The Normalisation of Deviance

[mikem8634]

You asked if we are in danger of not using it when accurate, and no, we are not in danger. I don't see it not being used in the correct circumstance, but I did go on to explain how it is also used in the wrong circumstance.

 

Fair enough, I mis-read it as general rejection of the point, but now see you were answering the specific question.

 

If someone says they don't want immigration because they don't like foreigners would that lead you to believe that they believe themselves and their race to be superior to other races.

 

No, not in isolation. They would certainly be espousing a xenophobic point of view but they would not have made a specific declaration of racial supremacy. I would consider racism possible but not definitive without more evidence.

 

---------- Post added 25-11-2016 at 13:05 ----------

 

They might just resent people that have not paid money into the HMRC, coming over here and making their life harder.

 

And if they did I would endeavour to explain that poor people do not have the power to dictate the economic circumstances of other poor people.

 

---------- Post added 25-11-2016 at 13:06 ----------

 

We seem to have normalised politicians telling lies and not keeping their promises. The media didnt let Clegg get away with it, but the Tories seem to be able to promise anything without being chanlanged when their promise is not kept.

 

Exactly. And it has been turbocharged in relation to Brexit and Trump.

[ANGELFIRE1]

I have had a read of this topic, but I have to admit it's way over my head,

 

Angel1.

[Petminder]

No, not in isolation. They would certainly be espousing a xenophobic point of view but they would not have made a specific declaration of racial supremacy. I would consider racism possible but not definitive without more evidence.

 

Xenophobia is the irrational fear of foreigners, not liking them isn't xenophobic. Do you think an Iraqi would be xenophobic if they didn't like the British or feared the British?

[mikem8634]

I have had a read of this topic, but I have to admit it's way over my head,

 

Angel1.

 

I am concerned that racism could be made normal. Partly because people may not want to call it out due to thinking the term has been used wrongly and/or too much.

 

---------- Post added 25-11-2016 at 14:53 ----------

 

Does anybody have an explanation or justification for The Daily Mail putting Thomas Mair's conviction and sentencing on page 30 that doesn'tmake them look very bad?

 

All I can come up with is a combination of the following elements -

 

embarrassment

complicity

ideological protection

ideological normalisation

shame

indifference

hypocrisy

dishonesty

 

---------- Post added 25-11-2016 at 16:14 ----------

 

Owen Jones today, making many of the same points I am trying to raise.

 

 

Whether you like him or not, is he wrong here?

Edited November 25, 2016 by mikem8634

[Margarita Ma]

It is legitimate to say that not all voters for Trump, Farage and Brexit are racist.

 

However, because the terms racist/racism have been over-zealously applied by some throughout the recent political upheaval, are we in danger of not using it when it is accurate and necessary?

 

Are we at risk of sitting by and letting a highly dangerous normalisation of deviance take place?

 

 

For reference - The normalization of deviance is defined as: “The gradual process through which unacceptable practice or standards become acceptable. As the deviant behaviour is repeated without catastrophic results, it becomes the social norm for the organization."

 

Do you mean as in the Rotherham Abuse scandal and forced marriage etc. ?

 

---------- Post added 25-11-2016 at 21:30 ----------

 

too true, not sliding away from a topic

 

---------- Post added 25-11-2016 at 01:57 ----------

 

 

just a min you suggesting that their life meant any less

 

---------- Post added 25-11-2016 at 02:03 ----------

 

im suggesting that a guy that liked to collect medal from the second world war and was a fantasist who was somewhat mentally unstable did a terrible thing.

 

And I would suggest that a person who puts profit and watching the football above the lives of workers is despicable, but then I am biased, my husband died of Mesothelioma(asbestosis) as many others have and will because people put their own comfort and profit above the lives of others.

But what has this to do with deviation.

