Changing Norms

Renee Gehman

In 1956, Elvis Presley swiveled his hips on Ed Sullivan, and We the People had a question or two about his televised gyrations. Is this “family appropriate”? Couldn’t more of this have been censored with filming from the waist up? And what of the screaming girls, who sound as if with each full swivel they come one step closer to being infatuated to death, or at least inflicted with post-gyration-stress disorder?

Fast forward fifty-plus years and Adam Lambert, “American Idol” runner up, becomes the subject of similar debate after his “American Music Awards” performance, which includes background dancers “simulating sex” as well as a passionate kiss shared by Lambert and his male keyboardist during the song. I watched videos of Presley and Lambert back to back, and my, how the norms have changed!

Norms: the accepted and expected practice in a given societal setting, without being law. If it is the law to drive 35 miles per hour, for instance, it is a common norm for people to drive 40. If someone were driving exactly 35, many would be frustrated by this case of law trumping norm. Some might even find themselves strangling the steering wheel and shouting “DRIVE!!!!” I may or may not speak from personal experience.

Norms bend with time and travel, and by travel, I don’t necessarily mean international travel (though they change there too), just travel from one cultural setting or group to another. Norms that change with travel are often easily identified, as I experienced recently in training for and “running” (slowly jogging) a marathon. I trained by running around my queit neighborhood, and each day I ran alone, down roads on which cars and trucks and not runners prevailed. In such a culture, I perceived that I was not the norm. 

When I got to Philadelphia on race day, however, there were 20,000 runners and we were all together. Suddenly running long distances was the norm—boom, just like that. Sometimes I imagine moving to a culture where an hour-long afternoon siesta is the norm, and that is another norm shift I would quickly recognize and embrace.

Other norms change over time, like the norm for “entertainment” via televised performances by popular singers. The norm during Elvis’ time was vastly different from the current norm, but this change was not something that happened overnight. Think also of the civil rights movement—the recognition of rights for women, African-Americans, and others—which began generations ago and yet continues today. Or the standard for church attire, especially in the Mennonite church in North America. Or portion sizes of food provided by restaurants.

What scares me about these norms that change over time is how they tend not to be “in your face” and thus are not always easily detected. They slip in slowly and subtly. Then the shift itself is so gradual that distinguishing whether it is good or bad proves a complicated task, and the change is often not shocking enough for us to act for or against it.

And, subtly as these shifts occur, when do they stop? If, in fifty years, we went from Elvis to Adam Lambert, what could we arrive at in another fifty years with an equally drastic progression? Or should we trust that these things will not progress linearly, but rather ebb and flow, like the tide and economic stability?

On the one hand I scoff and say, “Oh please, I wouldn’t know a thing about this Lambert guy if it weren’t for the news article I read that compelled me to find his video.” But on the other hand, this is out there for the world to see, and we find comfort in our own lives when we see that which we’re not sure is “okay” happening in the lives of others. So also, we are unsettled and sometimes swayed when what we thought was not okay seems to be the norm for everyone else.
When I as a teacher made the drastic jump from preschool to high school, I found myself cringing at the language I heard among my new, elder students, my norm having been changed at an abnormal speed. At the preschool level, we had discouraged children from using “potty language” out of context, or, in extreme cases, from using the word stupid. 

Recognizing that I might be overly sensitive and overwhelmed by what I perceived as a prevalence of profanity, I wondered if I might have to bend a little to the norm and tolerate more from these students nearing adulthood. After all, it seems the norm for families to work harder to keep young children from being exposed to swear words in the home and on TV. Then as children turn into teenagers and young adults, many families seem to ease up on the sheltering, allowing the lessening of censorship to occur gradually and rather painlessly as a natural transition into adulthood.

I shared these musings with a wise colleague, known for his behavior-and-discipline expertise, who bluntly told me, “No. If you have a problem with the language, you make it known, and stick by it. That’s the only way it will change. Just because it seems to be normal doesn’t mean you need to change your ways.” And in that particular case I think such zero-tolerance language rings true.
Norms are bred by whatever cultural values speak most loudly. If we do not hear our values represented in the norms, we ought to count the cost of living quietly on the fringes, unheard. When I look at that Presley and Lambert example of what has been acceptable in a musical performance, I see the cultural value of sexual expression and freedom speaking more loudly than purity. When I look at the civil rights movement I see equality speaking more loudly than tradition. When I teach in a classroom today, I hope that respect speaks more loudly than profanity.

To borrow a phrase from National Public Radio, this I believe—that we might all benefit from a careful look at the cultural groups of which we are a part and a reevaluation of the “norms” established within those groups.

I dare not suggest we rally together and protest “simulated sex” dancing during awards shows, because I myself would rather just not turn on the TV. But I do hope we ask these questions in our churches, our families, our workplaces, our groups of friends: What are our most important cultural values? Are they currently reflected in the norm as we know it? If not, perhaps a proverbial Elvis hip-swivel is in order. 

—Renee Gehman, Souderton, Pennsylvania, is assistant editor, DreamSeeker Magazine; teacher; and a seeker of appropriate norms.