What is normal?

[JSlayerXero]

I was and am still planning to stay out of this conversation as much as possible, because I have a bad feeling where that will go. That said, what about morals? If being unique is so important, does that mean everybody should have their own set of morals? If a person is raised to kill everybody they disagree with then they'll find it normal and just axe off people. If they're taught that anybody self-destructive to the race is worth killing off then they'll attack all kinds of whack-jobs. It doesn't matter if that person is truly doing wrong, but if they think "Oh, their health ideas are gonna get us killed I must end his life" or some variant thereof, then that will just be normal.

In other words, without something deciding what's normal, is there such a thing as morals?

The law of the land sets rules and guidelines for what is considered "normal" conduct. Breaking some of these rules is usually considered to be morally wrong. This may not always be true, but in those cases the person(s) in question believes in a higher authority for moral conduct than the law of the land. If there is such a thing as normalcy in morality, or some standard for morals, who or what determines it? Maybe I missed it, but everything I've been reading seems to be based on what is normal for conduct, not morals.

[Bogdan]

I mostly agree with Doram that for the human kind, normality is hard-to-impossible to define, but here's my view of the things: at a certain point, a majority of people agree on something, all have something in common to agree, thus it becomes the "norm", except it doesn't last. Humans are constantly changing in behaviour and in that way, what was "normal" some time ago, is weird or unusual now, and I'm reffering to everything there, fashion, phylosophy, religion, social interactions, entertaiment, work & hobbies etc.

Humans, at least in my opinion, are trying to complicate and over-complicate certain things as the time passes. I personally am an adept of generalization when giving an example, so when I say "that is normal", I don't necessary reffer that it's normal to be, or George-the-goat-farmer. I try to get as many people as possible and put them into an example, be it a neighbourhood, a city, a nation or the whole human race. I don't stay and hunt the differences of each individual from the society, but spot the commons of them and add them togheter, like a Venn-Diagram if you want. I agree that everyone is unique and has the freedom to behave the way he wants, but until what point can this go? Without commonly imposed "norms" and standards and rules, everything would be a mess in a society. So "normality", whenether it's an artificial concept created by humans or not, is here to tie us togheter, so we would help each other, otherwise, everyone would just overly abuse their unique-ness and the society would break apart (at least in my opinion). Now don't just tell me you are COMPLETELY different from everyone else, you have both differences and commons, and when reffering about commons, there are certanly a lot of people around sharing those. Not in your family, not in your city, but out there they are.

However, I am not necessary saying that the "normal" imposed by the society you are living is a good one. If there are a great number of people, agreeing on it, it's normal. If you are not a part of this people and this is not normal to you, then you are a minority, and don't know about you, but personally I'd always search for someone sharing my points of view or make others believe what I believe, if it makes sense for them and feel like it's something worth believing/following.

Edit: Ugh, noticed the thing about morals.
Don't really know how to define moral, so I'd just assign them as a part of "The Norm". They are imposed by the majority as long as they agree on it. For christians, it may be immoral to sacrifice virgins for the sun god, while for azteks/mayas (sorry I always mix them up) may make perfect sense.

[Doram]

Nononono. Don't confuse things. Being moral is completely separate from being unique. Connecting them like that is like comparing being good at gaming to having brown hair. One is what you do, and the other is what you are. You can be completely normal and completely immoral ("angry mob"), and you can be completely unique and completely moral (Jesus), and every other combination in between. It's two separate descriptors for the same thing. Shape and size, smell and texture, talking about the same stuff, but in completely different ways.

[Harmless]

Ah, okay. That makes more sense.

I still stand by that being too unique (or trying to be completely far from normal) would make us lose some of our humanity, or ultimately make us lose some of ourselves. After all, we are only human. We're not superheroes.