social norms and the shifting baseline syndrome

===

“And I want to believe that I’ve made the right choice and that I’m on the right path and there’s still time to fix the mistakes that I’ve made. And I guess I want hope.”

===

“If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.”

Margaret Mead

===

Let’s talk personal accountability for our behavior. Let me begin in an odd place – government. Almost every person hates government involvement in life, society and communities because, well, while we claim infringement into our lives, the deeper discomfort is someone is forcing us to conform to certain behaviors. No one likes that. That said. In almost every situation we, the people, seem to disregard our role in that involvement. If we did, we may see that our imperfections, in terms of flawed behavior, often demand government to put themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to regulate actions and behaviors. Yeah. If people or business institutions fail to regulate their own behavior, the government will.

Which leads me to regulating our own behavior (without laws).

Moulton, in Law and Manners, examined the three great domains of human action.

• the domain of positive law where our actions are prescribed by laws which must be obeyed.
• the domain of free choice which includes all those actions as to which we claim and enjoy
• between those two and the largest and important domain, where neither positive law nor absolute freedom exists. In that domain there is no law which explicitly determines our course of action and yet we feel that we are not free to choose as we would.

I would suggest that last domain could be considered social norms and our behavior within this space outlines the social contract. Moulton called this the domain of obedience to the unenforceable. This is where the person, the individual, enforces laws of behavior on themselves. It’s kind of our ‘do the right thing’ compass and, therefore bounded or constrained by not only our own morals and ethics, but also by what society accepts or defines unacceptable or distasteful. While it would be impossible to construct laws for all circumstances, more importantly, we would not prefer laws to dictate in all circumstances. Consequently, this means most of our life is found in the infinite ‘no-law dictated’ situations where free choice is bounded not by law, and not by ‘I can do’ freedom, but rather ‘should I do’ principles. Yeah. We are expected to dictate our own behavior. Ah. Therein lies the danger to society and to, well, greatness.

Which leads me to greatness.

In Moulton’s mind the real greatness of the nation is measured by people’s behavior in the obedience to the unenforceable domain. It is within that behavioral space in which we can evaluate the extent to which a nation trusts people and the way people actually behave in response to that trust. To be clear. Mere obedience to law does not measure the greatness of a nation, i.e., the law will never tell you the right thing to do, it just outlines the wrong things.

Nor is the behavior under the guise of freedom within the absence of law a proof of greatness. True greatness is found in individual behavior obeying self-imposed law. Circling back to the beginning, what this means is that a society of peoples must assume some responsibility, some accountability, with regard to their actions. What I mean by that is there can be a weird belief that just because someone can do something means they may do it. The problem is between can do and may do there exists the wretched hollow in-between containing duty, fairness, sympathy, empathy, and all the other things that make life not The Hunger Games and creates a healthy social contract. It is within the space in-between can do and may do because it is within that space greatness can be attained and greatness can be lost. This means the participants within a society need to be able to recognize that the increase of their freedom of action brings with it not unfettered choice but the corresponding responsibility, and accountability, of using that freedom. We would wish that society feels the obedience to the unenforceable so strongly that in even the worst moments they all behaved as if when reflective on the behavior we behaved to our better angels. Unfortunately, in a zero-sum world one isn’t encouraged to be an angel, but rather constantly seek some angle.

“It is a world not of angels but of angles, where men speak of moral principles but act on power principles; a world where we are always moral and our enemies always immoral.”
Saul Alinsky

And if we play the angles long enough, they become the norms.

Which leads me to the shifting baseline.

Angles, and angling, ultimately shifts the baseline of behavior. The shifting baseline is grounded in the fact that once something is gone, people forget they ever had it and, from a broader perspective, whatever conditions people grow up with are the ones they generally consider normal (normal is defined as any initial environmental context experience which establishes a baseline perspective). This means we tend to take for granted things, i.e., lost things are lost and the existing should be the norm and our baseline for what is right, or even good, shifts accordingly.

This phenomenon, known as “shifting baseline syndrome.”

Fisheries scientist Daniel Pauly researching the drastic reduction in the size of catch off the eastern seaboard of North America, which had declined by 97% since written records began found the fishermen remained strangely unconcerned. He realized that each generation viewed the baseline as whatever they caught at the beginning of their career, regardless of how much smaller it was than the previous generation, leading to what he called “the gradual accommodation of the creeping disappearance” of fish populations.

• *** note: accumulation of studies around the world measuring the declines of species and ecosystems indicates that overall, we’ve lost around 90% of nature’s profusion. We live in a “10% world.”

So while that is about fish, it’s not really just about fish.

Shifting baseline syndrome has since been shown to be pervasive everywhere in the world and today I’m suggesting it has to do with norms and in particular the largest domain of behavior the obedience to the unenforceable. Our current path is dismantling an earlier world weakening the mechanisms on which the spirit of society – economic, social cohesion, freedom – permitted progress. Defying existing norms creates a new axis mundus of injustice and exploitation. It is now with the things which had never been formally identified and categorized we’re increasing economic and social difficulties are now big being constructed. It would be remiss if I didn’t point out all of these all of this diminishes the greatness or the potential for of countries and societies. This is a new type of exploitation even different than the notion that marks offered us. This exploitation is not a class construct, but a classless construct. And, yes, pun intended. Regardless. This all creates social negativity compounded by the fact the only way to curb this societal dysfunction is inevitably through laws. Well, a law will never tell anyone the right thing to do, just highlight the most wrong. And, once again, no sane person wants a law to dictate behavior in all circumstances.

Which leads me to renormalizing norms.

Normativity pervades our daily lives, influencing our decisions, behaviors, and societal structures. It encompasses a range of principles, standards, and values that guide human actions and shape our understanding of what’s considered right or wrong, good or bad. Over time, societal norms evolve, reflecting shifts in normative perspectives (cultural, social, and philosophical), i.e., shifting the baseline. Often, we see shifting social norms culminating in the changing of outdated laws to better align with the acceptable, and unacceptable normative behaviors of the day. While it’s ethically significant that norms shift over time and adapt to their context, it’s important to note that these changes often happen slowly. Eventually, changes in norms influence changes in laws if the middle domain if behavior doesn’t accommodate the new norms.  Once again, norms, and acceptable behavior, can be explicit or implicit, originating from various sources like cultural traditions, social institutions, religious beliefs, or philosophical frameworks. But. often, the most important norms are implicit because they are unspoken expectations that people absorb as they experience the world around them. but when these norms loosen up, well, significantly, as in they become untethered to any real manners, we will inevitably shift our baseline. It is happening in the present. We need to re-tether norms to acceptable behavior and make some of them a bit more specific. Make the past vague outlines of what is acceptable, and what is unacceptable, a bit more concrete. We need to be a bit more explicit in order to constrain some behavioral bad actors into a clear unacceptable category and reject a shifting baseline that is shifting downwards into hellish behavior. Ponder.