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When is it normal to be weird?

Are Germans pushier when waiting in line?  (Or are Italians more emotional with family members?)  Under one view, this is a cultural difference.  Germans aren't pushier "on the inside," their society simply has a different standard for how a given temperament should manifest itself in public.  Under another view, Germans really are pushier.  Yes their culture is different but that is because they are pushy.

Let's say (for purposes of argument alone) you are weird.  Could you ever excuse your own weirdness on the grounds that, well, you are weird all the time? (Hat tip to Derek Parfit.) No matter what you think of the Germans, the first approach to their pushiness is in principle possible.  Maybe they simply have a standard with different calibration.  Why should the application of such principles be restricted to the group level?

Whenever you see or hear of me doing something weird, think twice.  I am actually behaving normally, and no offense is intended.  Quite the contrary, I am flattering you by behaving normally in your presence.  You just haven't yet solved the signal extraction problem which would allow you to differentiate between my actual weirdness and my different standards for what weirdness should be.

Are people who are only sometimes weird "weirder" than those who are weird all the time?  What if, for this reason, you seek "weirdness all the time" -- to prove your normality -- but overshoot?

Here is my earlier post on why weird men should marry foreign women.

Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 11, 2006 at 07:13 AM in Education | Permalink

Comments

I think the "sometimes" weird are probably weirder than the always weird. Mainly as a function of predictability. If a person is "weird" all the time, that says to me that his or her behavior is a few standard deviations from the group mean but has a low variance. HIs/her behavior ALWAYS stays a few standard deviations from the group mean. However, a person who is weird only some of the time has a behavior pattern whose mean output is a long way from the group mean but also has a high variance. Behavior is therefore less predictable, and to my mind weirder. Or maybe I'm just stretching to justify my own strangeness.

Posted by: Timothy at Apr 11, 2006 10:46:25 AM

Umm... Why do we assume that "weirdness" either needs to be or can be justified.
Cultures clearly differ in their acceptance of variance, but also in their acceptance of unacceptance. At any rate, such values seem fundamental and not subject to a great deal of rational judgement.

Posted by: michael vassar at Apr 11, 2006 11:00:18 AM

Henry Higgins defended himself against the accusation of rudeness that he was rude to everybody, so that he was treating Eliza Doolittle just the same as everyone else.

As an Edwardian gentleman, however, he surely would have declined to be considered "weird."

Posted by: Anderson at Apr 11, 2006 11:50:32 AM

Whenever you see or hear of me doing something weird, think twice. I am actually behaving normally, and no offense is intended. Quite the contrary, I am flattering you by behaving normally in your presence.

That reminds me of a joke (and I'll tell the socially acceptable verson):

A rich man spends a billion dollars to have himself cryogenically frozen for 100 years. After that time, he is defrosted, alive, luckily, and after he is welcomed out of his chamber, he is asked if he has any questions. The first thing he says is, "Okay, first, I want to make clear that languages change a lot in a hundred years, so the terms I use may be considered offensive now, but just keep in mind, I don't mean anything by them, I'm just going to talk like people did a hundred years ago." After the audience acknowledges this, he continues and says, "So my first question is, are the [offensive term for a group of people he doesn't like]s still causing all the problems?"

Posted by: Silas Barta at Apr 11, 2006 1:16:00 PM

Whenever you see or hear of me doing something weird, think twice.

All this also applies, naturally, to the prior discussion on people using the title "Dr." for PhD holders.

Posted by: John Thacker at Apr 11, 2006 1:19:29 PM

"What if, for this reason, you seek "weirdness all the time" -- to prove your normality -- but overshoot?"

Hmmmmm... i have a great idea. How about people simply accept the fact that person for who they are and instead of outcasting him from society as abnormal, see the light that person may see in his or her own actions. Persecuting someone who is "weird" will only delay the concept of cultural relativity and further our pangs and pains in this society as we quite well know it today. I was considered a very weird person growing up but never understood that there WAS such thing as a "social norm". That's B***S***. A social norm simply means that everyone is too scared to act upon their own feelings so they conform into a group where everyone turns into a worker ant. Oh what an enjoyable society... everyone's the same... Some people need to grow up.

Posted by: Khalid at Apr 11, 2006 1:35:48 PM

It's normal to be weird when you are alone. In the existentialist sense, being relatively wierd is only possible when interacting with other people. Interaction with another person allows for contrast. You are only weird to the extent you are different relative to someone's arbitrary benchmark.

Posted by: Philip Dunham at Apr 11, 2006 2:13:48 PM

Khalid, I'm weird, and I'm telling you to just buck up and accept that you're weird and the reason others aren't weird isn't because they're scared, but because they aren't like you. I don't know what kind of "persecution" you experienced, but as far as I can see normal people tend to prefer interacting with other normal people than to weirdos, so you in effect seem to be stating that their preferences are illegitimate. Grow up.

Posted by: TGGP at Apr 11, 2006 5:00:47 PM

Whoa man, that post and the ensuing discussion was weeeiiiirrrd.

Trippy, even, because everyone here is weird, so that makes us all normal.

Posted by: Aaron at Apr 11, 2006 5:10:12 PM

The movie "Barcalona" has a line to the effect that a good thing about being married to a foriegn women is that when you act like an asshole she thinks you are just being american.

Posted by: joe o at Apr 11, 2006 5:28:46 PM

You should attend more L(l)ibertarian conventions. With tears in your eyes, you will lift your hands and shout, "I have found you, my brothers!".

Posted by: ispdrudge at Apr 11, 2006 7:52:14 PM

this article and the discussion it provoked are completely useless and a waste of everyone's time. weirdness will always be relative to the individual, any attempt to catagorize weirdness is futile

Posted by: gabby at Apr 11, 2006 7:53:59 PM

oh yeah tggp, your post is so mature. Using my "Grow Up" bit and turning it around at the end of yours. You know nothing about me.

Posted by: khalid at Apr 11, 2006 8:09:43 PM

I thought all economists were weird.

Posted by: Jacqueline at Apr 11, 2006 8:51:29 PM

I thought all economists were weird.

Posted by: Jacqueline at Apr 11, 2006 8:51:48 PM

[You know nothing about me]

Khalid, you're not exactly giving anyone an incentive to find out, which since you're also demanding that we "accept who you are" seems to mean quite a lot of effort on our part without much prospect of return.

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