The Mask of Normalcy

Social Conformity and its Ambiguities

George Serban

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781138516304
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351479738
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Psychologists view well-adjusted behaviour as conformity the ability to navigate relationships and events within a framework of societal rules and regulations. George Serban argues that a better test is how well an individual is able to navigate adverse situations by handling conformity's ambiguities and incongruities. He uses clinical findings and content analysis to explore the interface between social conformity and nonconformist behaviours.The definition of the normal is itself problematic, since society's expectations are sometimes controversial, arbitrary, or equivocal. As a result, people who have problems coping with social conformity choose between degrees of nonconformity or hiding under what Serban calls a "mask of normalcy." Further complicating matters is that some nonconformist attitudes are now seen as normal, supported by governmental policies tacitly favouring moral relativism. A multicultural society is crisscrossed by shades of controversial values and mores. New social codes of "correct" conduct blur the distinction between true and false, right and wrong; and social conflict simmers as a result.What society perceives as well adjusted may even change within a society over time, depending on prevailing social values. Some noticeable variations have been within male-female relationships and sexual morality. Serban ultimately concludes that those who have learned how to manipulate social situations are viewed as well adjusted. Those who have not are seen as struggling or maladjusted.

1

Unstable Social Conformity within “Normal” Behavior

Didi is a professional woman in her late forties. Single and some-what attractive, she is moderately successful in her career. However, Didi is worried that she is going nowhere. She works too hard at a job that is no longer very challenging. Her emotional life is unsatisfying. The happiness she earlier obtained from making good money has diminished. Now the over-riding feeling is that she is making no further progress, either in her career or in her relationships with men. She wonders whether her career has become stagnant and her private life reached an impasse.

Some knowledge of her life history might help us to understand her predicament. As a young, financially poor, but ambitious woman, she labored hard, surviving on various scholarships in college and during her post graduate education to get a master’s degree in economics from a prestigious university. Armed with the degree, she decided to become a successful career woman and to prove herself by working in an elite financial investment house. In order to climb the corporate ladder faster and be appreciated by her bosses, she would spend long hours at work, almost completely sacrificing a regular social life.

For a long while, the financial rewards combined with regular promotions gave her a sense of achievement, and confidence in her ability to eventually become a well-placed executive, if not a chief executive officer. She was proud of her feminism and of her determination to take men head-on. However, her private life was less successful, punctuated by occasional short-lived affairs with men who were also career-driven and who viewed the relationship as flings with no strings attached. She was unable to develop a steady relationship with a man because she traveled abroad frequently and was often held back in office attending late-hour meetings. This led to dates being postponed or cancelled much to the irritation of her lovers.

After years of casual dating, she met a charming, older Wall Street account executive, John, at a social gathering. He was not only well off but also courted her with persistence. He fitted perfectly into her hectic life style since he was already married and led a life independent of her. John convinced her that his was a marriage of convenience and that he was free to live as he pleased. He said that he wasn’t ready for a divorce because he had a teenager son who his wife wasn’t able to handle alone.

These “true confessions” didn’t bother Didi too much at the time because it allowed her to pursue her busy schedule. In fact, she found that it was nice to have “her man” available when she returned home from a long trip. It worked for a while to her satisfaction until she started to get irritated by his unavailability on holidays or for regular vacations with her because of his family obligations. Upset, she started to protest, forcing him to make small concessions by taking her with him on short business trips when she was available.

However, over the years, Didi gradually became dissatisfied with the limited time they spent together. She began to insist that he officially separate from his wife since their son was now in college. Furthermore, she had a new job which required much less traveling and she was looking forward to spending more time with him. To her disappointment, she was spending most of her free time alone or with female friends because he was never there. As if this wasn’t bad enough, she was fast reaching the age of forty. She was worried that she would lose her chance to have a child if John did not get a divorce or at least a legal separation from his wife.

When Didi pressurized him, John promised to consult a lawyer, but the expected separation papers never materialized.