Most people that I know are horrified at the thought of Donald Trump as President of the USA. I think he never expected to win, unfortunately the population in the USA is as demoralised and disenchanted as here and many did not vote, as happens here too. The Rednecks who want to be able to gun tote and cuss at people in the street turned out for him and the FBI for some unknown reason (but I'll give you three guesses) put the boot in at the last minute before withdrawing it at the last second without even saying sorry were were wrong to do so.

Anyway we deviate don't we? I thought the topic was the Normalisation of Deviance. So Normalisation of American Spelling on Computers that are supposed to be set to English is Normalisation of Deviation as many people accept it. Personally I think it is evil as I was brought up in an era that followed the Oxford dictionary for spelling.

Other things are more evil though.

 

---------- Post added 25-11-2016 at 21:34 ----------

 

Are we talking about deviation or about Racism Elitism and and its definitions. . the tendency to call people racist when they raise a complaint about someone or something. The changing of meanings through time because of the acceptance of a deviance from its original meaning or what? we seem to have slipped from one thing to another to another.

in other words deviated.

 

---------- Post added 25-11-2016 at 21:46 ----------

 

No, it is happening in relation to the lie propagated by several key political figures that the problems of a group of economically-disadvantaged people who have been cut adrift by the political policy-making that has brought about globalisation, can be blamed upon a different group of equally economically-disadvantaged people who are slightly different from them.

 

That lie was started by Farage and Trump, and it has since become socially-acceptable to scapegoat other those who are different. That is shifting the Overton Window in a negative direction.

 

The next phase of that appears to be taking shape in the rebranding of Neo-Nazis as Alt-Right (a nicely sanitised term) with Richard Spencer dressed like a hipster whilst delivering dangerous, deluded and hateful rhetoric.

https://news.vice.com/story/watch-richard-spencer-rally-the-alt-right-america-is-white-peoples-creation

 

Richard Spencer is a Neo-Nazi and has been mentored and praised by Steve Bannon, Donald Trump's chief strategist.

 

If you support Trump then you are partially aligning yourself with the normalisation of Neo-Nazism.

 

Are you aware of that?

 

Are you okay with that?

 

Actually the blame game started well before Farage (translated means Fash as in rough edges to be smoothed off) and Trump entered Politics. The Tories have blamed the poor for their own poverty since inception. I expect the same has happened in the USA. and the poor have had it up to their necks. some will run and hide some will be too depressed or ill to movesome will stand up and shout for the person leading the fight and some will be pushed over the edge and do terrible things. I am not saying it is right just that this is what is happening with the vote and politics.

[mikem8634]

Do you mean as in the Rotherham Abuse scandal and forced marriage etc. ?

 

In what sense exactly?

 

Are we talking about deviation or about Racism Elitism and and its definitions. . the tendency to call people racist when they raise a complaint about someone or something. The changing of meanings through time because of the acceptance of a deviance from its original meaning or what? we seem to have slipped from one thing to another to another.

in other words deviated.

 

Any and all, whichever way it goes.

 

Initially I was talking about the possibility of reluctance to identify racism and challenge it accordingly. I have recently encountered several claims that the Trump and Brexit results were partially fuelled by the arrogant assumption that those who voted for both of those outcomes were racist. Whether or not that is true, it presents the possibility of a backlash against using the term, which has the potential to contribute to a normalisation of racism due to allowing it to go unchallenged.

 

Semantically speaking, the term racism has indeed deviated from its original meaning of late. It has taken on the catch-all properties of group discrimination and shed the essential element of race. I understand why this has happened as race is a somewhat nebulous concept, a social construct, and there is a growing argument that the modern perception of race/racism is really more of a perception of culture, predicated on common, distinct identities and practices rather than biology.

 

 

Actually the blame game started well before Farage (translated means Fash as in rough edges to be smoothed off) and Trump entered Politics. The Tories have blamed the poor for their own poverty since inception. I expect the same has happened in the USA. and the poor have had it up to their necks. some will run and hide some will be too depressed or ill to movesome will stand up and shout for the person leading the fight and some will be pushed over the edge and do terrible things. I am not saying it is right just that this is what is happening with the vote and politics.

