Scoffing at "weirdness" makes no sense (intoxicated, mentally, college)

[Phil75230]

I see at least four problems with judging Weirdness as deserving lower personal regard vis-a-vis "normals"

1. The culture's predominate criteria for "weird" and "normal" are arbitrary to begin with. ways of labeling (i.e., it's just personal 'gut feeling' and/or social conditioning -- not chiseled in stone fact). That alone makes the "weird" equals "worthy of social downgrading" uncertain at best.

2. Even the so-called objective criteria are arbitrary, given the severe effects of social downgrading on a person's mental well-being. This means there has to be a very good reason for declaring one deserving disrespect before actually deeming the person as such.

3. The typical social penalty scheme is incoherent. People seem quicker to snub the "odd, strange person" than the typical socially skilled yet unscrupulous or menacing person. This is a discrepancy difficult to justify (seemingly explainable only in purely visual aesthetics terms).

4. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of scorn, scoffing, other social punishment. Legitimate scorn or social sanctions are limited to use against people who consciously and deliberately set out to non-defensively hurt, harm, or degrade others. Merely being "weird" - in and of itself - is often not in any way a hostile or degrading act at all, let alone a deliberately committed one.

[elnina]

Being just weird and behaving socially unacceptable are two different things.

Perhaps you should define them first because I am not sure what you want to discuss.

[Phil75230]

Originally Posted by elnina

Being just weird and behaving socially unacceptable are two different things.

Perhaps you should define them first because I am not sure what you want to discuss.

I'll think of an extreme case, just to get my point across.

Compare two people.

A) A typical intoxicated "belligerent drunk" college-aged party animal at a bar who otherwise has at least slightly above average social skills.

B) A non-intoxicated (in any shape or form) who is in a park, intending to get in a super-excited state of mind by listening to music on his phone, then runs around and yells like a hyperactive excited four year old child.

I'll be the first to admit that B is indeed a strange, if not bizarre, person. But stepping out of the "society's say-so box", I don't see why he and his behavior should be deemed stranger than A's. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that B is actually less worthy of disrespect than A. At least the hyperactive man-child can instantly stop his behavior when there's an immediate pressing need to do so. That's more than can be said for the drunk, esp. a belligerent one - who will remain lacking in self-control until the alcohol wears off.

[modest]

I was thinking more along the lines of emo culture or furry culture. Neither is personally my thing, but I'm not offended by those who participate. Same with tats or different color hair when working in a corporate job. I'll likely never do either, but it doesn't offend me when I see others doing it.

I think some people get worried that it's going to throw off the balance of their safe, predictable, vanilla, controllable lifestyles. Or it's going to infect their loved ones in harmful manner. I subscribe more to the live and let live doctrine. If you leave me out of it, and you're not harming anyone else, then I'm typically fine with it.

[elnina]

I still don't get your point. Not sure where you see all those adults listening to high-energy music on their phone, then running and yelling like a hyperactive excited four-year-old. That must be a quite rare occurrence.
While public drunkenness is against the law and socially unacceptable, being excited "Iike a 4 year old" about music - is not.
Most people would "penalize" drunkenness more than a weird behavior while listening to a music
However, both could be a sign of some mental instability.
Public drunkenness is more common, so maybe people just got more immune/accustomed to that behavior.

[fleetiebelle]

Originally Posted by elnina

I still don't get your point. Not sure where you see all those adults listening to high-energy music on their phone, then running and yelling like a hyperactive excited four-year-old. That must be a quite rare occurrence.
While public drunkenness is against the law and socially unacceptable, being excited "Iike a 4 year old" about music - is not.
Most people would "penalize" drunkenness more than a weird behavior while listening to a music
However, both could be a sign of some mental instability.
Public drunkenness is more common, so maybe people just got more immune/accustomed to that behavior.

Someone who's publicly drunk might be behaving poorly, but their behavior is explainable by them being intoxicated. The person running around screaming because of music or whatever, would actually make me more nervous because their behavior doesn't make sense. That falls into the realm of potentially dangerous, not just weird or goofy.

[Phil75230]

Originally Posted by fleetiebelle

Someone who's publicly drunk might be behaving poorly, but their behavior is explainable by them being intoxicated. The person running around screaming because of music or whatever, would actually make me more nervous because their behavior doesn't make sense. That falls into the realm of potentially dangerous, not just weird or goofy.

The belligerent person is probably more of a threat than an eccentric oddball. It's ultimately not a matter of whether it makes sense to the majority. The issue is whether that behavior signals a deliberate effort to hurt or demean others. If it isn't doing so, then it's hard for me to see how that can signal potentially dangerous behavior. At most, they probably deserve counseling or medication (although we should be careful here, because sexual orientation and gender identity used to be considered dangerous in the not so distant past).

In fact, my inspiration for this thread is precisely the social and professional changes that (very justifiably) shifted from "deviant" to "normal" differences in sexual orientations and gender identities. If society proved be so off-the-mark so about stigmatizing these two identities, then why not about other matters, even in 2022? In fact, neurodiversity is getting more and more attention in recent years. Thus, there's a campaign to destigmatize high-functioning autism and probably other kinds of mental differences, too.

[elnina]

Originally Posted by fleetiebelle

The person running around screaming because of music or whatever, would actually make me more nervous because their behavior doesn't make sense. That falls into the realm of potentially dangerous, not just weird or goofy.

Mental health problem?
A lot of Americans have mental health problems that weren't properly addressed, like... never??
I see people standing on the street corners and vividly preaching Bible, or ranting about political events, or talking to themselves waving their hands and making facial grimaces.
No one is listening to them - they are just in their little world.
It's not against the law, though.
I am not nervous around them. I just shrug and go about my business.
Why are we so worried about what other people eat, wear, believe or do?
Why did we became so intolerant, suddenly? They don't bother me - I don't bother them.

[treemoni]

People do many things to make sense of [their] world. Calling people who are different from them "weird" is just one of myriad ways to accomplish this.

[gizmo980]

We're debating over Drag Queen Storytimes on the Parenting forum right now (I added my perspective as a librarian - not a parent), and a few people who oppose it keep using the argument that they're "not normal." So I asked why that's a bad thing, and haven't yet received an answer to that question. I also mentioned how my license plate frame has the Beetlejuice quote "I myself am strange and unusual," since I've always embraced my weirdness!

I'm not weird in a socially awkward or mentally ill kind of way, but I've never been one to fall in line with normalcy either. So what?? Personally I'd rather encourage my (hypothetical) kids to embrace that too, instead of making them feel ashamed if they're something - anything - deemed outside of the norm. That's how kids end up hurting themselves, ya know?