Negative Norms

In The Road Less Travelled and Beyond, Dr Scott Peck reflects on something he calls “negative norms” (p. 34). Negative norms are cultural norms that lead to internal and external chaos, which can be interpreted to mean improper and unhealthy psychology and emotions. 

 He gives two examples of negative norms. One is the norm in the advertising industry. Advertisement suggests, directly or indirectly, that women are primarily sexual objects who lose value as they age. Sally, a fifty-year old woman succumbs to this norm and undergoes cosmetic surgery to make her face look younger and more appealing. She is unable to relinquish the image of herself as a thirty-year old youthful beauty. Consequently, she ages disgracefully rather than with grace. 

 A second norm is the idea that work outside the home is more important than the work inside the home. Bill, a thirty-five-year-old executive who succumbs to this norm, feels that his work for a company is more important than his wife’s homemaking work, which includes looking after their three-year old daughter. Bill is unable to truly appreciate his wife. But his wife herself, who also is vulnerable to the same negative norm, feels unsatisfied with life as a homemaker and envies the woman who leaves her house to work forty hours a week. Thus, with a husband who doesn’t appreciate her and a way of thinking where she doesn’t value herself, this poor woman is left psychologically and emotionally damaged. 

 Both Sally and Bill think themselves normal people because they are upholding what is the cultural norm. But in reality they are abnormal. “Normal,” Dr Scott Peck writes, is “an obligation to use critical thinking” (p. 37). A normal person employs critical thinking to see through the negative norms of the society he or she lives in.  

 Are there negative norms that you notice in society? Are you aware of yourself succumbing to any of these norms? If so, remind yourself that is isn’t normal to practice negative norms. What’s normal is think for yourself. 

 May God grant us the ability to think critically. May He grant us the courage and ability to replace negative norms with positive norms. Aameen.