The word “normal” has always been elusive
You might expect normal to be an approachable sort of word, confident in its popularity, safe in its preponderance over abnormal. Defining normal should be easy, and being normal should be a modest ambition. Not so. Normal has been badly besieged and is already sadly diminished. Dictionaries can’t provide a satisfying definition; philosophers argue over its meaning; statisticians and psychologists measure it endlessly but fail to capture its essence; sociologists doubt its universality; psychoanalysts doubt its existence; and doctors of the mind and body are busily nipping away at its borders.
References
- Frances, Allen. (2013). Saving Normal CHAPTER 1. What’s Normal and What’s Not? (p. 18). New York, NY: HarperCollins.
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Type:🔴 Tags: Philosophy / Semantics Status:☀️