Objective Summary
In her essay “Anthropology and the Abnormal,” benedict posits that normality is defined culturally by a specific society. Societal habits depend on cultural, social conditioning. Normal is on what people in a particular culture believes in, either good or bad. Besides, a culture might be normal in one society and abnormal in another depending on cultural beliefs. For instance, she illustrates that mild mystic is aberrant in some culture whereas other people view the extreme psychic manifestations as desirable and normal as well as highly valued by the such a society (Vaughn 33). Arguably, the author shows that wrongness or abnormality is culturally built and accepted by a society according to their way of life.
Benedict attempted to elucidate that cultures within different societies have varying ethical standards. Therefore, no individuals outside of a specific culture is possibly able to attempt to acknowledge or know the morality and goodness of that culture. As such, individual’s morals are comprehensively formed by culture. Moreover, there is no universal moral code of conduct. Consequently, a normal action can be termed as the one that functions well within expected behavior limits of a certain society (Vaughn 35). Further, normal-abnormal variability is caused by the changes in the behavior patterns developed by various societies.
Overall, benedict depicts that every deed that is habitual within a particular society is normal. Shweder and Menon suggests that morality indicates socially learned habits (p. 365). As such, everything or behavior that the society or the majority of society members agree on is then considered normal. She offers an example of homosexuality citing that it has been accepted in some societies as culturally normal while being abnormal among others. Hence, all that is acceptable in a society as habitual or normal because of social conditioning is moral. Notably, morality is linked with cultural norms.
Works cited
Shweder, Richard A., and Usha Menon. “Old questions for the new anthropology of morality: A commentary.” Anthropological Theory 14.3 (2014): 356-370. doi:10.1177/1463499614534555
Vaughn, Lewis. Doing ethics: Moral reasoning and contemporary issues. WW Norton & Company, 2015.