Norms and Boundaries
This?
Or . . . this?
Much attention, airtime, and pixels have been expended of late decrying the increasing incivility and divisiveness in public life. Accusations and epithets were flying even in Wyoming—not between political opponents—but among conservative politicians in the state legislature.
For years, Wyoming has enjoyed a reputation for civility in its politics that sets it apart from many places. There were exceptions, to be sure, but politicians prided themselves on being courteous even when disagreeing, longtime observers say.
But things appear decidedly less civil in Wyoming politics this year. In September, a Park County GOP official sent a state lawmaker an email calling her an obscenity and suggesting she should kill herself. . . .
It started with an email that Sen. Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, received from Troy Bray, a Republican precinct committeeman in Park County, about an anti-vaccine mandate bill she voted against in March.
“If I were as despicable a person as you, I would kill myself to rid the world of myself. You sicken me,” Bray wrote. “Thank you for ensuring that the people of Wyoming are subjected to tyranny once again. F(asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk) YOU C(asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk).”
A month later, the former Speaker of the House had to apologize after cursing a colleague in a hot mic incident. During that same special session of the Legislature, yet another lawmaker, complaining about inaction on a bill, posted a meme on Facebook that declared “fix bayonets.”
I’m sure you’ve read about and can think of many other examples of this type of nastiness . . . from elected leaders down to strangers in the check-out line at the grocery store. We think: this person is rude, that person is intolerant, that kid is out of control, that dog should be on a leash. Lurking behind these thoughts is an uneasiness—an awareness of how easy it would be for the situation to escalate from nastiness to overt conflict.
What if, instead of obsessing over instances of “incivility” and “divisiveness” encountered in public life, we broaden the focus? What if we tried to understand these moments—not as random, idiosyncratic instances of misbehavior but as patterned responses to something deeper?
I don’t have complete answers to these questions. But I invite you to come along while I think through them.
“Incivility” may be experienced as a discrete moment of tension or conflict. It’s a feeling that how someone is acting doesn’t match what is expected of a neutral, polite person. Social norms set expectations for what is considered polite behavior in a particular context; it is a collective standard applied to all.
Polite or socially correct behavior varies by culture. Although American culture is informal compared to Japanese culture, we still recognize that swearing at people or threatening their families for simply doing their jobs is not proper. The loud, angry person is violating a social norm—and the person getting yelled at is following the rules set by her employer. This is not good.
Social norms arise through human interactions. They come about through shared understandings of acceptable behavior. If a collectivity becomes socially disorganized, segments of the population no longer feel bound by the informal norms of the larger society. Even worse, previously accepted ways of collective problem solving no longer work. So when norms fail, the burden of getting people to behave respectfully falls on individuals. Unsurprisingly, the press now features articles about setting interpersonal boundaries. As normative structures weaken, the responsibility for defending the social order devolves to the individuals who must negotiate their relationships, one at a time.
THE DECLINE OF ETIQUETTE AND THE RISE OF ‘BOUNDARIES’
For centuries, strict social norms dictated what people could politely talk about. Now we have to figure it out for ourselves. . . .
Of course, we shouldn’t return to where we came from—a time when “unpleasant occurrences,” much less mental illness, sexuality, and gender presentation, couldn’t be discussed. But without, say, middle-school etiquette films to guide our dinner-table conversations, we all have to figure out how much of ourselves we want to offer our friends, family, and co-workers at any given moment, and how much we want to receive from them in turn.
Social media have accelerated the fraying of norms because they provide a medium for instant communication that has few social markers or areas that are presumed private. This has led to online harassment and oversharing, often roping people into conversations where they do not belong.
In an era of instant, abundant communication, how do you step back when you’re feeling overwhelmed? If it feels like there isn’t a clear answer, that’s because we’ve left behind the era of strict, clear etiquette. We’re entering a new one, in which the rules are bespoke and the arbiters are each and every one of us.
Individual arbitration of social boundaries is an ineffective substitute for a normative framework for behavior. People don’t have the cognitive or emotional capacity to police all the areas of social life that they inhabit. It is exhausting.
The unregulated, lightly moderated social media spaces where people hang out can be compared to what sociologists call “emergent organization.” These are fluid, informal social groupings arising spontaneously out of a shared activity or interest.
I got a real life lesson on emergent organization some years ago. When I was an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina, I enjoyed swimming at lunchtime. Noon to 2 pm was allocated to recreational, or “rec swim” in the Olympic-sized pool. This was a popular time for faculty and grad students and there was a large contingent of regulars in the pool. Lanes were designated Slow, Medium, or Fast. The first time I swam there, I picked one of the medium lanes and watched for a bit before I got in the pool. I could see that people spaced themselves out so that there was an even distance between the swimmers in the lane. Swimmers stayed to the right, coordinating so that the group of swimmers moved in a dynamic oval pattern from one end of the pool to the other. Each swimmer paid attention to what others were doing, to avoid kicking or splashing someone. It was nice.
I became one of the “regulars” and started making friends with folks who showed up on the same schedule. The scene was both easy-going and focused: people were considerate to each other but it wasn’t a chit-chat club; swimmers were there to exercise. Sociologists would call the rec swim group a self-organized, or emergent, social organization. Activity took place within a normative framework, and the norms were successful in eliciting cooperation and guiding coordination.
One day, an obstreperous and somewhat crazy person showed up. She didn’t care about norms; she swam where she wanted to swim, in the direction she wanted to go, and she kicked people—by accident! She loudly protested when anyone asked her to please not do that. She left her stuff all over the locker room and voiced her complaints constantly. It was not clear if she was talking to someone, or if this running monologue was just her normal.
What happened to the noon-time rec swim? After a few regulars asked her to follow the norms and the lady responded with hostility and agitation, no one said anything. People started avoiding whatever lane the lady got in. There were fewer female swimmers coming at lunchtime because no one wanted to be in the locker room with her. Over time, she got a lane mostly to herself. A sociologist would say that the scene became socially disorganized. Cooperation and coordination were lost; problem-solving and the communication of norms were gone. Then the norms were gone. Lane signs were still posted but they had become merely symbolic, not prescriptive.
So how is a real life emergent organization like, say, a Facebook group? In both settings, people can get together based on a shared interest, it is self-organizing, and it lacks hierarchy or formal structure. But an actual social setting like rec swim is different than a virtual one. In real life, you can stand back and observe others, you can see how the system works and adjust your behavior accordingly. You can pick up on social cues, looks and comments. There is a feeling of camaraderie in a well-organized social system. There is a feeling of stress in a disorganized one.
The real life example shows how vulnerable an informal system can be. Rec swim changed from an organized to disorganized social system in a few short months. Our informal swim club was essentially demolished by one actor who refused to cooperate with the prevailing norms.
When people get together, they spontaneously develop ordering principles, like norms or hierarchy, to help them operate as a group. The tendency towards cooperative action has helped human populations to survive as a species. When we get together online, this human tendency is easily thwarted.
Since individuals can operate clandestinely on social media without revealing their true identities, social cues are weak and unreliable. Norms for interaction are replaced by rules authored by the platform, the “terms of service.” As we are finding out, this is a suboptimal solution.
Food for thought.
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Notes:
James McLeod, Disaster Tourism in Trump’s America
Michael Waters, The Decline of Etiquette and the Rise of ‘Boundaries’