Beth’s insatiable appetite—has been a topic of endless debate. You can believe what you want to believe. Personally, I don’t think any rational argument under the sun would have deterred Beth’s “messiah” from his mission. If the Ballister acquisition was Norm’s cross, as everyone seems to think it was, then it was Norm who chose to bear that cross. And pride that nailed him to it.

It was how Robin had been taught to live since childhood: nothing is permanent, transition is constant. Anywhere can be home and anyone can be family, and you can always start over again in new places, with new people. Though it might seem a strange, even insensitive attitude to some, it reflected the essential way Robin saw the world. Reality was a medium that he could shape and manipulate, not some fixed and rigid thing; the temperament that made him spontaneous and capable of astonishing comic insigh also made him unconcerned with traditional boundaries and accepted norms [..] Robin was a genius, and genius doesn't produce normal men next door who are good family men and look after their wives and children. Genius requires its own way of looking at and living in the world, and it isn't always compatible with conventional ways of living.

All children in Madagascar were raised genderless and forbidden to choose a gender until reaching adulthood. Even then, many didn’t choose a single state of being. Some, like Jerico, found fluidity to be their nature. “I feel like a woman beneath the sun and the stars. I feel like a man under the cover of clouds,” Jerico had explained to the crew when assuming command. “A simple glance at the skies will let you know how to address me at any given time.” It wasn’t the fluidity that stymied the crew – that was common enough – but they had trouble getting used to the meteorological aspect of Jerico’s personal system. Having been raised in a place where such things were the norm rather than the exception, it never even occurred to Jerico that it could be an issue, until leaving home. Some things simply made a person feel feminine; other things made a person feel masculine. Wasn’t that true of everyone regardless of gender? Or did binaries deny themselves the things that didn’t fit the mold? Well, regardless, Jerico found the faux pas and overcompensations more humorous than anything else.

ONE SIDE OF the history of Rome is a history of politics, of war, of victory and defeat, of citizenship and of everything that went on in public between prominent men. I have outlined one dramatic version of that history, as Rome transformed from a small, unimpressive town next to the Tiber into first a local and eventually an international power base. Almost every aspect of that transformation was contested and sometimes literally fought over: the rights of the people against the senate, the questions of what liberty meant and how it was to be guaranteed, the control that was, or was not, to be exercised over conquered territory, the impact of empire, for good or bad, on traditional Roman politics and values. In the process, a version of citizenship was somehow invented that was new in the classical world. Greeks had occasionally shared citizenship, on an ad hoc basis, between two cities. But the idea that it was the norm, as the Romans insisted, to be a citizen of two places – to count two places as home – was fundamental to Roman success on the battlefield and elsewhere, and it has proved influential right up into the twenty-first century. This was a Roman revolution, and we are its heirs.

What is ADHD, anyway? For those still wondering what ADHD is, here’s the briefest summary I can muster: ADHD shows up in two areas of our brain function: working memory and executive functioning.[7] Working memory allows us to hold more than one thing in our brains at once. If you’ve ever run up the stairs, only to find yourself standing in your bedroom wondering what you came for, you’ve experienced a failure of working memory. Again, everyone experiences this from time to time. People with ADHD experience it nonstop, to the point where it impairs our ability to function normally. Working memory holds onto information until we’re able to use it.[8] In addition to forgetting why we opened the refrigerator, having a leaky working memory means we lose information before our brains can move it to long-term storage. We forget a lot of things before we have a chance to act on them or write them down. Our executive functions, on the other hand, give us the power to delay gratification, strategize, plan ahead, and identify and respond to others’ feelings.[9] That’s some list, isn’t it? In the same way a diabetic’s body cannot effectively regulate insulin, imagine your brain being unable to control these behaviors. This explains why ADHDers’ behavior so often defies norms and expectations for their age group — and this persists throughout their lifespan, not just grade school. ADHD isn’t a gift. It isn’t a sign of creativity or intelligence, nor is it a simple character flaw. And it’s more than eccentric distractibility, forgetfulness, and impulsivity. ADHD is a far-reaching disorder that touches every aspect of our lives. If we leave it unchecked, it will generate chaos at home, at work, and everywhere in between.

