Multiple Normalities

Making Sense of Ways of Living

B. Misztal

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781137314499
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Critique littéraire européenne

Multiple Normalities enhances sociological understandings of normality by illustrating it with the help of British novels. It demonstrates commonalities and differences between the meanings of normality in these two periods, exemplifying the emergence of the multiple normalities and the transformation of ways in which we give meaning to the world.

Part I

Towards the Sociology of Normality

1

How Normality Became the Norm

Coupling normal and pathological

From sociology’s beginnings in the nineteenth century, its task has been to solve the problem of a disordered society and to establish harmony and unity; that is, orderly normality:

Sociology has, from its origins, been defined by its various conceptions of social life. These have attempted to make sense of those regularities of behavior that suggest there exists an ordered social fabric surpassing the impulses, horizons and actions of isolated individuals. (Shilling and Mellor 2001: 1)

However, despite sociology’s ambition to comprehend the complex and changing relationships between types of social existence and ways of living, there has never been any clear understanding or agreement with regard to what normality is. This is well illustrated by Auguste Comte’s idea of the normal state, which helped to popularize the concept of normality without, however, offering a clear and simple definition.

Comte, as the main representative of the positivist science that he saw as the sole basis for the new perfect state, aimed to contribute to the establishment of the normal as a ‘measure’ of human beings and their societies. His view of society as an organism governed by laws that resulted in the harmonious function of its independent organs can be seen as a result of the transitional nature of his historical period, which prompted his concern with the need for unity and consensus. Believing that the task of a positive science of the social organism was to observe the laws governing social stability, Comte ([1822] 1975a: 9–10) aimed to mobilize the powers of ‘reorganisation to reduce the crisis to a simple moral movement’. Despite declarations that his main aim was purely theoretical, he was preoccupied with the disorderly nature of his era and worried about the ‘profound moral and political anarchy’ of contemporary society. For example, in a letter of 25 December 1824 to Jacques-Pierre Fanny Valat, Comte wrote: ‘The state in which we find society today is a long way from normal ... It is, rather, a very violent state of crisis’ (quoted in Canguilhem 1994: 251). Here the concept of normal comes close to that of harmony, while the term ‘crisis’ is synonymous with ‘pathological’ or ‘social illness’, so that the revolution is seen as the main example of the ‘chronic epidemic’ characterizing nineteenth-century French society. The ‘state of crisis’, presented not as an aberration but rather as an outcome of the process of transformation, could be eliminated not through ‘provisional’ reform but by following the positive philosophy as ‘the only basis of social reorganisation’, because it alone reunites ‘individual intellects’ by ‘a common social doctrine’ (Comte’s correspondence, quoted in Pickering 1994: 537). Comte stressed that order could not be established unless it was ‘fully compatible with progress’ and that progress could be achieved through the development and application of scientific knowledge, which facilitated ‘the advent of the normal state that social science indicates in a more distant future’ ([1851–54] 1975c: 342). In short, Comte (1976: 48) proposed to solve the ‘great moral crisis’ of modernity with the help of sociology, a positivist science of the social organism whose task was to observe the laws governing social stability and to offer the basis for a new consensus and progress.

Since Comte asserted that ‘every social theory had to depict a better society’ (Pickering 1994: 21), the appropriate goal in studying society was to identify and constitute ‘the true normal state’; that is, the normal state of society determined by the general law of human unity, seen as the only politically viable road to the purified, progressive and perfect state. For Comte (1975c: 342), positivism’s aim was to create society as a moral order analogous to a perfectly functioning human body. His belief in the necessity and desirability of progress, conceptualized as the achievement of order, provided the main stimulus to his search for laws of the science of society that could secure the normal state, and led him to recognize the importance of discovering the principles of social consensus and equilibrium as the main task of positivism. Comte’s interest in increasing the moral content of society culminated in his conception of the steady evolution of humanity towards the utopian state of the positive polity. In his utopian vision, ‘an organically and morally integrated positive polity’ was seen as imbuing individuals with ‘moral prosperities, despite pressure of biological appetites and egoistic strives’ (Shilling and Mellor 2001: 32, 25). Arguing that no real order can be established if it is not fully compatible with progress, and that no great progress can be accomplished if it does not tend to the consolidation of order, Comte ([1830–42] 1975b: 197) had made both these features the chief characteristics of the normal state. Consequently, with order and progress being identical and with any deviations from order being variations from the normal state, the study of progress, ‘as order made manifest’, became synonymous with an analysis of the normal state (Comte 1975c: 342).

