Deviant Is The New Normal
March 31, 2008 / 1:59 am • By Dr. Melissa Clouthier
A friend and I were discussing furries. Do you know what they are? Well, if you don’t, read here about furries. It’s not that you need to know that weird freaks exist that get sexually excited by seeing people dressed up like Bugs Bunny or dressing like a giant panda, themselves. It’s that you need to know that no behavior is considered out of bounds any more.
Remember the dude from Seattle who got caught having sex with a dead deer next to the road? Yeah, well, he got caught doing it again. And you know the TV show basically extolling the virtues of polygamy? Well, I watched one episode. Polygamy is normal, don’t ya know?
In the article linked above, referring to the furries, the critic blames the internet. And while the internet provides fertile soil for every freak to grow his deviant idea, I believe it’s the psychology profession that has sanctioned every weird thing as normal. How can any limits to human behavior be imposed? Who is to say it’s wrong? And where do you draw the line?
Most people are repulsed by pedophilia. It’s as natural and instinctual to be disgusted at pedophilia as being disgusted at the smell of three day old fish in the sun. Most people find somebody who gets off on furry anything as freakish. It’s called deviance:
Deviance describes actions or behaviors that violate cultural norms including formally-enacted rules (e.g., crime) as well as informal violations of social norms (e.g., nose-picking).
Deviant behavior is practiced by those who are not knitted into the fabric of society. That is, the less interconnected they are, the more likely to adopt deviant behavior. This, of course, is chicken-egg reasoning. Does the deviant behavior isolate a person? Probably, and before the internet, probably did so even more. Now, a freak can find solace in a support group of sorts through the internet and their “society” becomes an association of freaks just like them. The social pressure to conform to norms no longer exists in the same way.
Couple this technological phenomena with the mental health profession’s unwillingness to label anything abnormal and there is a perfect cocktail of dysfunction becoming elevated to normative behavior. In addition to this, the church’s influence has sharply declined. The moral constraints of the church worked as a stop gap and shaming mechanism for those outside the societal mainstream. And this was to the good. Shame can be a powerful behavioral influence and a positive one for society at large.
In a more secular society, who will define normal? Will such a thing exist? And what will be the ramifications for society? I think we’re already seeing it. There is a balkanization amongst the populace. Women. Gays. Blacks. Furries. Even normal groups, isolated, become weird and calcified in their ideology.
People identify with their identity rather than a unifying idea.
The secular future will be a nihilistic, narcissistic place where all ideas are created equal and there is no abnormal. Behavior isn’t deviant, it’s individualistic. Essentially, the future will be like Germany is today, and the rest of Europe for that matter. Devoid of meaning because everything has meaning. Devoid of virtue because virtue exists in whatever you wish for it to exist in.
The elevating of the deviant has serious repercussions for society as a whole. Instead of a finely woven fabric, America will be like a unfinished patchwork quilt–all the pieces sitting next to one another but no unifying threads. Our lack of cohesion will be our definition. By elevating everything, we’ll be nothing.