Why, exactly, is Marduk handing Hammurabi a one and a zero in this picture?" Hiro asks. "They were emblems of royal power," the Librarian says. "Their origin is obscure." "Enki must have been responsible for that one," Hiro says. "Enki's most important role is as the creator and guardian of the me and the gis-hur, the 'key words' and 'patterns' that rule the universe." "Tell me more about the me." "To quote Kramer and Maier again, '[They believed in] the existence from time primordial of a fundamental, unalterable, comprehensive assortment of powers and duties, norms and standards, rules and regulations, known as me, relating to the cosmos and its components, to gods and humans, to cities and countries, and to the varied aspects of civilized life.'" "Kind of like the Torah." "Yes, but they have a kind of mystical or magical force. And they often deal with banal subjects -- not just religion." "Examples?" "In one myth, the goddess Inanna goes to Eridu and tricks Enki into giving her ninety-four me and brings them back to her home town of Uruk, where they are greeted with much commotion and rejoicing." "Inanna is the person that Juanita's obsessed with." "Yes, sir. She is hailed as a savior because 'she brought the perfect execution of the me.'" "Execution? Like executing a computer program?" "Yes. Apparently, they are like algorithms for carrying out certain activities essential to the society. Some of them have to do with the workings of priesthood and kingship. Some explain how to carry out religious ceremonies. Some relate to the arts of war and diplomacy. Many of them are about the arts and crafts: music, carpentry, smithing, tanning, building, farming, even such simple tasks as lighting fires." "The operating system of society." "I'm sorry?" "When you first turn on a computer, it is an inert collection of circuits that can't really do anything. To start up the machine, you have to infuse those circuits with a collection of rules that tell it how to function. How to be a computer. It sounds as though these me served as the operating system of the society, organizing an inert collection of people into a functioning system." "As you wish. In any case, Enki was the guardian of the me." "So he was a good guy, really." "He was the most beloved of the gods." "He sounds like kind of a hacker.

Even if the press were dying to report on the Hmong gang-rape spree, the police won’t tell them about it. A year before the Hmong gang rape that reminded the Times of a rape in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, the police in St. Paul issued a warning about gang rapists using telephone chat lines to lure girls out of their homes. Although the warning was issued only in Hmong, St. Paul’s police department refused to confirm to the St. Paul Pioneer Press that the suspects were Hmong, finally coughing up only the information that they were “Asian.”20 And the gang rapes continue. The Star Tribune counted nearly one hundred Hmong males charged with rape or forced prostitution from 2000 to June 30, 2005. More than 80 percent of the victims were fifteen or younger. A quarter of their victims were not Hmong.21 The police say many more Hmong rapists have gone unpunished—they have no idea how many—because Hmong refuse to report rape. Reporters aren’t inclined to push the issue. The only rapes that interest the media are apocryphal gang rapes committed by white men. Was America short on Hmong? These backward hill people began pouring into the United States in the seventies as a reward for their help during the ill-fated Vietnam War. That war ended forty years ago! But the United States is still taking in thousands of Hmong “refugees” every year, so taxpayers can spend millions of dollars on English-language and cultural-assimilation classes, public housing, food stamps, healthcare, prosecutors, and prisons to accommodate all the child rapists.22 By now, there are an estimated 273,000 Hmong in the United States.23 Canada only has about eight hundred.24 Did America lose a bet? In the last few decades, America has taken in more Hmong than Czechs, Danes, French, Luxembourgers, New Zealanders, Norwegians, or Swiss. We have no room for them. We needed to make room for a culture where child rape is the norm.25 A foreign gang-rape culture that blames twelve-year-old girls for their own rapes may not be a good fit with American culture, especially now that political correctness prevents us from criticizing any “minority” group. At least when white males commit a gang rape the media never shut up about it. The Glen Ridge gang rape occurred more than a quarter century ago, and the Times still thinks the case hasn’t been adequately covered.

God has created nothing more noble than intelligence,' he said, 'and His wrath is on him who despises it'; and here intelligence might be defined as the capacity to perceive and assimilate the truth on every level, on one hand distinguishing between the Absolute and the relative, and on the other, perceiving that two and two make four. He said also: 'God is beautiful and He loves beauty.' This relates closely to the concept of fitrah, for the human norm is one of beauty of spirit, beauty of soul, beauty of comportment and, finally, the beauty of those things with which we choose to surround ourselves - home, dress, utensils and so on. Anger, condemned in the Qur'an and hadith on moral grounds, is condemned also because it disfigures the human countenance. An ugly building is un-Islamic, however functional it may be, as is everything cheap and tawdry. The true and the beautiful, therefore, belong to this final faith in a very special way. Stupidity and ugliness have no place in it.

However, on the other hand, she was deeply saddened that broken homes were part of the norm for her granddaughter.

A hostile reading of those words hinges on a misunderstanding of the complexities of segregation. In fact, for the legions of black people who grew up like Michelle Obama—in a functioning, self-contained African American world—racial identity recedes in the consciousness. You know you're black, but in much the same way that white people know they are white. Since everyone else around you looks like you, you just take it as the norm, the standard, the unremarkable. Objectively, you know you're in the minority, but that status hits home only when you walk out into the wider world and realize that, out there, you really are different.

