II. Not Normatively Human: Cultural Grammars
andtheHumanBody
1.CorporealNormsandtheExperienceofInequality
Humanlifeinallitsdimensionsissurroundedby,evenimmersedin,
norms; circumambient, ubiquitous like the air people breathe. Like a
second nature, they have insinuated themselves into every nook and
cranny of our world and even into the human imagination of how this
worldisoroughttobe.Americans,likemostpeoplealltheworldover,
encounter norms anytime and anywhere: in their food (in FDA
standards),theirjobs(inthecontractsregulatingworktimeandoutput),
in sports and entertainment (in games and pop cultural formats like
music or film), in technological and now mostly digital standards such
asANSI,htmlorTCP,eveninthearts(ingenericconventions,audience
expectations, etc.),^1 in sexual desires and behavior (in the edifice of
heteronormativity), and, perhaps most importantly, in human
communication,inthe"normaloquendi"(Horace),thedo'sanddon'tsof
languageuse.Inalltheseinstances,thereisacloseinterrelationbetween
norms and forms, even formulae, between norms and customs, usages,
procedures or practices. Norms are thus part of what Norbert Elias
described as the "civilizing process," the unidirectional movement
duringwhichcollectivitiesintegratenormsintotheireverydaylivesand
conduct(365-79).Andthisunendingprocessiswhatmakesnorms,even
though they are most often social in origin and authorization, an
eminentlyculturaldomain.
In this chapter, I will follow the proposition that it is the biology of
thehumanbodywherenormsfindtheirprominentandpowerfulfieldof
(^1) Norms, their function but also their status in the arts have been the subject of
intensive debates, especially in the context of discussions about the canon as
"flexible, normative fact" (Westphal 436). These debates, while important for
Humanitiesinquiries,areoutsidetheinterestsanimatingthecurrentargument.