 

Agreed. I was specifically referring to the recent political cycle and the most recent manifestations of the issues you describe, but they do, indeed, go back much further.

 

In fact, in another thread I was asked what would you say to a white/black/Asian man that has paid taxes all his life and can't get a decent paid job because of foreign workers driving the wages down? Would you tell him to vote UKIP because they're the only party that represents him? Or would you tell him to vote labour or Tory because they've put him in that posisition and they'll sort it out?

 

My reply -

 

Off the top of my head, I would tell him to think very carefully before voting for any of the options you have suggested.

 

I would tell him that immigrants are not to blame for his difficulties and that those on the lower rungs should never turn on each other. They simply lack the power to alter, in either direction, the circumstances of each other and are used as scapegoats to divert attention from those who do wield power and consistently siphon wealth away from the areas where it is most needed.

 

That his situation has been caused by successive governments failing to invest in the infrastructure to cope with the rising population.

 

That the seeds were sown for our current political and economic climate in the de-industrialisation that occurred in the 1980's and that he is part of a social metric that was cut adrift then and has been left adrift ever since.

 

I would tell him that, for all their flaws, the only organisations that have ever attempted to stand up for the rights of ordinary workers are Trade Unions and the EU.

 

I would tell him to ponder why every major electoral decision in this country in recent years has gone the way Rupert Murdoch/Paul Dacre wanted it to so stop believing The Sun and The Daily Mail.

 

I would tell him that when doctors, teachers, and firefighters go on strike he should support them for as long as it takes.

 

I would tell him that capitalism has proven itself incapable of operating ethically and in the interests of the people and that it simply cannot regulate itself.

 

I would tell him that he has been lied to and not to be conned into thinking that people like Trump and Farage have his interests at heart when they are cut from exactly the same cloth as those who created this mess.

 

I would tell him that currently, there is no genuine political representation for him in this country.

 

Then I would remind him that none of this has been caused by immigrants. They have been thrown into this as much as he has.

 

---------- Post added 25-11-2016 at 22:54 ----------

 

Xenophobia is the irrational fear of foreigners, not liking them isn't xenophobic.

 

Merriam Webster

Definition of xenophobia

 

: fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign

 

 

Oxford English Dictionary

xenophobia

noun

 

[mass noun] Dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries:

‘racism and xenophobia are steadily growing in Europe’

 

 

Are two definitions enough for you to accept your mistake?

 

Do you think an Iraqi would be xenophobic if they didn't like the British or feared the British?

 

Yes, xenophobic towards the British.

Edited November 25, 2016 by mikem8634

[*_ash_*]

Yes, interesting.

 

For reference - The normalization of deviance is defined as: “The gradual process through which unacceptable practice or standards become acceptable. As the deviant behaviour is repeated without catastrophic results, it becomes the social norm for the organization."

 

-

 

It is legitimate to say that not all voters for Trump, Farage and Brexit are racist.

 

However, because the terms racist/racism have been over-zealously applied by some throughout the recent political upheaval, are we in danger of not using it when it is accurate and necessary?

 

Are we at risk of sitting by and letting a highly dangerous normalisation of deviance take place?

 

Looking at this another way...

 

It is legitimate to say that not all voters for Clinton, Corbyn and Remain are arrogant, up their own arse, know it alls.

 

Some are. Like some Brexit voters are racists. I think the number of far left-ideologists who voted remain is probably comparable to the far right-ideologists who voted brexit btw, so evened up in that respect IMO.

 

However, because the terms communists/far left-ideologists, and 'lefties' have been over-zealously applied by some before and throughout the recent political upheaval, are we in danger of not using it when it is accurate and necessary?

 

Are we at risk of sitting by and letting a highly dangerous normalisation of deviance take place?

 

All former communist states, USSR and the whole eastern block springs to mind.

 

-

 

The meaning of racism is fixed

 

Is the meaning of xenophobia fixed?