Comte’s idea of the normal state as order and perfection and his conceptualization of order as the condition of progress, which itself is the object of order, were not only an outcome of his positive theory of normal existence and his interest in the politics of the day. An essential part of Comte’s conceptualization was a result of his application of Broussais’s physiological conception of the ‘normal state’ to society and politics. This provided Comte ‘with the conceptual apparatus for developing a science of the norms and standards of behaviour that made the basis of society’ (Porter 1997: 9). Comte, who was very interested in biology, which he considered the most influential science, followed ‘Broussais’s principle’, which defines the pathological as deficiency or excess. Broussais assumed that maladies derived from the ‘excess or absence of excitation of diverse tissues, above or below the degree that constituted the normal state’ (quoted in Pickering 1994: 408). Since defining abnormal conditions as states characterized by too much or too little created difficulties in identifying the difference between a pathological condition and a normal state, Comte’s theory took on a normative character. His proposed solution to the problem caused by the idea of continuity between a diseased condition and a natural one relies on arbitrary decisions about what constitutes deficiency or excess. By accepting Broussais’s conceptualization of disease as ‘essentially the same kind as those of health, from which they differed only in intensity’ (Hacking 1990: 160), Comte was able to argue that the pathological order obeys the same laws as those that ‘govern the normal state’. As Broussais’s principle enabled Comte ([1839] 1974: 186) to assert that ‘cases of social disturbance’ are capable of ‘revealing the fundamental laws of the political organism’, he declared it to be a perfect sociological law. Adopting Broussais’s belief that all illness had a local cause in afflictions of particular tissues and that by relieving adjacent inflamed or irritated tissues of an excess of blood, normalcy/health could be restored, Comte assumed that in the social system, as in the individual organism, pathologies are not ‘the violation of the fundamental laws of the normal organism, for the phenomena of the organism are modified in varying degrees, but can never be modified in their nature or relations’ (Comte 1974: 186).

According to Comte, Broussais’s principle offered an ideal tool for achieving the progressive ‘true normal state’, because the study of disease could lead to insights into what constitutes health and, ultimately, to a therapy or cure. Borrowing from the French pathologist the idea of continuity between the normal and the pathological, Comte argued that the normal condition (as the equivalent of harmony, unity and coherence) could be better understood by investigating variations from the normal state, and that social crisis was a natural state in the same way as a pathological state or illness is basically a continuation of the healthy – that is, the normal – state of an organism. Seeing the pathological not as different from the normal but only as an extension of the variations inherent in a normal organism means that ‘all the characteristics of a thing were defined relative to the normal state’ (Hacking 1990: 166). Furthermore, by declaring that unity and coherence are ‘the signs of mental health and normality’ (Pickering 1994: 692), while at the same time stressing the idea that every society is united by means of the formation of social consensus, Comte’s theory became not only more normative but also more optimistic. Additionally, Comte’s optimism was enhanced by his belief in the significance of a new social physics in helping, by discovering the preconditions and conditions of social order, to reestablish the normal condition.

Another consequence of adopting Broussais’s idea was the extension of the biophysical model of positivist enquiry into human bodies to analyses of social systems. Drawing on metaphors from biology, Comte viewed society as analogous to an organism, as possessing parts that fulfilled needs in relation to the moral ‘health’ of the whole. As Pickering notes:

Comte’s key concepts of crisis, organization, consensus and organic system came from biological and medical models, for example, while he viewed civilization as being like the human body, capable of spontaneously repairing itself. (Pickering 1994: 208)

Assuming that social norms were in the same relation to the healthy functioning of society as vital norms were to the healthy functioning of the human organism, Comte coupled normal with pathological.

His judgments about human needs, about trends in historical developments and about ‘normal relations’ were based on the assumed existence of a ‘spontaneous harmony between the whole and the parts of the social system’ (Comte 1896: 222]. According to this evolutionary optimism, the individual and society would grow more sociable as the intellect increasingly dominated the animalistic ‘inclinations’ and sympathies prevailed over the instinct of self-interest (Comte 1975b: 182–194). By specifying the interrelations between the various parts of the social system, Comte pointed out that the normal state – that is, a harmonious and ordered system – meets the requirements of human nature. When such harmony is lacking, a pathological situation confronts us. In order to avoid any risk and fear of abnormality, and on the basis of assumptions about the existence of human unity and the permanence of human needs, Comte postulated that restoration of the normal state could be achieved through the adjustment of human desires to the scientifically established laws of society with the help of an independent governmental organ (that is, the state, as informed by the positive philosophy). Comte’s evaluative idea of the normal social state as one characterized by a harmonious consensus of its parts became the basis of his sociology, which was ‘constituted by taking up the project of trying to define abnormal social phenomena by relating them to normal social states’ (Gane 1998: 303). He optimistically believed that sociology would shed new light on the principles of normal functioning by analysing disturbances in the normal state. Seeing sociology as dependent on some concepts of biology and following its practice enabled Comte to solve the question of defining the social goals and objectives of sociology.

