The evil smokers and their fiendish plot!

[Rhyfelwyr]

I already have. But, I can give more:

In a group where everybody plays video games, playing video games is normal.

In a group where everybody works out regularly, working out regularly is normal.

In a group where everybody drinks, drinking is normal.

Etc etc, I'm sure you get the picture by now. Everything can be considered normal, it is the context the activity is placed within that determines whether or not it's normal.

Surely those are examples of things being subjective... ie there is no sort of objective truth behind what is normal, it is instead relative to the experiences of certain groups/individuals.

[HoreTore]

Surely those are examples of things being subjective... ie there is no sort of objective truth behind what is normal, it is instead relative to the experiences of certain groups/individuals.

No, it is still objective, I probably didn't explain it well enough.

What is normal refers to the context something is placed within, not the action itself. There is no objective truth as to what actions are normal, true. But normalization refers to contexts, and the context is objective, not subjective.

To explain further: let's say we put object X into context Y, which will yield result Z. Z will refer to object X being normal. But object X is completely random. Context Y, on the other hand, is not random, but rather a constant value which will transform object X to "normal". Y is objective.

[HoreTore]

I'm not sure that was a very good explanation... So, I'll gie another one:

The three examples posted above all have one thing in common, one mechanism. This mechanism is objective(as it is constant and will produce the same result over and over again no matter what the input is), and that mechanism is what what makes things "normal".