Taking action which is different from the conventional has two senses at least, one is that the rare action that one takes is the conventional for the person as one bases the context which is different from other people. The context itself is different for the one from others, and the action comes from one’s original context is ordinary to oneself but rare to others. Another is that one is aware of the norm of society but disagrees with it, that is why one attempts to get diverted from it. Action often takes place when one tries to change the present state or when not convinced by the current social order. One consciously takes their action towards society. In addition, they take action more reactionally in the sense that they had no choice to react given the situation which is going on in the society.
The actions have effect in their community: “When people speak, they are disclosing important aspects of themselves to the world, staking out their own place in a society that consists of millions of distinctive individuals, each defined by his or her principles, values, convictions, and beliefs”(1). Speech is a type of action that claims oneself to the outer world of oneself. When some present something progressive to the world, there is certain possibility of backlash arising from it. Taking action against the conventional has its risk. That often comes from those who prefer the conventional contrary to the one presented. Also, among those who, not prefer the conventional but, are dubious against the idea may oppose it. The stronger the power which moves toward one direction, the more intense the reaction could be. If that is little by little incorporated in the society, the increasing number of people may come to accept it without questioning rigidly, with the probability of conflict decreased. This acceptance is not necessarily what one explicitly, or consciously, admits, it is presumably more frequent to take it for granted without questioning, that is to say getting accustomed to it.
There’s a variety of expression in general. Although the term expression is often used for writing, speech, and painting, it can be taken in a wider meaning. It doesn’t have to be limited within speech and publication, how one behaves is a certain kind of expression. The reason why to take the word in a wider meaning is to suggest behaviours and actions of persons can be recognised as expression and it has more general effect towards society than the limited sense of the word. Although it may be better to use the word in its limited sense in discussing the topics of freedom of expression so that the arguments align with others, it is written in a wider sense so that this indicates the wider link with the general life of persons. Expression is required to change the present state. It is not merely conscious expression but also unconsciously one expresses based on what they perceived. The unconscious reaction is contained in the category of expression, contrary to action which is, not always but, more conscious behaviour.
In terms of the interaction with the world they live in, people’s behaviours are related to the past ones. Things put in the world by the present or past members of community are used. A number of agents involved in a person change the direction of their behaviour. If one has met an admirable person, one’s activities after that may have been greatly influenced. Intangible rules by which people spend their life are accumulation of the past experiences, in other words they are lessons from the past to live a better life for coming generations.
Context could be recognised as accumulation of actions. Person’s action is connected to the context. When one moves their right leg forward to move ahead, it should be accepted if that is to go to a grocery store, but if that is to do wrongdoing, people who noticed it would stop him. The same action can have different context.
Action moves the reality to a certain direction. It can be described as the power to push and the power to pull of context: the former is to expand the sphere progressively which applies to activism, even if it is unconventional, one attempts to expand the frontier; the latter is to pull the edge of the sphere back inside which is more conservative and a resistance to the unconventional action taken by another. Apart from the manipulation of sphere, pulling has another sense that is to pull new things into the norm as such that pulling an interesting cultural product of another country to their own. Also, some sets of norm disappear as time passes by in some cases.
Persons’ action is connected to community, and its norms. In community, it has certain stream of thoughts such as conservative, liberal, globalism, and nationalism. When some group of more globalism moves the norm of their society towards globalism, other group of more nationalism or anti-globalism would pull the norm back to their own end so that the norm of their society doesn’t get diverted that much from what they recognise acceptable. Towards the direction that one prefers, they make action of one’s view. It is also a matter of how society architectures the way in which the reaction caused by one’s action is flowed. For example, in terms of expression, the platforms may create the structure that prevents the spread of misinformation. Restricting every direction is too restrictive and doesn’t progress the society. The early progress of human rights culture has been fostered by the human rights activists who unconventionally questioned the norms that had been oppressing the minorities and the rights of women, for example. The human rights advocates who think the violation of the rights of certain groups of people are not right, they make protests or start movement towards its change. Though there are cases that need to be advocated for the development of society even if that is different from the conventional norms, one needs to be careful of whether it truly has benefits to the public.
If try to go beyond conventional norm, there should be certain public benefit. If one goes against the conventional norm, just violating the dignity of persons harms the society. Society changes over the history with the demand from the citizenry to change the wrong aspect of society in which they live in. It had been taken for granted for some time that “The smallest acquaintance with human life in the middle ages, shows how supremely natural the dominion of the feudal nobility over men of low condition appeared to the nobility themselves, and how unnatural the conception seemed, of a person of the inferior class claiming equality with them, or exercising authority over them”(2). The less powerful positions of certain groups of people such as racial groups or women and the activism to protect their rights and dignity is the examples that some asserted the wrong norms prevalent in previous ages and tried to correct it.
People’s speech is limited by the context, against which some try to expand the sphere of speech. If that is radical, often they cause backlash. Those who speak of what is different from the conventional of society are often criticised. Their publications are tried to be suspended. A shared norm is to work to dislike a certain sort of behaviour. Where justice is too strong, once one happened to have unjust one, even if it is slightly unjust from what has been in the history, one may commit the disappearance of oneself if noticed the deadlock of one’s situation. Justice narrows acceptable conduct. It feels a certain progress coming out of the human rights culture and advocation of justice by liberals, it has been moving towards the good direction. In the meantime, how society with the progress and implantation of the concept handles the deeds which is a bit diverted from justice.
People experience and learn the custom of their society, weaving the threads of custom towards the ideal point which is changeable over time. If radically try to change it, it collides with those who do not agree. One may say that to the extent that doesn’t offend the dignity of another, one can challenge going beyond the present paradigm. In the plain state, when people take actions such as speaking, if not offending they can exercise their power to that direction. The standard is based on the present life circumstance, which means the plain state of plus minus zero at each time, though it is a continual thread of history.
Beyond activism, there’s a choice that one chooses not to express though one can express the view to the public. The choice is because, for example, one can imagine that expressing as one wants is offensive to certain groups of people. People often find the necessity to make action in a certain way. If it is societally obvious to hurt the feelings of others, it would be better to think about the publicness of that publication.
Oppression is attempted to oppress the actions, by which more and more power is charged at the bottom of the oppressed. Not everything is straight, but some are twisted. Distortions in society can cause that sort of twist in society itself, that can get unleashed unexpectedly. They are absorbed as distortions in persons which in spiral causes distortion in others.
(1) Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014), p. 161. In the page that Waldron talks about C. Edwin Baker.
(2) John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and The Subjection of Women (London: Penguin, 2006), p.145.
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