The appeal to the biological criteria of normality and pathology, combined with the importance attached to studying pathological cases, meant that social science was given the task of moral regulation that would bring about progressive social change. Comte’s vision of positivism as ‘a science of social pathology striving to obtain a state of purified social normalcy’ (Porter 1997: 9) and his identification of the normal state with an ideal, future and progressive state were dictated by his preconception of what the healthy state is and his wishful thinking about a scientifically guided harmonious moral future. Ultimately, Comte’s dictum ‘to know in order to predict and predict in order to control’ was accompanied by a conceptualization of the normal state as an utopian moment that refers to a future and optimal stage in human development (Gane 1998: 305).

Comte’s concept of normal is problematic because it does not differentiate between vital norms (such as those of height, weight, longevity or fertility) and social norms arising from the requirement of socio-political order (Canguilhem 1989). Rose explains:

Social norms – the norms of docility, legality, productivity, civility etc. – were not a reflection of the normativity of a vital order and struggle against death, but of the normativity of socio-political authorities and their attempts to maintain order and pursue their objectives of control. (Rose 2010: 66)

Apart from the tension that a lack of differentiation between vital and social norms causes, Comte’s idea of normal is also problematic because of the inbuilt clash between the normal as the existing average and the normal as the perfect state. Generally, both these difficulties are results of Comte’s borrowing of the word ‘normal’ from pathology, on the one hand, and his identification of the normal with aspiration, harmony and perfection, on the other. By viewing the normal in the context of pathological social conditions and additionally with the help of his vision of the ideal positive polity, he established the positive valorization of ‘normal’ modes and the negative valorization of abnormal, deviant forms. Comte’s utopian impulses, directing us not to ‘an existing norm, and certainly not to an average’ (Hacking 1990: 168), his interpretation of history in terms of general laws, together with his idea that the singular design of history reveals itself in the progress of the human mind, all contributed to the definition of the normal as the purified state to which we should strive.

Comte is not only criticized for the normativity of his definition of the normal state, but also for his belief that the desirable state of normal is possible to predict, since it comes about following the universal logic of development. The failure of a scientific model based on the natural sciences to predict much more than the obvious, together with today’s rejection of the claim that social science can discover universal laws, makes us reject the normative definition of ‘the normal state’ as a manifestation of harmony, equilibrium and the state of perfection achieved when progress and order, stability and reconstruction are closely connected. Comte’s idea, rooted in Broussais’s principle and stressing the fluidity of the transition between normal and pathological, is now rejected because with the development of medicine, we not only appreciate how rich and diverse the range of ‘normalcy’ can be (the range of normal body temperature, to use a simple example, is much wider than was previously assumed), we also know that ‘the continuity of the normal state and the pathological state does not seem real in the case of infectious diseases, not more than homogeneity in the case of nervous diseases’ (Canguilhem 1989: 86). In other words, health is qualitatively different from the pathological state and there are ‘no grounds for denying the distinctiveness of the pathological, or that pathological and normal are identical’ (Canguilhem 1994: 351).

The criticism of Comte’s notion of the normal as a state of organic health stresses that for Comte such a state is defined by constancy (Canguilhem 1989). Because Comte conceptualized the pathological as a deviation from a fixed norm, he was unable to see disease either in terms of change or as a positive experience in the living being, so that disease is not simply a question of decrease or increase (Canguilhem 1989: 186). Furthermore, he argued that the cure for political crises consists in bringing societies back to their essential and permanent structures and that the science of society would enable the restoration of lost order. Such an approach tolerates progress only ‘within limits of variation of the natural order as defined by social statistics’ (Canguilhem 1989: 64) and is based on a fixed preconception of the normal. Moreover, not only Comte’s theoretical conception of normal but also his historical account of the normal state are reductive. From his perspective, the normal state was limited to a very short period in Europe’s history, namely the high Catholic Middle Ages, which means that he perceived the normal state to have existed for only two or three centuries. So, as Gane (1998: 307) notes, ‘Comte’s theory of the metaphysical state (as one in transition) sits uneasily against his specifications for what counts as a state in his three state law’. In other words, the normal state is less steady and fixed than Comte’s social statistics suggested. Therefore, it can be argued that the transitional state is more ‘normal’ than Comte chose to admit. The resulting discrepancy between the unity of human history, which has a philosophical foundation, and the diversity of human societies, which is supported by historical evidence, reveals unresolved tensions in Comte’s normalcy thesis.