At this time she met a man about her age who fell in love with her and wanted to marry her. After some deliberation she decided that she didn’t love him, because of he had some annoying personality traits. She made up with John with whom she had a strong sexual bond. Their short separations following arguments about his dilly dallying succeeded, ironically, in reinforcing their attachment. He could calm her down with solemn assertions that he was working hard to change his marital status. The reality was, that despite so many years of being together with Didi, he was still not ready to leave his wife.

Then, unexpectedly, Didi’s career took a downturn. Her company was bought out by a conglomerate and she was fired. This was a dev-astating blow, particularly since she believed that her contribution was essential to the profitability of the company. Looking for a job again at her age, was a rude jolt. It was worse, since there was a recession and jobs were hard to come by.

Regardless of how much energy and time she devoted to find a job, it took her over one year to nab another position. It was with a less prestigious firm, with less pay and bonuses. Meanwhile, she decided to terminate her relationship with John. He continued to stay solidly married while giving her superficial support. He claimed that he had his own problems with his clients. She became aware of how lonely she was, coming home every evening and having nobody to talk to.

The feminist position advocating commitment-free live-in relationships with men was not working for her. She found it disheartening to spend most of the evenings without John because either he claimed he was seeing clients or he just could not be reached.

At the same time, the new job was not only not giving her too much professional satisfaction but also revealed to Didi her distressing lack of marketability that excluded her from competing for the top post in the company. The recognition and success she desired seemed a shimmering mirage dancing in front of her eyes, but always out of reach. She was beginning to have doubts about her future, wondering whether her high expectations of her career and personal life were out of sync with reality Did she actually possess those professional abilities that the professors in her master’s program and previous bosses had praised so lavishly? Was there something wrong with her attitude? Was she missing the traits of personality that were required to move up the corporate hierarchy and break the proverbial glass ceiling? She had been aware for a long time that she wasn’t good at handling office politics, though she thought that it was compensated for by her professional efficiency, dedication, and skills.

Had her feminist stance of independence, self-sufficiency, and confidence rubbed her bosses and her lovers the wrong way? In retrospect, she was sure that some of the men with whom she had short-lived affairs had felt rather uncomfortable with her directness, forwardness and easy camaraderie, which also possibly cooled their passion.

John’s rejection combined with mishandling of her intimate relationships with men and the regret of not having a child were haunting her from time to time.

Didi also questioned the wisdom of her tolerant attitude during her relationship with John. It had led her nowhere, but messed up her life. Looking at her other relationships in the light of this new wisdom, she felt that her less accommodating attitude toward some past lovers had led to the premature termination of the relationships. She concluded that she didn’t understand men and her feminist approach didn’t help her handle her interaction with them better. Now, thinking back, she believes that she tried to dazzle them with her professional success and affluence. Love and sex were treated casually as a psychobiological function within the framework of a relaxed interaction of equal partners. Now she was pushing fifty and it seemed harder than ever for her to find the right man. Also she no longer had faith in her ability to hold him if she did find one.

To alleviate her endless frustrations, she started to drink alone in the evening at home. From time to time, John called her trying to renew the relationship, professing eternal love while making the same empty promises.

Didi, by our conventional standards, may be viewed as a well-adjusted normal person, a conformist trying to succeed in her chosen career. In fact, humanistic psychologists would say that she was pursuing self-actualization. However, looking at her situation objectively, her ambitious drive for self-actualization turned out to be the cause of her distress. She ended up unable to deal with her unrealistic expectations. While her feelings of frustration over the stagnation of her career were natural, gradually they eroded her self-esteem and made her emotionally insecure.

