Imagine uma comunidade de criaturas versáteis e interactivas, não especificadas de outra forma, exceto que são conformistas. “Conformismo” aqui significa não apenas imitatividade (macaco vê, macaco faz) mas também censura — isto é, uma tendência positiva para ver que os vizinhos fazem o mesmo e para suprimir a variação. Isto deve ser pensado como uma disposição comportamental complicada, que as criaturas têm por natureza (“ligada”). Pressupõe nelas uma capacidade de reagir diferentemente (por exemplo, percepção) e também algum poder de alterar as disposições umas das outras de forma mais ou menos permanente (comparar reforço, punição, etc.). Mas não pressupõe pensamento, raciocínio, linguagem ou qualquer outra faculdade “superior”.
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O conjunto total de normas para uma comunidade em conformismo determina em grande medida as disposições comportamentais de cada membro não desviante; de fato, define o que é ser um membro “normal” da comunidade. Heidegger chama a este conjunto o impessoal (das Man; ver, por exemplo, SZ 126f, 194, e 288).
Ao contrário de uma dispersão de rebanhos, a pessoa é elaboradamente organizada e estruturada porque as normas que a compõem são altamente interdependentes. É crucial que o que é normalizado não seja, estritamente falando, instâncias reais de comportamento, mas sim disposições para se comportar, dependendo das circunstâncias. Assim, as normas têm uma espécie de estrutura “se-então”, ligando vários tipos de circunstâncias a vários tipos de comportamento. Segue-se que a comunidade de conformidade (nas respostas diferenciais de comportamento normal e censura normal) deve efetivamente categorizar tanto o comportamento como as circunstâncias comportamentais em vários tipos distintos. Dizemos que o impessoal (das Man) institui esses tipos.
But how can we conceive animals that are “political” in the relevant sense without presupposing that they are rational or word using? My reconstruction of Heidegger’s answer to this question is the foundation of my interpretation. Imagine a community of versatile and interactive creatures, not otherwise specified except that they are conformists. “Conformism” here means not just imitativeness (monkey see, monkey do) but also censoriousness— that is, a positive tendency to see that one’s neighbors do likewise and to suppress variation. This is to be thought of as a complicated behavioral disposition, which the creatures have by nature (“wired in”). It presupposes in them a capacity to react differentially (e.g., perception) and also some power to alter one another’s dispositions more or less permanently (compare reinforcement, punishment, etc.). But it does not presuppose thought, reasoning, language, or any other “higher” faculty.
The net effect of this conformism is a systematic peer pressure within the community, which can be viewed as a kind of mutual attraction among the various members’ behavioral dispositions. Under its influence, these dispositions draw “closer” to each other in the sense that they become more similar; that is, the community members tend to act alike (in like circumstances). The result is analogous to that of gregariousness among range animals: given only their tendency to aggregate, they will tend also to form and maintain distinct herds. Other factors (including chance) will determine how many herds form, their sizes, and their location; gregariousness determines only that there will be herds—distinguishable, reidentifiable clusters of animals, separated by clear gaps where there are no animals (save the odd stray).
When behavioral dispositions aggregate under the force of conformism, it is not herds that coalesce, but norms. Other factors (including chance) will determine the number of norms, how narrow (strict) they are, and where they are in the “space” of feasible behavior; conformism determines only that there will be norms—distinct, enduring clusters of dispositions in behavioral feasibility space, separated in that space by clear gaps where there are no dispositions (save the odd stray). Like herds, norms are a kind of “emergent” entity, with an identity and a life of their own, over and above those of their constituents. New animals slowly replace the old, and thus a (5) single herd can outlast many generations: likewise, though each individual’s dispositions eventually pass away, they beget their successors in conformist youth, and thereby the norms are handed down to the generations.
The clusters that coalesce can be called “norms” (and not just groups or types) precisely because they are generated and maintained by censoriousness: the censure attendant on deviation automatically gives the standards (the extant clusters) a de facto normative force. Out-of-step behavior is not just atypical but also abnormal and unacceptable; it is what one is “not supposed to” do and in that sense improper. Norms should not be confused with conventions (in David Lewis’s 1969 sense), which are “tacit” or “as if” agreements, where the parties have settled on a certain arranged behavior pattern for mutual benefit. Though nothing is implied about the origin of these arrangements, their persistence is explained by showing how, for each individual, it is rational to go along with whatever pattern is already established. The difference between norms and convention lies in the explanatory appeal: conformism does not depend on any rational or interest-maximizing decisions (and thus the norms themselves need not be beneficial). Also, insofar as conventions depend on rational self-interest, they forfeit the normative force of norms.
The total assemblage of norms for a conforming community largely determines the behavioral dispositions of each non-deviant member; in effect, it defines what it is to be a “normal” member of the community. Heidegger calls this assemblage the anyone (das Man; see, e.g., SZ 126f, 194, and 288). (Perhaps Wittgenstein meant something similar by “forms of life.”) I regard it as the pivotal notion for understanding Being and Time .
Unlike a scatter of herds, the anyone is elaborately organized and structured because the norms that make it up are highly interdependent. It is crucial that what gets normalized are not, strictly speaking, actual instances of behavior but rather dispositions to behave, contingent on the circumstances. Thus, norms have a kind of “if-then” structure, connecting various (6) sorts of circumstances to various sorts of behavior. It follows that the conforming community (in the differential responses of normal behavior and normal censorship) must effectively categorize both behavior and behavioral circumstances into various distinct sorts. We say that the anyone institutes these sorts.
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