The contrasts between traditional multigenerational cultures and today's North American society are striking. In modern urbanized North America — and in other industrialized countries where the American way of life has become the norm — children find themselves in attachment voids everywhere, situations in which they lack consistent and deep connection with nurturing adults. There are many factors promoting this trend. One result of economic changes since the Second World War is that children are placed early, sometimes soon after birth, in situations where they spend much of the day in one another's company. Most of their contact is with other children, not with the significant adults in their lives. They spend much less time bonding with parents and adults. As they grow older, the process only accelerates. Society has generated economic pressure for both parents to work outside the home when children are very young, but it has made little provision for the satisfaction of children's needs for emotional nourishment. Surprising though it may seem, early childhood educators, teachers, and psychologists — to say nothing of physicians and psychiatrists—are seldom taught about attachment.

Harriet Nelson was my idol when I was growing up. She was everything I wanted to become-- a wife, a mother, and a homemaker. I watched The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet every week on television, reverently noting Harriet's clever way with her husband and sons, her calm demeanor, how she dressed up each day to stay at home taking care of her family. I loved how they worshipped her. And I coveted her apron. My own mother was an amazing woman; long before it was the norm, she had a college degree, worked full time, and raised six children. She enjoyed her career and was successful at it, but as far as I was concerned, the job I wanted was Harriet's.

Communities that offer their members protection must themselves be protected. Norms play that role. If you visit the homes of those high in conscientiousness, for example, you are likely to find lawns well kept and flower beds free of weeds. These people mostly go to church, as churches serve as centers of communities and purveyors of traditional values that have stood the test of time. What might seem to those who lack conscientiousness to be small details make the community a better place. Neighbors care what other community members do, in essence policing community standards. If you live in a suburban area, which is likely to be heavily populated by people high in conscientiousness, see what happens if you don’t mow your lawn for a couple of weeks or fail to replace a broken mailbox in a timely fashion. Count how many of your neighbors take it upon themselves to comment on your yard and your mailbox. Among people who are lower in conscientiousness, individual expression, not hewing to community standards, is a badge of honor. People who are low in conscientiousness might take notice of norm violators, just as people who are high in conscientious do—but they might embrace them rather than shun them, as people who are high in conscientiousness might do.

I had passed great seas and must survive to tell my own tale. With each lash I was widening the great ocean that separated us. The whip I used had transformed me into another breed of another man in another country. This scorched colony that God had not yet found. An island adrift where the norm did not apply, a country that wanted to Christianise, but plundered, chastised and demonised a dignified people. Jamaica, the dot of an island, was now my only home.

Where there is simplicity, there is sustainability. Donde hay simplicidad, hay sostenabilidad. A materialistic and self-absorbed world chasing after the so-called sustainable development goals is like a superobese dog chasing after its own tail. In a self-absorbed world sustainability is a myth. In a simple and gentle world sustainability is the norm. So let's forget about sustainability. Let's forget about sustainable development goals. These are all gimmick. I’ll tell you why. Sustainable development goals is actually the privileged lot's code for ‘let's screw this world with our narcissistic shenanigans, then we can make TV shows on us pretending to fix the world's problems that we continue to create with our lavish, self-centric lifestyle.’ It's not a global goal, it's a global scam, sold by the rich to the rich at the expense of everybody else - at the expense of the working people of planet earth. Am I being too harsh? Perhaps I am, but then again, this planet has never been the home of the human race, it has always been the home of the rich and privileged, while the rest of humanity slave their butt off, barely scraping by on hand-me-downs and leftovers. The privileged screw the world, then the privileged pretend to fix the world. What a joke! So instead of focusing on intellectual pomposities like sustainable development goals, the next time you indulge in a luxury, ask yourself, is it a luxury you really need – if not, how many lives you could lift with the resources spent on that particular luxury! Let me put it into perspective. One fancy apple watch could feed a family of four in the developing parts of the world for half a year. So, stop talking about sustainable development goals, and start practicing sustainable habits.

Sonnet of Life Lessons Rich is not the one who's got a lot of dough, But one whose touch make others forget their woe. Happy is not the one who's always chasing pleasure, But one who forgets all pleasure helping another grow. Success is not about getting recognition, Success is about achieving excellence beyond norm. Achievement is not when you reach a certain goal, But when your goal lifts others beyond your home. Destiny is not a script written by a superman, But one you write yourself with your labor and sweat. Sanctity is not what priests sell you at the church, But how you behave with others outside the church gate. Nobody can give you lessons of life packed in a few lines. If you know to help another, your heart knows all the lines.

By the time my daughter was born five years later, the laws had regressed to what they had been before my grandmother’s time: the first law to be repealed, months before the ratification of a new constitution, was the family-protection law, which guaranteed women’s rights at home and at work. The age of marriage was lowered to nine—eight and a half lunar years, we were told; adultery and prostitution were to be punished by stoning to death; and women, under law, were considered to have half the worth of men. Sharia law replaced the existing system of jurisprudence and became the norm.

