Social norms

According to Wikipedia, social norms are "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours. These rules may be explicit or implicit."

The key is who decides what is the social norm. From my experience in life, it seems that most people follow the lead of a few high visibility individuals, they do not sort out what is right or wrong for themselves. Having followed this lead, they become convinced their view is "right" and that it is their own opinion. The fact that they have not questioned it is of crucial importance and is something that the less scrupulous people in history have used to their great advantage.

At the extreme end of this idea, consider a tyrant, any of them will do. When they started out on their quest for power, what reaction did they get from those around them? Were they opposed by the masses? Most are opposed by a few but in so many instances, tyrants get to power because the masses do nothing. Once in power, why do the masses support them? Because they do not think for themselves, they are told what to think. Leaders of all sorts know this and take great pains in telling everyone they have The Truth and that Salvation will result should everyone follow them.

At the other end of the scale, who decided that nudity was shameful? A key figure in this idea is Augustine of Hippo. His theological ideas are still widely respected but he was a tortured person, his sense of personal guilt about his very humanity led him to some utterly daft ideas, such as when he wrote "I fail to see what use women can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children". We still see the result of this teaching centuries later, perpetuated by the few but unwittingly supported by the inactive masses. The extension of these ideas is catastrophic, women have been seen as sinful in themselves for inflaming men, they have been treated as second class and are still treated that way in the modern British society. Why? Because the masses have followed those who have taught that idea, they did not work it out for themselves. Augustine taught that the body was shameful so nudity must of itself be shameful.

So who still teaches that social nudity is shameful, that it is contrary to the social norm? Only a few take this view, surveys put it as less than 2%, most people will say something along the lines that "I don't mind but I am sure that others do mind", never questioning why they have come to that view or if other people really do think it is shameful.

Naturists of course do question it and can find no reasonable argument why social, non-sexual nudity is still a problem, indeed when they ask, find that most people are very accepting once they had thought about it. When the British Parliament is asked what the law should be, it has for a very long time decided that simple public nudity should not be illegal and that remains the case today. The problem comes when one of the 2% complain and the police fall for the mindset "I don't mind but I am sure that others do mind", i.e. they assume they hold the social norms. If they just thought for a moment and reflected on what Parliament enacted after long consideration, they would arrest the complainant for impeding the freedom of someone simply enjoying the fresh air in a manner to which they were born.