Perceptions of Normal/Deviant

All throughout life no matter how much we try we always have perceptions of people on the type of person they are and such. It is by no means a bad thing, but based on who they hang out with or what they look like it isn’t unusual to compare then to people we know elsewhere who are similar, in some cases looking down upon them. Who are the normal kids and who are those that are deviant, that are unlike “me”.  In High school it’s a super powered version of this where everybody has their cliqs and groups of friends, having different groups judge others base on what the media and social normalcy/deviancy has told us of these groups.

            Sometimes inadvertently high school life can create these judgments through the rest of your life. If in high school the big strong jocks were all jerks it is conceivable that until proven otherwise any bigger guy will be thought of as a jerk in that persons head; same going with the kid who was a slacker and did drugs back in school always getting late to class. If you go to college and you notice a kid doing this you might compare the two, not knowing that they work 3 jobs while being a full time student to pay there way through college. It’s all perception.

In the end what is normal to one person might be deviant to another. Does that make one person wrong and one right? Are they both wrong? Right? Or in the end is the perception of what is deviant and what is normal all in the “eye of the beholder”? 

John Plevel