The park itself is marked by drought. Grass is dead. A large pond contains a mere puddle of muddy water, and a few scruffy ducks pad across its oily surface. Hardy trees persist here and there, but planting beds are home to cacti and a few swathes of invasive devil grass. Even in the city people are fighting against the painful truth of change. They don’t call it the climate crisis anymore, or global warming, or any other name that might have once have been used to urge positive action. Now, this was the norm.

All patriarchal systems subscribe to a set of moral norms. These can be: men should be bread winners, women should be stay-at-home mums; men should behave like gentlemen, women should not put out; men should be strong and not cry and so forth. Many mistakenly believe that these rules are patriarchal, but their moral rules themselves do not necessarily constitute oppression - had they really been applied. Differing roles are not in and of themselves a sign of oppression. What actually characterises patriarchal systems is the fact that men are free to break the rules, while women are punished both when they comply and when they resist.

One of the most common truths of life is that we all take for granted things that simply are. Whether a spouse, a friend, a family, or a home, after enough time has passed, that person, place, or situation becomes the accepted norm of our lives. It is not until we confront the unexpected, not until the normal is no more, that we truly come to appreciate what once we had.

The pace of today's life, so quick, and so constantly pressured, makes people think only according to how somebody wants them to. A person is never alone; even when he is sent to a sanatorium or rest home for a rest, there is always a definite rhythm and program to follow, everything is decided for you. People are fed, informed, and taught what someone else has decided they need. Huge numbers of people are gathered together, but they are separated by the daily battle for life. All this has affected even believers, brought them closer to the 'norm', made them indifferent. A prescribed way of thinking makes it difficult for a person to become a believer and makes it difficult for the believer to preserve his faith. But do remember, Christ's Church will live eternally even under these circumstances. Preserve your faith, fight for individuality of thought, pray more, read the Scriptures, and God will preserve you. He will not let you lose the clarity of your thoughts. He will not let you think like the faceless mass of indifferent and cold people.

They want capitulation and fear. What is more frightening than an enemy that flouts norms and laws? An enemy who targets the vulnerable? Who is willing to harm and kill children? The pregnant? The elderly confined to nursing homes? The more atrocious they are as an enemy, they believe, the faster the people will beg for mercy.

Norm was a member of an exclusive cheap living room club of rapier-witted conversationalists and coffee guzzlers who called themselves the Dawn-Busting Phantoms. ‘The deal with being a member of the Dawn-Busting Phantoms was that you talked all night at someone’s house and you weren’t allowed to go home until the break of dawn.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t find my home in the depths. That I didn’t crave connection below the pretty surface of things. I've wished to be like all of “them”—the ones who live neat and tidy lives, not always asking questions or seeking more. Able to ignore the dull ache that speaks to places inside me that long to be seen. Performing a predecided role for external approval. Practiced at tucking away parts that don’t fit the prescribed notions for how one should be or act or feel or want or love or fuck or live. But that will never be me.

Researchers in California used the social norms approach to try to get people to reduce their use of electricity. They took readings from the electricity meters at 290 houses twice within a two-week period, in order to get a baseline measure of how much electricity each house was consuming. Then they left a flyer on the doorknob of each house that showed how much electricity that household had been using and the average amount of electricity that their neighbors were using. Think about what this would be like: you come home one day and see the flyer on your doorknob, and read that you are using more electricity than your neighbors. “Whoa,” you might think. “I guess I’m more of an energy hog than I thought.” This probably makes you feel a little embarrassed, and so you stop leaving lights on when you leave a room and maybe even use your air conditioning a little less. This is just what the researchers found: people who discovered that they were above-average electricity users decreased their use of electricity over the next few weeks. But what about the people who found out that they were using less electricity than their neighbors? The feedback had the opposite effect, leading to an increase in power use. “Why should I skimp on the air conditioning,” these folks seemed to say, “when the Joneses and the Smiths are pumping out a lot more cool air than I am?” Thus we see the danger of social norms campaigns: they can backfire among people who find out that they are doing better than average. Perceived norms are a powerful thing. If we think we’re conserving more energy than others, we slack off on our electricity use; if we find out we are drinking less than others, we might down a few more beers at the next party.

Running from places I didn't want to be with nowhere I wanted to go was my norm.

