In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

68 Chapter 4 Norms and Action Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines—these are of trifling import. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm. —Henry Miller, Black Spring (1938) M ORALITIES, ETHICS, laws, customs, beliefs and doctrines, far from trifling concerns, depend on interpersonal relations, arenas of action, and shared understandings. Perhaps the fact that we can coordinate so well is itself miraculous. Our frequent decisions to affiliate—the basis of social order—are inevitably local, contingent on our idiocultures, even as they are shaped by external structural forces. Decisions to trust—to embrace belonging—require the predictability and the expression of commitment to shared standards. People must believe that certain behaviors and responses are expected and proper, even while the details of group life are emergent and negotiated. In short, local communities require normative cultures. To this end, groups develop behavioral strategies that organize routine interaction. Although norms have often been treated as reflections of society writ large, they are enacted in small groups and gain power from co-presence and shared culture. Norms build on local action scenes and extend beyond them through the parallel structure of groups as well as through a belief in the legitimacy of this cultural isomorphism. If groups are to maintain stability—a durable interaction order that underlies the desire for predictability—members must fashion a robust system of expectations and controls that allows actions to be treated as routine. Despite the assumption of diversity and novelty in cultural production , the mundane, the ritual, and the foreseen make culture a collective and comfortable property of groups. A shared commitment to propriety answers the Hobbesian conundrum: how is social order possible in the face of individual interests? As Christine Horne (2001) observes, answers to this normative question have been plentiful on both the micro and the macro levels. Some microtheorists, particularly those with a rational-choice bent, focus on the coordination of individual actions through parallel assessments of costs and benefits in light of the expected choices of others. Macrolevel theorists stress the impact of societal standards (such as values) and social formations (such as class). The seeming rightness of these arrangements results from socialization and institutional control. Each perspective has contributed to the debate on how norms channel social life. In contrast to both of these perspectives, a groups approach, emphasizing the enactment of negotiated meanings, operates from the meso-level of analysis, examining individual action within a domain of others and recognizing the importance of set routines. The Concept of “Norm” The concept of “norm” is a sociological construct that has seeped into popular discourse, and as often happens when technical language is transformed into lay-speech, confusion abounds. Norms, as I use the term, involve the recognition of rules of order. Norms are not merely behavioral regularities but involve a collective embrace of the propriety of this regularity. Norms involve perception and commitment and, thus, are cultural choices that then become solidified. Norms have a rulelike quality but are not merely cognitive and emotive but are performed within a social surround and are justified, when questioned, in light of widely held values. In practice, the frequency and location of normative behavior varies, despite an assumption of universality. Norms are never as universal as the term implies, and groups can disagree or divide on the applicability of any particular rule of order. As a result, while the examination of norms has often been linked to a vulgar functionalism, norms are not given but, in contrast, locally situated rules of order that can be negotiated or even serve as points of conflict. The distribution of power within a local community shapes the outcomes of these negotiations and conflict. The examination of norms must not presume that in any given situation norms work; they often fail to generate agreement. But the existence of an ongoing group suggests a desire for cohesion, even if that search eventually proves futile. A theory of group culture argues that it is insufficient to note that individuals act in similar ways. Norms have an ought quality, and thus internalization is privileged over identification or compliance (Kelman 1973). Normative behaviors do not just occur but are taught. Being taught, they are not simply technical responses, but through the hope to create stability they are moral as well. They are the outcome of desire. The rules of order found in a local context are linked to collective...

Share