Comte’s identification of the normal with the state to which we should aspire and progress, as well as his holistic thinking and unilinear evolutionism, led him to assign an important role to positivist knowledge that would predict, correct and direct social development. By linking the normal state with progress, he introduced to sociology the idea that the normal is more than an ordinary healthy state. Comte’s explanation of the notion of normal by the concept of order makes it into ‘a qualitative and polyvalent concept, still more aesthetic and moral than scientific’ (Canguilhem 1989: 76). Generally, Comte’s reliance on Broussais’s pathology, together with his interest in integration, unity, harmony and consensus, made it very difficult to differentiate clearly between a pathological state and a normal/healthy one (Hacking 1990; Canguilhem 1989; Pickering 1994). In his presentation of the idea of continuity between the normal and the pathological, Comte used both states interchangeably and in an incoherent and vague way. Consequently, he did not provide criteria with which to identify a normal phenomenon, nor did he explain the difference between normal and pathological (Canguilhem 1989: 53). Ultimately, he was responsible for the ambiguities in the idea of the normal, and the inherent tension in that idea as a representation of an existing average and ‘the normal as a figure of perfection to which it is possible to progress’ (Hacking 1990: 168).

Although the tension in Comte’s understanding of the normal has become a source of hidden power, at the same time it constitutes a cause of continuous confusion (Canguilhem 1989). Comte’s reliance on the biophysical model of positivist enquiry into organic systems, his idea of the pathological as a quantitative variation from a norm, his view of normality as a steady state, and his interchangeable employment of the notions of normal state, physiological state and natural state, have all made an attempt at defining the normal rather difficult, if not impossible. Yet his idea that the normal implies, and is intimately coupled with, the pathological ensured the widespread appreciation of the notion, which was subsequently built into many projects in social sciences, medical practices and public policies. It also led to the growing significance attached to the collection of social statistics in terms of normality and pathology (Canguilhem 1989: 246).

Normal as the key to ethics: Durkheim’s normal state of organic solidarity

While Comte is rather unpopular among today’s sociologists, Durkheim’s extension of the organic metaphor of normal and pathological states into an analysis of the causes of normativity retains a general appeal. Durkheim’s concept of the normal as both the ideal and the expression of society’s nature, and his claim that social well-being demands well-balanced moral integration, continue to have some influence on the treatment of these issues in modern sociology. His definition of the task of sociology as the identification of normal and abnormal phenomena in order to provide policies for the promotion of normal forms and remedies for the eradication of pathological forms also maintains some appeal.

Durkheim’s application of Broussais’s notion of pathology to thinking about social phenomena allowed him to present the social sciences as able to identify and deal with social pathological phenomena. His application of biological ways of thinking about social pathology to social phenomena helped him to establish the claim that the social sciences should aim to be therapeutic in their ambitions. Arguing that ‘disease has a greater place in human societies than anywhere else’, Durkheim ([1892] 1997: 56) asserted that sociology can guide society to eradicate ‘pathological’ forms rationally. He assumed that the question of the normal is central to the realization of sociology’s main task of teaching us about ‘higher ends’, since a study of normality could prescribe ways of reaching the desirable state of well-being. It is important to be able ‘to classify facts as normal or abnormal’ in order to find out what needs to be done to preserve or restore a social system’s health (Durkheim [1894] 1966: 63). The significance of the concept of normal is thus connected with the fact that it provides Durkheim with ‘a scientific basis to his value judgments’ (Lukes 1973: 28), thereby enabling him to recommend how to ensure a system’s health. Durkheim’s notion of the normal as a key to ethics assumes that the idea of health assists us with the definition of social goals, thereby bringing together moral science an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: Normality as a Sociological Concept
• Part I Towards the Sociology of Normality
• Part II Representations of Normality in Literature
• Part III: Making Sense of Normality
• Appendix 1: The Main Literary Prizes
• Appendix 2: Novels Published in the 1950s and 1960s
• Appendix 3: Novels Published in the 1990s and 2000s
• Bibliography
• Index