The relevant question is whether her emotional behavior fits the definition of a well-adjusted person. Any qualified answer assumes a value judgment. However, by our social standards, she lives a relatively unfulfilled emotional and social life that affects her self-esteem and induces bouts of depression alleviated by drinking; yet on the surface she appears to function normally. Nevertheless, from a social perspective she seems to have an adaptive problem induced by her difficulty in making the right decisions about the men in her life. To some extent, Didi resembles Sophie, the protagonist of Sophie’s Choice, the novel by William Styron.¹ Didi might be considered, in retrospect, a woman who often made the wrong decisions about men. But, unlike Sophie whose crucial decisions were out of her control, a matter of fate, Didi reached her judgments of her own free will. Her distress is the result of a deliberate effort to act in keeping with her vision of herself as a feminist. Her failure to live up to her standards of a fulfilled career questions her objective appraisal of her aim, particularly because of her inability to cope emotionally with setbacks. In this sense she tends to be a self-deceiver. But even though her social adjustment is filled with anxieties and passing states of depression, she still acts within the realm of conformist-normalcy.

According to prevailing social views, people are “well adjusted” as long as they conform and adapt to the customs, rules, and regulations of the society. The ideal societal concept of proper adjustment has been freely equated with being normal which is only partially true as will be shown later. It is, in general, represented by people who are able to achieve the life tasks of working, raising a family and playing by the social rules. As long as they function within the norms of society and are able to deal with changing social conditions without social or emotional disruptions, they are judged to be well adjusted, a state that has become synonymous with being normal. For convenience, for the time being, the two terms are used interchangeably. In this context, society would consider equally normal a conformist who works sixty hours a week to earn a meager living for his family and one pretending to be a conformist. An example of the latter would be a Wall Street investment banker who makes a pot of money by deliberately misleading and cheating customers, selling them fancy investment schemes of dubious quality that are profitable to him and to his investment house. Furthermore, the assumed notion of being well-adjusted normal ignores the emotional drama of unfulfilled ambitions, or inner conflicts that may consume, exasperate, and frustrate people unless they decide to disobey social rules and regulations.

I should mention here that the concept of “proper adjustment-synonymous-with-normalcy” is viewed differently when it relates to a religious code of behavior. The latter assesses a person in terms of the moral values that guide his conduct. People who are self-centered, greedy, and ruthless are viewed as morally corrupt and sinners, though society does not reject or convict them. The disconnect between the religious and secular view of proper behavior can create serious emotional conflict in some people. The inability of the faithful to follow precepts viewed by their religious denomination as sins, makes them sinners fallen from God’s grace. However, this may be irrelevant for the social mores that accept their alleged sinful behavior. A good example of such a conflict is the new liberal sexual standards which approve abortion and homosexuality but which go against the tenets of many religions.

Take the case of David, a professional man in his thirties who was brought up in a religiously oriented family in which the parents expected him to perform well in school, get a good job, and raise a family. David tried hard to follow the family religious and social norms by working hard in school in order to become an accountant and secure a good job.

But, socially he was withdrawn, had few friends, and rarely dated a girl; the few dates were the result of family and peer pressure. He was not interested in women.

In fact, he felt different in this respect from other boys since his high school years. He avoided the company of girls in contrast to his mates. Instead, David had fantasies of sexual intimacy with boys, though the idea of actually experiencing it horrified him. In college, he was seduced by a friend into the practice of mutual masturbation which he enjoyed very much but which left him guilty and depressed. After a while, he avoided having similar encounters, though he continued to fantasize about them while masturbating. He was upset that he was a homosexual, although by then homosexuality was socially acceptable. In fact, he went into therapy to treat his alleged sexual deviation. After one year of therapy, he was advised to have sex with a surrogate sex partner, but he had difficulty performing with the woman and didn’t enjoy it all. This made him even more depressed, particularly since he had a hard time explaining to his family why he didn’t have a girlfriend. After exhausting a variety of excuses including an inability to find the right girl, he said he was depressed and that interfered with any desire to date. The depression was real because he was unable to accept his sexual orientation and at the same time realized that he was unable to change it. To accept it, meant that he was committing a sin by having “unnatural” sexual needs, though society did not think so. The HIV/AIDS epidemic relieved him of any thought of having any sexual contact with men. Staying sexually neutral was a compromising solution that did not change his negative feelings about himself. Was he socially maladjusted because his needs were running counter to his strong religious beliefs? In a sense, yes! By not accepting the new social norms while feeling caught in a clash of values, he was being pulled apart. He opted for following a set of religious values, but at a high price.