 

I just wondered why you included the underlined bit in this next bit.

 

 

Merriam Webster

Definition of xenophobia

 

: fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign

 

 

Oxford English Dictionary

xenophobia

noun

 

[mass noun] Dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries:

‘racism and xenophobia are steadily growing in Europe’

 

 

Are two definitions enough for you to accept your mistake?

 

 

 

Yes, xenophobic towards the British.

[mikem8634]

Yes, interesting.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Looking at this another way...

 

It is legitimate to say that not all voters for Clinton, Corbyn and Remain are arrogant, up their own arse, know it alls.

 

Some are. Like some Brexit voters are racists. I think the number of far left-ideologists who voted remain is probably comparable to the far right-ideologists who voted brexit btw, so evened up in that respect IMO.

 

However, because the terms communists/far left-ideologists, and 'lefties' have been over-zealously applied by some before and throughout the recent political upheaval, are we in danger of not using it when it is accurate and necessary?

 

Are we at risk of sitting by and letting a highly dangerous normalisation of deviance take place?

 

All former communist states, USSR and the whole eastern block springs to mind.

 

Nice to hear from you Ash.

 

You make a valid point, but you know what I am going to say, don't you?

 

I have based my conjecture on many actual events, for example many recent instances of racist and neo-nazi graffiti, assaults, the rebranding of white supremacy as alt-right, the appointment of Steve Bannon to the White House and, most startlingly Richard Spencer's neo-nazi rally under the guise of the National Policy Institute. These are real world manifestations of the normalisation of neo-nazi racist deviance.

 

So, if you want to make your case then provide the evidence.

 

 

 

Is the meaning of xenophobia fixed?

 

I just wondered why you included the underlined bit in this next bit.

 

I am struggling with the definition of racism. I have defined it in the thread and that is the meaning that I am basing my argument on. But so many people seem to use it differently nowadays, I wonder whether I should just go with it.

 

However, I'm not aware of a similar tendency with xenophobia so I do consider it fixed. I'm happy to consider another point of view though.

 

Well spotted, I did that British bit very intentionally. I get the feeling that Petminder is interested in the semantics of this discussion and he asked me about an Iraqi who didn't like the British. The definitions of xenophobia that I provided indicated a dislike of foreigners generally so I wanted to clearly state that his fictional Iraqi was indeed xenophobic, but that there was no information in his question to indicate a dislike of foreigners per se, just the British.

[*_ash_*]

Nice to hear from you Ash.

 

Likewise

 

 

 

You make a valid point, but you know what I am going to say, don't you?

 

I can generally predict your posts. The number of times you ask for evidence is certainly most expected!

 

I have based my conjecture on many actual events, for example many recent instances of racist and neo-nazi graffiti, assaults, the rebranding of white supremacy as alt-right, the appointment of Steve Bannon to the White House and, most startlingly Richard Spencer's neo-nazi rally under the guise of the National Policy Institute. These are real world manifestations of the normalisation of neo-nazi racist deviance.

 

So, if you want to make your case then provide the evidence.

 

You can provide examples of the past, much like I can, but I can't show evidence of the future, much like you can't provide evidence of your conjecture, hence the word 'conjecture'.

 

This came up a lot in the pre-ref debates. (generally by me )

 

You tend to use hindsight and documents as your evidence so I'm not sure why you are suddenly making predictions, that's unusual, and why I posted.

 

I have based my conjecture on many actual events, for example many recent instances of racist and neo-nazi graffiti, assaults, the rebranding of white supremacy as alt-right,

 

So, if you want to make your case then provide the evidence.

 

You're basing things on a few morons. There always has been and always will be morons. (both far right as well as far left )

 

What is shifting people (if at all it is happening, marginally but enough to swing votes), then I blame the left just as much as the right.

 

-

 

Current things in the papers are the remainers, including people like Major stirring up new referendum possibilities, and Farron said the same on QT on Thurs, then you will see the far side of one side causing problems. Most probably the people on either side who want anarchy and fights are probably licking their lips at this nonsense.

