Define normal. Is my normal the same as yours? I very much doubt it. Normal is subjective, we each have our own unique perspective of what we think is normal. The word 'normal' is used to mean average far too often. 'My child is behaving normally for his age,' 'why can't I/you be more normal?' This type of 'normal' usually refers to the majority who fit at the top of a Bell curve deviation graph. You could be sat on an outer lip of the same curve and still be perfectly normal, because it is what is usual for you that is real normal.
It seems ethics are very similar to normal. There are differing ethical rights and ethical wrongs depending on who you are and what culture, tradition or religion you subscribe to. Most ethically right things are very similar as are most ethically wrong things. Taking a human life in cold blood (murder) seems to be counted as an ethical wrong across many walks of life, but there seem to be provisos that change as you journey through our differences.
Taking it to even more personal levels, what may be morally acceptable to me may not be morally acceptable to you even within the same culture, tradition or religion. The ability to empathise plays a major role in what we choose as morally right and wrong. A psychopath has an inability to empathise and so their sense of what is morally acceptable is different from a neuro-typical person. A Borderline has an immature form of empathy so is likely to moralise more like an adolescent. Empathy is dependent on our experience of empathy toward us, with everyone having a different experience in life it would be sensible to assume everyone has a different set of moral rules that guide them.
So morals seem to be as unique to each of us as normal is. Our ethical background, our personal schemas, our ideologies all come together to form our personal morals. Our ability to empathise helps us to identify if our morals work in the outside world in a positive or negative way. As we grow and mature our idea of morality changes and adapts to new information that we collect in our minds, new experiences, mixing with other cultures while on holiday, learning of new religions at school, debating with other people on the internet, reading literature and fiction, biographies and autobiographies.
Recently a friend of mine posted on Facebook an article written in one of our country's broadsheet newspapers about an author claiming children should read more contemporary literature and less modern fiction. She reasoned that moral guidance is lacking in modern fantasy like 'Twighlight' and 'The Hunger Games'. To me, reading is only part of the jigsaw of experience that guides our moral compasses. 19th century fiction is all well and good, but it happened over a century ago and ethics were different then to what we see now. Are outdated ethics really a good moral guide for the modern era? A bit like language, morals and ethics should evolve with the generations, what was considered a good moral choice back in 1880 may seem like an awful moral choice today. Choosing to marry a good looking man for his money would have seemed the morally mature choice for a poor working family's daughter back then, but a morally wrong choice today, we'd call that a meal ticket now.
Our learning media is also changing, television and video games are replacing literature as a form of educational entertainment. More coffee mornings are held on Facebook groups than are held face-to-face. Moral dilemmas are changing constantly, our morals shouldn't be grounded in contemporary literature. Perhaps instead of charging schools with teaching contemporary literature, ethical education should become part of the curriculum. Parents should remain firmly focussed on guiding their children empathetically, encourage them to be empathic people and to form their morals based on their experiences of right and wrong. Otherwise we should be asking schools to teach our children what is normal and that would be ethically wrong.
Infant male circumcision is apparently routine in the States. I only recently found this out. Over here in the UK the procedure is only done for medical, religious or cultural reasons. I have come across many Facebook pages dedicated to informing American parents that circumcision is not necessary that misinformation abounds. Reasons for circumcision are that an uncircumcised penis is more difficult to keep clean, that sexual pleasure is heightened, that a circumcised penis is more aesthetically pleasing, the list goes on. These aforementioned pages detail scientific evidence to the contrary, publish statistics that show more males die from circumcision than whatever the procedure is meant to prevent in later life. True stories from tragic cases adorn their pages. And still the business remains and still parents are coerced.
Artificial infant milk is another massive business piggybacking on misinformation. Only 3% of the global female population can't produce milk, it's not a much higher number that can't produce enough milk. Some babies can't physically suckle on their mother's breast, but they are not numerous. Societal and cultural issues can get in the way of a good breastfeeding relationship. Formula companies make billions touting these very real issues as something to be very afraid of. 'Breast is Best' is a formula campaign slogan to make women feel they don't have to look past the initial discomfort they may feel in the first 6 weeks, in fact if women were to see past those first 6 weeks formula companies would be in trouble! Milk supply settles down and babies get more
efficient at feeding. Conversely, preparing formula correctly to
minimise risks of bacteria (normally found in powdered formula) cultivating takes an age with a screaming baby in your arms. This is
even more true as you stand shivering in the cold, dark kitchen at 3
o'clock in the morning! Formula companies also sell their misinformation through healthcare professionals for incentives, hire 'experts' to rubbish peer-reviewed scientific claims about breast milk and breastfeeding. No wonder there is such bad blood between the different feeding camps. Formula advocates are made to feel guilty and breast milk advocates are told there is no such thing as a mother who can't feed her child!
Millions of copies of books on how to break the will of a normal child to conform to social ideals are sold worldwide. The 'professionals' writing these books make parents feel that their children are manipulative and actively seeking to inconvenience and annoy them on purpose. Punitive measures are validated, small children with the inability to comprehend anything other than having their needs met are rejected, tantrums in toddlers are labelled misbehaviour and to be corrected. And what did we do for 3 million years before information books were available? We listened to our children's cries, we comforted overwhelming feelings, we kept them close and validated them, we empathised. We became the great race that we are through empathy and the ability to listen. Now we have developed nations full of stressed and anxious adults having breakdowns because their parents inadvertently thought it was better to leave them to scream on their own in a darkened room for hours. These parents didn't abandon or neglect their children willingly, they did what they thought was right because 'experts' told them to.
And what of the tabloid media. Where do we start? There is a story running around like wild fire here at the moment. The 'deadly' false widow spider has 'invaded' Britain, and apparently we're all going to be murdered in our beds! Police officers are paid cash incentives for dealing with dead bodies, allegedly to the tune of £500, I'm sure there are many officers out there shocked at finding this out! Mental health patience are murderously dangerous because of care in the community programmes, the incidents of murder would be significantly decreased if anyone having an off day were to be incarcerated in a mental health asylum.
All in all, misinformation sells. It's dramatic, it causes feelings of guilt and shame, it takes advantage of the uninformed and the vulnerable. Businessmen stay in business, politicians stay in power and we become sheeple.