The unfulfilled expectations of Didi or the religious-social conflict of David have not only created significant psychological problems for them but also brought out the arbitrariness of the concept of social conformism. Their plight viewed from a psychological standpoint questions their alleged psychological normalcy while acting as conformists, Didi, socially and David, religiously. Psychologically, the concept of a well-adjusted person is a little different. Psychologists view people torn by inner conflicts, who doubt or deceive themselves as emotionally impaired, hence not quite socially adjusted.

All of us are familiar with Willy Loman, the character in Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman.² He is an average fellow who fought hard to succeed and failed while attempting to work within the customary social framework. Eventually, he committed suicide. By our social standards, Willy might have been considered adjusted. Yet psychologically, he was torn inside by unfulfilled dreams and unrealistic ambitions that magnified his feelings of social failure making his life less bearable. It slowly led to his sense of defeat and his wish to die as expressed in the suicidal act. The play is popular not only because of its intrinsic literary value but also because it epitomizes the tragedy of so many common people who labor hard within the system but are unable to meet their social expectations. Nonetheless, even if one seems to function normally from the legal, religious, or psychological points of view, he still may perceive himself as an outsider, performing his social duties mechanically because he feels alienated from society. He appears to be doing alright by the social standards, but from his perspective, his style of life has lost its meaning because he feels that he lives an absurd, illogical life. These feelings were well expressed by Meursault, the character in Albert Camus, The Stranger.³ He felt bewildered by the irrational social rules that did not make any sense to him. He just could not understand or relate to them. Somewhat similar feelings of alienation of a dysfunctional suburban American family were expressed more prosaically by the protagonist of the movie—American Beauty—by the main character Lester Burnham.⁴ Interestingly, the ultimate fate of both heroes was dramatic: one was sentenced to death by an insensitive judicial system and the other was discarded by his dear ones like unwanted baggage.

The individual’s feelings of alienation and estrangement are intensified by the conflicting norms of conduct imposed by society that appear to him as meaningless and absurd. Society is ambivalent toward these people and treats them as odd characters or labels them as strange or weird.

A case in point is that of Fred, a fifty-year-old entrepreneur who built a successful business worth about fifty million dollars from scratch. It had seventy-five employees and a high growth potential. He was married, had two grown-up children and lived a very comfortable life. He had every reason to be content with his life, surrounded by all the trappings of wealth, but he became dissatisfied. Instead of looking forward to new business challenges and higher financial rewards, he felt detached and saw his business activities as purposeless. In the past, he had enjoyed playing by the rules of social success, honing them almost to perfection in order to achieve his goals of wealth, recognition and social status, but now he questioned the meaning of his previous relentless efforts and of his socially self-imposed style of life.

This change in his philosophy of life occurred after he had a close encounter with death. He escaped with relatively minor injuries when his car collided head-on with another car coming from the opposite direction and which jumped over the highway divider. His closest friend died in the accident. This tragic experience gave him time for reflection on the unpredictability of life and the relativity of his social condition.

Fred started to wonder whether his daily scramble to outdo others, outsmart competitors, monitor production, negotiate favorable contracts and manipulate business regulations were all there was to life. All of it had been achieved at the expense of his family life and by neglecting the pursuit of his intellectual and personal needs. Even on weekends, he felt obliged to entertain his clients on the golf course. He asked himself whether he had not sacrificed too much for success and a good life, all of which could become irrelevant in case of an unexpected terminal illness or catastrophic death. After months of agonizing and soul-searching, he decided to sell his business and to change his style of life by gett...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Unstable Social Conformity within “Normal” Behavior
• 2 Theories of Personality and the Equivocation of “Normalcy”
• 3 Stress, Coping, and Social Conformity
• 4 Conformists versus Nonconformists
• 5 The “Normal” Psychopath
• 6 Social Conformity in a Polarized Society
• Index