 

 

I am struggling with the definition of racism. I have defined it in the thread and that is the meaning that I am basing my argument on. But so many people seem to use it differently nowadays, I wonder whether I should just go with it.

 

Nice dodge there mike!

 

Well spotted, I did that British bit very intentionally. I get the feeling that Petminder is interested in the semantics of this discussion and he asked me about an Iraqi who didn't like the British. The definitions of xenophobia that I provided indicated a dislike of foreigners generally so I wanted to clearly state that his fictional Iraqi was indeed xenophobic, but that there was no information in his question to indicate a dislike of foreigners per se, just the British.

 

Edited November 26, 2016 by *_ash_*

[mikem8634]

 

You can provide examples of the past, much like I can, but I can't show evidence of the future, much like you can't provide evidence of your conjecture, hence the word 'conjecture'.

 

This came up a lot in the pre-ref debates. (generally by me )

 

You tend to use hindsight and documents as your evidence so I'm not sure why you are suddenly making predictions, that's unusual, and why I posted.

 

 

I didn't just pluck this out of thin air because it suited my political agenda. I am talking about actual events that have taken place in the last couple of weeks. No matter how you diminish it, that is evidence. Despite saying you can, you have provided none as the basis for your scenario. So as it stands you are just plucking it out of thin air. That is the difference, that is the value of evidence. Everything without evidence is just post-truth.

 

I used the word conjecture on purpose, I know what it means. At no point have I claimed that my concerns are factual, true, definite but what I have based them on is. At no point have I claimed to know all of the information available. I have said look at these real things that have happened, because of them it worries me that this might also happen. Evidence - conjecture, that's how constructing a hypothesis works.

 

 

You're basing things on a few morons. There always has been and always will be morons. (both far right as well as far left )

 

I am basing things on quite a bit more than a few morons. I am basing it on the Chief Strategist to the President of the United States of America and his white supremacist, neo-nazi protege.

 

Have you seen the National Policy Institute speech? Have you heard the white supremacist rhetoric? Seen the Nazi salutes? Are you aware of Richard Spencer's relationship to Breitbart and Steve Bannon? And Bannon's to Trump?

 

I am basing it on the neo-nazi murder of a British politician a handful of months ago and the decision of the most influential newspaper in the UK to put the news of the conviction on page 30.

 

I am basing it on the increasing mainstreaming of political parties with neo-nazi tendencies across Western Europe.

 

I am basing it on the fact that white supremacist terrorism is more prevalent in the USA than foreign terrorism.

 

I am basing it on facts. Can you dispute a single one of them?

 

 

 

What is shifting people (if at all it is happening, marginally but enough to swing votes), then I blame the left just as much as the right.

 

-

 

Current things in the papers are the remainers, including people like Major stirring up new referendum possibilities, and Farron said the same on QT on Thurs, then you will see the far side of one side causing problems. Most probably the people on either side who want anarchy and fights are probably licking their lips at this nonsense.

 

I am categorically not saying that there are not massive problems with the left side of the political spectrum but there is nothing that comes even remotely close to neo-nazi links to the White House.

 

The thread is about the normalisation of racism, white supremacy and neo-nazis. Show me those on the left who are doing that.

 

Do you have more that 'what about the left whataboutery?' and pretending that it's about a few morons when, in fact, the Chief Stragegist to Trump has strong neo-nazi ties and millions of his followers don't seem to care?

 

If you do then I'd be interested to hear it.

 

 

 

Nice dodge there mike!

 

 

 

 

Absolutely genuinely not a dodge, I'm properly unsure. Personally, I am happy to stick with the original/classic definition of racism but I am guessing that I'll run into some opposition to that due to the way more and more people tend to use it to reflect culture rather than race. Have a read of this as an example of the evolution of the term. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-considine/muslims-are-not-a-race_b_8591660.html

Edited November 26, 2016 by mikem8634