• Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    Currently reading Nobodys Normal by anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker.

    It’s a hard read as I’m constantly googling how he did his research. But I do absolutely agree with his theory that “normal” assumes there’s a baseline of what that looks like. And that data is impossible to get at the current time, only when you look back on it.

    For example, we have data to identify what normal can look like in 1920 based on averages. But it’ll be pretty racist and not what people want to hear, and it’s also missing a lot like accurate health records and the huge percentage of people who were misdiagnosed or undocumented.

    Overall, I agree. There is no normal.