Abstract
In a social-norm breaking situation, an audience member at a charity event for sufferers of Cystic Fibrosis and their families expresses an unpopular opinion. Cystic Fibrosis, or CF, is an inherited disease that is generally passed down from recessive carriers (who don’t have the disease themselves) to their children. It affects the secretory glands, causing mucus to build up in the various parts of the body. The condition causes early death in most sufferers, and the average life expectancy of people with CF is less than forty years (“What is Cystic Fibrosis?” 2013). The norm-breaker’s opinion does not conform with that of the majority of the audience, and the audience reacts by booing him. The norm-breaker can be said to have broken a strict social taboo by questioning the right of parents to have children. Questioning the right of disease-carriers to bear children goes against the cultural value of natalism. Natalism (or pro-natalism) is the belief in the morality of having children (Benatar, 2006).
The setting in which the informal social norm was broken was an event held by a charity for Cystic Fibrosis awareness. Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a recessive genetic disorder that primarily affects the lungs, but can also affect the kidneys, intestine, pancreas, and liver. It causes the build-up of mucus in tissues and often leads to an early death, with an average life expectancy for sufferers of around 37.5 years. Children inherit one gene for CF from each parent, and parents of children with CF generally do not have the disease themselves (“What is Cystic Fibrosis?” 2013). The event was being held at a university auditorium, and the parents of two children with CF had been invited to speak before an audience of about one hundred people. The parents and their two daughters were interviewed on stage about their struggle with the disease. The parents talked about how they coped with their daughters’ suffering, and the daughters talked about how difficult their daily lives were due to dealing with the disease. They talked about their strength as a family and how it helped them overcome these severe challenges. The audience was generally quite moved and treated the family to a wild round of applause.
The norm-breaker in this situation was a person in the audience, and the norm-breaking unfolded in the following manner. The audience was invited to ask the family questions, and the norm-breaker used this opportunity to speak his opinion. He asked the parents how they dared to have another child when they knew they could pass on the disease again, after discovering they were carriers with the birth of their first child. He told the parents that they had been cruel to make that decision, because it ensured that their children would have short, miserable lives that were filled with pain. He even accused them of cowardice and told them that they should be ashamed.
It was obvious that this person had broken a norm based on the audience’s reaction. The audience was audibly silent while he was saying these things, and after he finished his speech, it murmured with disapproval. When he tried to speak up again in his defense, some people began loudly booing him. As he continued to speak, more people joined in booing him, until he eventually gave up and left the auditorium.
This person broke a social norm by expressing a dissenting and unpopular opinion, and the audience sanctioned him by censuring him (and censoring him, since its censure of him had the effect of suppressing his further speech). If he had obeyed social norms instead, he would have just kept his opinion to himself. The opinion that some people should not have children is non-conformist opinion, and to publically object to a person’s right to have children breaks a strict social taboo. Based on the reaction of the audience to the norm-breaker, one can conclude that American culture places a very high value on childrearing. The belief that having children is a highly-positive and highly-moral practice is known as pro-natalism, or just natalism. The natalist ideology is prevalent in American culture, as, for example, the multitude of laws restricting access to abortion show. The belief that people should not have children, known as anti-natalism, goes against the belief held by the majority of people in American society (Benatar, 2006). Even though his reasons for speaking out could be considered reasonable, his behavior was considered deviant and as a result he was cast out from the group.
References
Benatar, D. (2006). Better never to have been: the harm of coming into existence.
What is Cystic Fibrosis? (2013, December 26). National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Retrieved April 18, 2016, from http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/cf