Conservative elites first turned to populism as a political strategy thanks to Richard Nixon. His festering resentment of the Establishment’s clubby exclusivity prepared him emotionally to reach out to the “silent majority,” with whom he shared that hostility. Nixon excoriated “our leadership class, the ministers, the college professors, and other teachers… the business leadership class… they have all really let down and become soft.” He looked forward to a new party of independent conservatism resting on a defense of traditional cultural and social norms governing race and religion and the family. It would include elements of blue-collar America estranged from their customary home in the Democratic Party. Proceeding in fits and starts, this strategic experiment proved its viability during the Reagan era, just when the businessman as populist hero was first flexing his spiritual muscles. Claiming common ground with the folkways of the “good ole boy” working class fell within the comfort zone of a rising milieu of movers and shakers and their political enablers. It was a “politics of recognition”—a rediscovery of the “forgotten man”—or what might be termed identity politics from above. Soon enough, Bill Clinton perfected the art of the faux Bubba. By that time we were living in the age of the Bubba wannabe—Ross Perot as the “simple country billionaire.” The most improbable members of the “new tycoonery” by then had mastered the art of pandering to populist sentiment. Citibank’s chairman Walter Wriston, who did yeoman work to eviscerate public oversight of the financial sector, proclaimed, “Markets are voting machines; they function by taking referenda” and gave “power to the people.” His bank plastered New York City with clever broadsides linking finance to every material craving, while simultaneously implying that such seductions were unworthy of the people and that the bank knew it. Its $1 billion “Live Richly” ad campaign included folksy homilies: what was then the world’s largest bank invited us to “open a craving account” and pointed out that “money can’t buy you happiness. But it can buy you marshmallows, which are kinda the same thing.” Cuter still and brimming with down-home family values, Citibank’s ads also reminded everybody, “He who dies with the most toys is still dead,” and that “the best table in the city is still the one with your family around it.” Yale preppie George W. Bush, in real life a man with distinctly subpar instincts for the life of the daredevil businessman, was “eating pork rinds and playing horseshoes.” His friends, maverick capitalists all, drove Range Rovers and pickup trucks, donning bib overalls as a kind of political camouflage.

Looking for Family When I first became a follower of Jesus, I had high hopes for finding brothers and sisters, even fathers and mothers, who could help me grow as a new believer. The Christian language of family deeply appealed to me. It sounded like a place of belonging. I imagined times when the fatted calf would be roasted for the next few prodigals who arrived home. I looked for small groups, church meetings, and the fellowship of the “one anothers”1 to offer me what I thought was the norm for the Christian experience of life. I have found that I am not alone in my quest. Many of us are looking for the same thing. Yet our search for a place to belong and for a people to “do” life with often leaves us disappointed and disillusioned. No matter how hard we try, no matter how many places we look, friendship and community can be a superficial experience that never satisfies the soul. We long for the deep friendships of David and Jonathan and Ruth and Naomi, but with the busyness of life, who has time to foster such friendships? What was meant to be community often turns into “catch up” times over coffee where we share safe stories of vacations and children. What God has reminded me is that in every group, every family, and every church, people are wearing their own graveclothes. So am I. But I forget this so often, hoping that this group could be the place where I can finally deal with something important in my life, and all my needs will be met—finally.

In the years you’re asking about, they did not forgive a woman for giving birth out of wedlock. Mothers who did not observe that norm were treated as pariahs, sinners. Their own parents rejected them. Because of this, pregnant young women tried every means to hide their sin, often leaving their home for several months so they could give birth in secret behind the walls of the convent.

In the years you’re asking about, they did not forgive a woman for giving birth out of wedlock. Mothers who did not observe that norm were treated as pariahs, sinners. Their own parents rejected them. Because of this, pregnant young women tried every means to hide their sin, often leaving their home for several months so they could give birth in secret behind the walls of the convent.” Lucie unconsciously circled the name “Alice Tonquin” in her small memo book. She couldn’t get the little girl’s face out of her mind; she knew that the old film she’d watched that first day, in her ex-boyfriend Ludovic’s private cinema, would continue to haunt her for a long time. “They abandoned their children there,” she murmured. Richaud nodded.

The hideous revelations elicited a different reaction from the Most Moral President in the World, the usual one: great sympathy for Israelis, bitter condemnation of Hamas, and calls for moderation on both sides. In his August press conference, President Obama did express concern for Palestinians “caught in the crossfire” (where?) while again vigorously supporting the right of Israel to defend itself, like everyone. Not quite everyone—not, of course, Palestinians. They have no right to defend themselves, surely not when Israel is on good behavior, keeping to the norm of quiet for quiet: stealing their land, driving them out of their homes, subjecting them to a savage siege, and regularly attacking them with weapons provided by their protector.

