7 - Norms and Values

Summary

What is a “Norm”?

A norm is a widely accepted social practice. Norms are widely accepted social practices that are contingent on power, authority and legitimacy. Norms serve to guide a community's members along what is considered acceptable behaviour. Because there cannot be specific rules for every single form of human activity, norms provide an important means of social interaction that enables a given society to get on with life in modernity. Norms develop over time and there are always more people in favour of a norm than not. There are also always some people who go against the norm. Sometimes this is considered abnormal behaviour and at other times this is considered anti-social behaviour, both not always meaning the same thing. Acceptable practice usually becomes the norm. And there are several accepted ways of satisfying social norms.

A norm also reflects the average performative actions of a given community. The American Heritage Dictionary (4th edition, 2000) states that a norm is “a standard, model, or pattern regarded as typical [such as] the current middle-class norm of two children per family”. The word norm is etymologically derived from the Old French word norme, and from the Latin root, norma, meaning a “carpenter's square”. Therefore, the metaphor “to square away” an entity is to get work done, and norms help us organize our lives by getting work arranged into neat compartments to be pursued at a later time or for future reference. Norms are not a priori or universal and tend to be dynamic and moderated by such factors as economics, culture, technology, and philosophy. Norms help regulate and contain the social actions of individuals in the private and public spheres. They are a means of controlling human emotions and keeping people in check vis-à-vis acceptable standards of behaviour. Norms that are accepted in one community are not necessarily acceptable across other communities within societies and across societies. The appealing value of a particular set of norms in one community might be repulsive to another. Traditional societies that subscribe to the killing of old persons and young children would be considered morally reprehensible in modernity and in late modern societies.