{"id":74680,"date":"2022-07-26T16:02:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-26T20:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=74680"},"modified":"2022-08-08T12:10:39","modified_gmt":"2022-08-08T16:10:39","slug":"norms-of-society-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/norms-of-society-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Norms of Society: How Humans Regulate Each Other"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Why did social norms develop? How do they work, and what role do they play?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you make too much noise in a library, you probably won\u2019t get escorted out by security. Instead, you\u2019ll likely earn some dirty looks or shushing from your fellow patrons. Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson explain how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/norms-of-society\/\">norms of society<\/a>, such as this example of group enforcement, regulate human behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more to learn how norms of society play a role in our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-norms-of-society\">Norms of Society<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Human cultures regulate selfish behavior and competition with <strong><em>norms<\/em>\u2014which<em> <\/em>are the rules and standards of a society.<\/strong> Sometimes they\u2019re codified as laws and enforced centrally, but, most often, <strong>norms of society are collectively enforced by the group as a whole<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Simler and Hanson explain that this group enforcement prevents any one individual from dominating the group. They point out that egalitarian early humans needed order without authority\u2014norms of society evolved to meet this need by distributing the task of enforcement among the group. The authors point out that, even in authoritarian societies which <em>do <\/em>revolve around a central leader, norms are still often enforced by society as a whole via a \u201ccult of personality.\u201d In these environments, speaking out against the leader won\u2019t just result in punishment from above\u2014it\u2019ll also earn you censure from your peers (we\u2019ll explore this more in a moment).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In short, norms of society teach us to regulate <em>each other<\/em> and to punish unwanted behavior with consequences ranging from eye rolls to gossiping to open violence. Perhaps more to the point, <strong>norms teach us to regulate <em>ourselves<\/em><\/strong>. If we\u2019re always concerned with what others will think, we have reason to follow norms (at least publicly) to make good impressions and avoid punishment. Moreover, we\u2019re aware that failing to follow norms means forfeiting the social games that norms govern\u2014and missing out on the rewards of those games. In other words, ignoring norms makes you a less attractive partner to others, which means you have less of a chance of finding mates, friends, and allies.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><strong>When Norms Create (Rather Than Resist) Autocracy<\/strong><br><br>Simler and Hanson argue that norms of society evolved as a way for humans to govern themselves while avoiding the need for a central authority. But in the contemporary world, norms seem more and more to be at the heart of authoritarian control.<br><br>For instance, though Simler and Hanson imply that the cult of personality is a product of dictatorial rule\u2014their examples are Mao Zedong\u2019s communist China and Steve Job\u2019s tenure at Apple\u2014this dynamic has in recent years emerged even in democratic systems. For example, historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat argues that leaders like former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and former US President Donald Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2022\/04\/16\/history-shows-trump-personality-cult-end-00024941\">base their power on cults of personality<\/a>. We can see this dynamic at work, for example, in the way Republican politician Liz Cheney was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2021\/11\/15\/1056025589\/wyoming-gop-votes-to-stop-recognizing-cheney-as-a-republican\">ejected from her own state party<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2021\/05\/12\/politics\/vote-on-liz-cheney-what-happened\/\">removed from her Congressional leadership position<\/a> for speaking out against Trump following the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.<br><br>The January 6 attack itself also shows how easy it is to exploit social norms. Ben-Ghiat explains that a typical authoritarian strategy is to describe one\u2019s opponents as autocrats and oneself as a champion of liberty and fairness. In other words, by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/newsletters\/politico-nightly\/2022\/06\/09\/why-many-republicans-believe-the-big-lie-00036384\">convincing his supporters that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election<\/a>, Trump tapped into their inherent norms against oppressive authority, which in turn convinced them they were enforcing justice by trying to overturn the election and reinstall Trump.<br><br>According to Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, part of the problem is that democracy itself is based not on laws or constitutions, but on social norms. In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/app\/book\/how-democracies-die\"><em>How Democracies Die<\/em><\/a>, Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that American <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/app\/book\/how-democracies-die#the-role-of-norms\">democracy is based on two norms<\/a>: 1) accepting the legitimacy of the democratic system (even when one\u2019s opponent wins) and 2) not using political institutions to marginalize one\u2019s opponents. The authors say that Trump\u2019s administration <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/app\/book\/how-democracies-die#trump-vs-democratic-norms\">systematically dismantled<\/a> both of these norms, thereby paving the way for an authoritarian cult of personality.<br><br><strong>Taming the elephant: <\/strong>We might not be able to control politicians when they decide to violate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/political-norms\/\">political norms<\/a>, but we can be aware they\u2019re doing so and respond accordingly. If we acknowledge our selfish tendencies and if we recognize how norms of society can be weaponized to support the very behaviors they\u2019re meant to curb, we\u2019ll have a better chance of noticing when someone is trying to exploit norms in order to abuse their power or manipulate us.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why did social norms develop? How do they work, and what role do they play? If you make too much noise in a library, you probably won\u2019t get escorted out by security. Instead, you\u2019ll likely earn some dirty looks or shushing from your fellow patrons. Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson explain how norms of society, such as this example of group enforcement, regulate human behavior. Read more to learn how norms of society play a role in our lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":74686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,9,24],"tags":[708],"class_list":["post-74680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethics","category-psychology","category-society","tag-the-elephant-in-the-brain","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Norms of Society: How Humans Regulate Each Other - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Have you been shushed in a library? 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