Subjectivism is one of the most significant traits of our time. Feelings and personal desires are the only norm. Often modern man regards traditional values as archaeological artifacts. Since the social revolution in the sixties and seventies, it has been common practice to pit individual liberty against authority. Within this context, even among the faithful, it may seem that personal experience becomes more important than the rules established by the Church. If the individual is the central point of reference, everyone can interpret the Church’s message in his own way, adapting it to his own ideas. I regret that many Christians allow themselves to be influenced by this pervasive individualism; they may sometimes have difficulty feeling at home within the Catholic Church, in her traditional forms, with her dogmas and teachings, her laws, exhortations, and Magisterium. Of course, the disparity is even more significant with respect to moral questions. Consequently,

The Form of Government in Islam In the view of Islam, government does not derive from the interests of a class, nor does it serve the domination of an individual or a group. Rather, it represents the fulfillment of the political ideal of a people who bear a common faith and common outlook, taking an organized form in order to initiate the process of intellectual and ideological evolution towards the final goal, i.e., movement toward Allah. Our nation, in the course of its revolutionary developments, has cleansed itself of the dust and impurities that accumulated during the past and purged itself of foreign ideological influences, returning to authentic intellectual standpoints and worldview of Islam. It now intends to establish an ideal and model society on the basis of Islamic norms. The mission of the Constitution is to realize the ideological objectives of the movement and to create conditions conducive to the development of man in accordance with the noble and universal values of Islam. With due attention to the Islamic content of the Iranian Revolution, the Constitution provides the necessary basis for ensuring the continuation of the Revolution at home and abroad. In particular, in the development of international relations, the Constitution will strive with other Islamic and popular movements to prepare the way for the formation of a single world community (in accordance with the Koranic verse “This your community is a single community, and I am your Lord, so worship Me” [21:92]), and to assure the continuation of the struggle for the liberation of all deprived and oppressed peoples in the world.

When the norms associated with race take on a static and determining quality, they can be very difficult to undermine. Students who receive a lot of support and encouragement at home may be more likely to cross over and work against these separations. But as my wife and I found for a time with Joaquin, middle-class African American parents who try to encourage their kids to excel in school often find this can’t be done because the peer pressures against crossing these boundaries are too great.

Finding Jesus was his way of asking America into his heart, as his personal lord and savior. He was one of many, those who recognized that to be good citizens, to be good neighbors, to be at home in America, one needed to be a Christian. This Christianity didn’t require one to carry a cross, just to say a prayer and to agree to certain values and norms.

I was wondering,” she began as if the argument hadn’t happened. “If I went to buy the new bedding, would you pick out the mattress? It would save time.” “Huh?” His eyebrows went up. “I don’t need to test it,” she said hastily. “Well, I’m not going to be sleeping on it.” Kenzie didn’t respond directly to his faintly mocking comment. “Let me explain. You’re a guy. You don’t know what it’s like to lie down on a mattress with a store salesman grinning at you.” Linc could see her point. It was all too easy to imagine her stretched out on a satin-topped, brand-new double. Fully clothed, of course. But even so. “It’s on Norm.” She reached into her pocket for a handful of hundreds. “Just get whatever mattress seems reasonable, so long as it’s in stock and they can deliver it today.” His arms uncrossed but he didn’t take the money. “Did I say yes to this? I don’t think I did.” “Please, Linc.” He studied her, making her wait. The room was nothing to write home about but she seemed happy here and, all of a sudden, a lot less tense, judging by her body language. He gave in. “All right.” Claws retracted, Kenzie patted his cheek. “Thank you so much.” A while later, he was tying a plastic-wrapped mattress to the top of his car.

The 2013 collective bargaining agreement governing working conditions for SEC nonsupervisory employees goes as far as to provide that a certain number of employees can work from home five days a week.

But then again, grief is like an airport. There are no rules or social norms. You just do what you gotta do to pass the time until you reach your next destination

Regenerative changemakers everywhere are challenging old narratives that have become degenerative. They are writing a new story about a life economy and humanity’s role in this wondrous pale blue dot we call home. While still very much in the minority and outside of the mainstream, small pockets of resistance are gaining strength. With the right support, they could become the norm.

grief is like an airport. There are no rules or social norms. You just do what you gotta do to pass the time until you reach your next destination

After a decade of U.S. wars and surging defense budgets, an expectation of special treatment had taken root in the Navy. Many officers felt they were owed something extra for enduring long deployments at sea and missions to support the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The American people fed such attitudes by placing uniformed personnel on a pedestal, thanking them for their service with discounts and freebies. The further one got from Washington, the easier it became to stretch the norms of acceptable conduct. In Asia, Navy officers pocketed favors they knew would be taboo at home.

But then again, grief is like an airport. There are no rules or social norms. You just do what you gotta do to pass the time until you reach your next destination.

Systems of supremacy and domination ultimately imperil even those who, in many crucial respects, benefit from them. Racism, while it elevates whiteness, is weaponized to erode the welfare and wages that would enable white people to lead healthier, less precarious lives. Misogyny hurts men economically and emotionally, as gendered pay gaps suppress overall wages and through the trap of destructive and often violent standards of masculinity. Transphobia impacts everyone by imposing state-sponsored gender norms and curtailing freedom and self-expression. Ableism, by devaluing and dehumanizing the disabled, dissuades people from demanding the social services and public assistance they need as they cope with illness or aging. The inequality and pursuit of endless growth that drive climate change endanger the homes, infrastructure, and supply chains on which the wealthy and working class both rely—not to mention the complex ecosystems in which we are all embedded. Solidarity, in other words, is not selfless. Siding with others is the only way to rescue ourselves from the catastrophes that will otherwise engulf us.

