perfectly normal
The Unknown Citizen
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
Ultimately society becomes nothing more than a collection of statistical regularities and statistical categories. It makes little difference whether the category is a traditional one of social structure (age, sex, class) or a kind of person (child abuser, homeless) because the statistical category is the great equalizer—it strips the meaning from a social category and the individuality from a human kind. Society is statistical and so are the individuals who comprise it.
…
The main reason we measure everything human is that the concept of normality has placed that of morality, or as Ian Hacking puts it, the concept of normal people replaced that of human nature. The traditional view of human nature was a moral one. Belief in a transcendent God or in natural law allowed humans to be defined according to an ideal or to virtues. Virtue was not based exclusively on public opinion, or average behavior.
…
The normal is now an epiphenomenon of statistics, which when applied to human culture and the individual turns quality into quantity and imperialistically imposes the equality of standardization upon the individual and society.
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