Seeking Six Sigma
Dereliction blog is extending its scope to “deviance,” or more specifically, to “deviation.” It is the difference between rhetoric and objectivity. You say you didn't know homelessness is a matter of style? I am admitting it's not only art. Looking unflinchingly at the homeless's sorry state inevitably leads (back) to statistics -the logical starting point.
We always were operating under assumptions about numbers, just, that is, without actual numbers. We didn't have any primary data -and still don't; We can, however, establish thresholds. Re-read my blog of August 13, 2022, under the title “The Dweller on the Threshold.” It was a struggle, at first, to establish a metaphorical dialog with homelessness. Now, progressively, we intend not to concentrate on homelessness as a comment of the Human Condition (only), but define what, and who, a homeless person is.
I can't give that comprehensive definition, yet. It is a work-in-progress. I think of homeless people as rogue individuals. I view them as having departed the herd, similar to, for example, rogue elephants which refuse to stay with the herd. For whatever motive they have crossed the tacit boundary of the herd's domain. Empirically, while the behavior of these animals is not deviant behavior in itself, it is at a remove from the mean, a deviation from the typical behavior of the cohort, or herd.
The complement of the rogue individual is the up-standing, socially-cooperative mass of the herd (or “cohort”). It is a data set of units of standard deviation. If the mean cohort is the set of standard deviation, the “rogue” individual is the unit of normal deviation.
A normal deviation is a certain unit of data or (for my purpose), an individual. A tennis player's world ranking is, for example, one such normative deviation from the mean. The curve is asymptotic, with one player rated the best, or the “champion,” at the extreme margin of the set of all data, all-inclusive.
Obviously, no player has ever won every game (to continue the tennis example), and may be succeeded, in turn, by even better players. Note that the "best" is defined as but better than current players. The all-time best may be better even than all previous bests, or champions. More wins than losses until a theoretical non plus ultra who never lost a match -or lost least.
Philosophically, stand-outs in any field are a problem. Although the champion may be the best, he is vastly outnumbered by the rest. Winning becomes an embarrassment. A concrete instance of this is the effect of the straight-A student on the grade curve and, as a consequence, on the academic status of the student class. One makes the rest of us look bad.
Therefore, “stand-out” has negative connotations for overall performance. Even alluding to the matter metaphorically feels Taboo, similar to the tacit agreement not to discuss income in casual conversation. It is an understanding. It can, in principle, rule the highest level of policy -local, national, and foreign. I tread cautiously on the political grounds of Democracy.
The "best" of any competitive order is a target for the envious. The "best" is viewed by the losers as the real deviant. The strategy of the devious is to surpass the exception, the just deviation-from-the-mean, by devious means. It is a mad gambit, the last resort of the madman. And, after all, even if the champion is eradicated, the assassin does not legitimately take his place. Realistically, should he do so (witness the Roman emperors of “the decadence”), he is eliminated in turn by the same devious means.
The homeless are the assassins of the human spirit. They refuse to play by the rules and, not incidentally, weigh upon the conscience of the standard cohort. How, I might ask (rhetorically) can a conscientious person enjoy the comforts of respectable living, while another human being suffers the indignities of homelessness? If that doesn't cause you to feel a pang of guilt, then I can only conclude there must be something wrong with you.