Money messages are everywhere. They are in our homes, on our televisions and movie screens; they shout at us from billboards, and whisper to us through social norms. We are steeped in money messages before we can speak, and by the time we are adults, often without our knowing, they have matured into personal narratives and core beliefs. The stories that we tell each other eventually become the stories that we tell ourselves.

grief is like an airport. There are no rules or social norms. You just do what you gotta do to pass the time until you reach your next destination.

Traveling is an escape from the norm. It’s a suitcase full of surprises and new adventures. It’s an adjustment to new time zones and new cultures. It’s a refreshing treat that makes you see things clearer. Smell better. Taste better. Traveling opens new doors and sometimes closes old ones. It makes you begin to either value what you have back home or realize that maybe life is better lived somewhere else, sometimes even with someone else, or alone. Traveling is a little detour that may lead you to another path and pull you out of old habits, forcing you to experience life, and not simply live by routines and schedules that only limit you and trap you into a cycle. Traveling makes you remember the food you ate, the sight you saw, the man you met a long time ago. Traveling is about meeting people that may change your life, or whose lives you may change. Traveling is a hop, a skip, or a leap toward something or somewhere new. Traveling can change you.

what norms should people be deradicalized into?

a marked change occurred between 2019 and 2020. The dual crises of the pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests ran slam into the twin dangers of Q-Anon and the consolidation of the Trump paramilitary. In 2019, there were sixty-five incidents of domestic terrorism or attempted violence, but in the run-up to the election in 2020, that number nearly doubled, according to a study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Twenty-one plots were disrupted by law enforcement.5 Violent extremists in the United States and terrorists in the Middle East have remarkably similar pathways to radicalization. Both are motivated by devotion to a charismatic leader, are successful at smashing political norms, and are promised a future racially homogeneous paradise. Modern American terrorists are much more akin to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) than they are to the old Ku Klux Klan. Though they take offense at that comparison, the similarities are quite remarkable. Most American extremists are not professional terrorists on par with their international counterparts. They lack operational proficiency and weapons. But they do not lack in ruthlessness, targets, or ideology. However, the overwhelming number of white nationalist extremists operate as lone wolves. Like McVeigh in the 1990s and others from the 1980s, they hope their acts will motivate the masses to follow in their footsteps. ISIS radicals who abandon their homes and immigrate to the Syria-Iraq border “caliphate” almost exclusively self-radicalize by watching terrorist videos. The Trump insurgents are radicalizing in the exact same way. Hundreds of tactical training videos easily accessible on social media show how to shoot, patrol, and fight like special forces soldiers. These video interviews and lessons explaining how to assemble body armor or make IEDs and extolling the virtues of being part of the armed resistance supporting Donald Trump fill Facebook and Instagram feeds. Some even call themselves the “Boojahideen,” an English take on the Arabic “mujahideen,” or holy warrior. U.S. insurgents in the making often watch YouTube and Facebook videos of tactical military operations, gear reviews, and shooting how-tos. They then go out to buy rifles, magazines, ammunition, combat helmets, and camouflage clothing and seek out other “patriots” to prepare for armed action. This is pure ISIS-like self-radicalization. One could call them Vanilla ISIS.

Throughout the New Testament, Jesus demonstrated hospitality. In the ancient Near East, hospitality was a cultural norm, but Jesus transcended the norm. You see, hospitality is not simply the opening of our homes; it is the opening of our hearts to another.

In fact, however, the effect was the same as in the homes of all those people who are not quite rich enough, who want to look like the rich, and consequently look only like each other: damasks, mahogany, flowers, carpets and bronzes, dark woodstain and high polish—everything that people of a certain kind do to be like all other people of that certain kind. What he had was so similar to the norm that it did not even strike you, but to him everything seemed in some way extraordinary.

Just like Sabrina, you can't reason with Adam. Some things are beyond their comprehension. You can only teach someone so much. Just like Sabrina, Adam has his own expectations and ideas; expecting Spain to bend to meet them. While Sabrina and Adam may feel more at home being able to speak American English and Hebrew respectively, it is not the norm by any means in Spain.

Imagine,” I thought, “a world in which brothers and sisters grow up in homes where hurting isn’t allowed; where children are taught to express their anger at each other sanely and safely; where each child is valued as an individual, not in relation to the others; where cooperation, rather than competition is the norm; where no one

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.

