When Deviance Goes Mainstream

When you think of deviance, images may immediately color your mind with a psycho serial killer, wasted drug users, or of delinquent adolescents with a back story of a getting in trouble with the law.  However, actual deviance is much more simpler than that and includes such a wide array of behavior.  For example, I could decide to wear house pants and slippers to go out to a trendy restaurant and that would, by definition, be deviant behavior because I have simply deviated from normal behavior, and it would be frowned upon.

Britannica defines deviance as "violation of social rules and conventions."  Essentially, any behavior that deviates from the norm is deviant behavior.  Norms can be socially held beliefs or actual laws with legal consequences.  We have norms established throughout society on every level, from inside our homes, to our local churches and schools, and on city, state, and federal levels.

Remember, when you are breaking the norm, you are acting in a deviant way. 

This does not mean you should be shunned or sent to jail for every deviant act.  I would be shunned from that trendy restaurant if I showed up in my house pants and slippers, but if you have ever gone into a Walmart, you would know that outfit of choice would blend right in.  I have to wonder to myself if there are any deviant attire choices in the Walmart realm, where sites, and even coloring books are dedicated to "The people of Walmart."  I digress...

So, if deviance is going against the norm, then by definition in and of itself, we now live in a society that is littered with politically deviant behavior.  Not just littered.  It is so prevalent and out in the open, I have to wonder if we as a nation, are setting new norms for behavior.  A large part of the country believes departing from the norms of politics is desirable.  Sometimes they are needed to embark upon the horizon of change so many of us desire; ones that will lead to draining the proverbial swamp.  Other behaviors deviating from socially acceptable behavior for a political figure become a toxic kink in our social contract as actors within our American democracy.

Now, you can sit and read this and think, under your own ideas of right and wrong, as to who would be labeled as a deviant in the political arena.  It is not important for me to tell you which people to ascribe to the list of political deviants.  That is beside the point, because your beliefs may or may not align with mine and I'm not interested in debating who belongs on Santa's naughty or nice list this year.

What is incredibly important to this discussion is seeing how deviating from the norms in the highest levels of society actually trickles down to everyday interactions between individuals of all ages, especially with regards to children.

The mid-term elections are over... 2020 here we come, but I am leaving Social Media behind!

If there is one thing I absolutely despise about politics, it is the divisive rhetoric that infects the American strata.  Every aspect of American life becomes infected with toxic bias, grandstanding, and extremist behavior.  It isn't just the left or the right: both are guilty and have their extremists.  From the likes of the Proud Boys on the right to the extremist Antifa on the left,  there is still a middle ground where an acrid atmosphere lingers and persists.

One reason why I left social media was because of the toxic wasteland it has formed into.  Political extremists get under my skin just as much as it would if I were forced to sit next to rattlesnake.  Essentially, there is no difference in my mind.  Both make a lot of noise and spew venom.  Sometimes it comes from people we know just as much as people we don't truly know.

Deviance from normal social interaction is what defines social media.

So, as I have reasoned in my mind is what some parents have seen and what others either are blind to.  The level of deviance in society trickling down from political figures have made it into the schools.  Couple this with the social media addiction our nation suffers from, and everyone is being subjected to the venom and our minds are rotting.  Our children are being influenced in ways we do not condone.  One errant individual on social media is more than capable of injecting you or your child with feelings that turn into actions - deviant actions - and that can lead to lack of self-esteem, to mental health issues, and even death.  Is there a tally for the number of children who have taken their own lives due to cyber-bullying? Yes, and there are many sites dedicated to this very topic.  

True Story...

Pre-teen girl plays Roblox and meets someone (a boy) playing the game and decides to take their chat to a loosely (if at all) monitored messaging forum online.  At first, everything is innocent enough as not to raise any warning flags.  Then the grooming begins.  The girl is chatting with an adult, but the adult is lying about who he is.  Then the adult starts talking about knives and how cool they are, while at the same time, the girl's best friend is also engaging with this male individual.  Where the story goes is long and complicated, but at the end of the story, the girl who had been told by her parents to watch out for predators (they could be anyone, and people online lie about who they are), was entering into a self-loathing, self-harming cycle of deviant behavior that was fed to her by that "boy" she met on Roblox and even by the "best friend."

Brainwashed by some man on the other side of her computer screen and by her actual school friend at the same time.

When I was a pre-teen, the most saucy thing I came across was Madonna's Papa Don't Preach, and I had a real affinity for Kirk Cameron.  I begged for a Nintendo system.

However, today, children of all ages are more aware and have more social pressures than I believe I did in my middle-class suburbia during high school.  The stress of high-schoolers is now closer to the stress I felt much later in life.

Society and its norms are changing so rapidly, we simply can't keep up.

Easily said, we are - whether you like it or not - living in the age of Trumpism.  Speaking your mind about your personal beliefs, no matter whom it may offend, is becoming the norm.  There is still a resistance to this, but we have to face the fact that openly airing your grievances regarding minorities, immigrants, the "others," is becoming a mainstream norm.  The pendulum of being politically correct has swung into the acceptance of being politically incorrect, and we are witnessing the after effects of this shift in norms.

It is not sustainable, and history is truly prologue.  Take a look back into the Vietnam and Nixon era and you will find (minus social media), the same divisive nature between the left and right.  From a deeply entrenched swampy American Capital to activist groups waving their extremist flags, that era was all prologue to what we have today.

The pendulum keeps swinging.  Is it only swinging?  Or is it also lowering with each pass, threatening to slice open the main artery of American democracy?

Will our norms evolve again to a more civilized state, at least for a little while... before history repeats itself, again?

My only answer is to persist on searching for the truth in what narrative is being sold to the American public.  The problem is, as the old colloquialism goes, perception is reality.  If you perceive there to be a threat, the threat exists.  Does it exist if you ignore the threat, pretend it isn't there, and turn a blind eye to the truth?