Deviance is not cool anymore. Today, the cost-benefit analysis of whether to defy norms or break rules rarely occurs. In this issue, I wanted to highlight a piece I thought acknowledged this decline the best: “The Decline of Deviance”, by Adam Mastroianni. Mastroianni outlines audacious deviance in the past in a way unimaginable today: “The sculptor Arturo di Modica ran away from his home in Sicily to go study art in Florence… He later moved to Manhattan, eventually saving up enough to buy a dilapidated building in Manhattan, which he tore down so he could illegally build his own studio by hand. He refused to work with an art dealer until 2012, when he was in his 70s. His most famous work, the Charging Bull statue that now lives on Wall Street, was deposited there without permission or payment; it was originally impounded before public outcry caused the city to put it back”.
We can see deviance’s journey to irrelevance in our everyday lives. Consider all of the norms di Modica broke to produce one of the most iconic sculptures in the world. We often romanticize such deviance because it is a rarity in our current era. So, what are some examples of this decline of deviance, and where do we see them at Lexington High School?
One example that comes to mind is the surplus of clubs at LHS. While there are niche clubs, many seem like duplicates of one another. It’s very predictable: “Non-profit doing XYZ”, “club focusing on biotech or AI.” Few people are willing to test the boundaries of what a school club can be. Without risk or deviance, replication will only continue.
Another example is obviously short-form content. Once TikTok’s algorithm proved successful, all other social media companies rushed to do the same (would Reels or YouTube Shorts have existed without TikTok? Absolutely not), and the content on each platform is nearly identical. Moreover, on social media, there are specific types of content that are everywhere, with no real variety: aesthetics, memes, posts about vacations, all the rest. Even movies, music, and books appear boring. Modern media has become formulaic; nowadays, you can so easily predict the cover of a novel or the plotline of a movie sequel.
Getting into why this decline of deviance occurs, I personally think that one tremendous factor is the mass media. If we think about the decision-making of whether to deviate, there is an “exploit vs. explore” thought process. Do we exploit value out of things we already know (and know to have value), or do we explore things we don’t know, which involve risk, but could yield significant reward? Mass media shows us parts of the world we’ve never been to, new ideas we otherwise would not have thought about, and new products and creations, which takes away not only the thrill, but more importantly, the risk, of deviating. We have no incentive to go out of our way to do something if we can just see it through a screen. It’s a similar process with new movies and streaming: there is no incentive to pay extra to go to a movie theatre when you can just stream a movie from your couch.
Ultimately, there is a cost to this—society becomes boring, and our ideas all come from the same pot. Artificial Intelligence will ruin our ability to think critically, which inspires us to deviate from norms. Of all the fields AI will hurt, we do not focus enough on critical thinking, the aspect of humanity we need to preserve the most. So, I encourage you all to deviate. Going out on a limb is perfectly human.