In the programs and statements of these parties one hears echoes of classical fascist themes: fears of decadence and decline; assertion of national and cultural identity; a threat by unassimilable foreigners to national identity and good social order; and the need for greater authority to deal with these problems. Even though some of the European radical Right parties have full authoritarian-nationalist programs (such as the Belgian Vlaams Blok’s “seventy points” and Le Pen’s “Three Hundred Measures for French Revival” of 1993), most of them are perceived as single-issue movements devoted to sending unwanted immigrants home and cracking down on immigrant delinquency, and that is why most of their voters chose them. Other classical fascist themes, however, are missing from the programmatic statements of the most successful postwar European radical Right parties. The element most totally absent is classical fascism’s attack on the liberty of the market and economic individualism, to be remedied by corporatism and regulated markets. In a continental Europe where state economic intervention is the norm, the radical Right has been largely committed to reducing it and letting the market decide. Another element of classical fascist programs mostly missing from the postwar European radical Right is a fundamental attack on democratic constitutions and the rule of law. None of the more successful European far Right parties now proposes to replace democracy by a single-party dictatorship. At most they advocate a stronger executive, less inhibited forces of order, and the replacement of stale traditional parties with a fresh, pure national movement. They leave to the skinheads open expressions of the beauty of violence and murderous racial hatred. The successful radical Right parties wish to avoid public association with them, although they may quietly share overlapping membership with some ultraright action squads and tolerate a certain amount of overheated language praising violent action among their student branches. No western European radical Right movement or party now proposes national expansion by war—a defining aim for Hitler and Mussolini. Indeed the advocates of border changes in postwar Europe have mostly been secessionist rather than expansionist, such as the Vlaams Blok in Belgium and (for a time) Umberto Bossi’s secessionist Northern League (Lega Nord) in northern Italy. The principal exceptions have been the expansionist Balkan nationalisms that sought to create Greater Serbia, Greater Croatia, and Greater Albania.

discipline always has a price. DeMuth went on to write, “Other acts of self-discipline come with their own set of losses: an earlier bedtime, shortened moments at home, or fewer places to hangout. Each sacrifice grinds against the norms of the world around us.”25 Fasting is no different. It comes with a cost.

The baby had an orange plastic baby spoon, and on the mixer for her food there was an orange splash cover, and an orange implement for lifting the basket of steamed food safely out. All these items were purchased fairly thoughtlessly, just in searching for “plain.” Then I noticed the same orange as the trim accent color on the blue-and-white striped onesie she had received at birth and was finally growing into, and the same orange for the safety guard case around the iPhone 4 without Siri which her mother had bought post-Siri for $69.95 and had then on the first day of ownership cracked the screen of and so had unthinkingly chosen the accent color orange for the “protector.” It eventually began to be difficult to not be bothered by how nice and how orange the baby’s objects were. And yet also it was difficult to not want to surround the baby with objects that had been deemed, by my wedge of the zeitgeist, nice. As if taste culture could keep the baby safe. Which in some ways it could: people would subconsciously recognize that the baby belonged to the class of people to whom good things come easily, and so they would subconsciously continue to easily hand over to her the good things, like interesting jobs and educational opportunities and appealing mates, that would seem the baby’s natural birthright, though of course this was an illusion. Something like that. It was an evil norm, but, again, one that it was difficult to not want to work in favor of rather than against one’s own child. I would say you can see where this is going, but I feel it insufficiently gets at how much orange was arriving into the home, and how much warmth and approval these orange objects were received with by the well-educated fortunate people who encountered them. (Notably, my mother was charmed by none of it.)

The screen-averse attitude is about values, principles, and cultural customs. It's a moral and ethical position. It's grounded in beliefs about proper and improper ways of living a good life. It may be framed as if it were objective, as if it were about physical or mental health; but the real problem is that grown-ups are resistant to change. They are anxious about their kids' adjustment. They should be. After all, today's parents aspire to the impossible: adjusting their kids to old-time habitual norms that no longer characterize the predominant social experience. This is the root cause of their screen-time anxiety - it is not the technology, but rather discomfort with the increasingly ambiguous boundary between home and work. Like Engelhardt, parents don't like it that the private world of the controlled family home fraternizes with the frightening unpredictable chaos that is supposed to happen elsewhere. Connected digital devices exacerbate their stress because, paradoxically, they facilitate deeply private encounters with a wildly public world. Parents see attention streaming away from the household. The lines between inside and outside, private and public, isolated and connected become ambiguous. And grown-ups become become confused. This is why most of the screen-time advice offered by experts, practitioners, and journalists advocates for drawing clearer boundaries and achieving better balance -- these are misguided attempts to bring what's blurry into focus.

In her cultural critique The Promise of Happiness (2010), Sara Ahmed writes about the ways in which happiness — as it’s currently constructed — is far more available to some than others, often those who can more easily conform to the ‘norm’. She argues that happiness is a cultural imperative that directs us toward certain life choices and away from others. Happiness is promised to those who are willing to live their lives in the ‘right’ way, e.g. marriage, kids, home, career.