Fringe Dwellers

In every main culture across the globe, there are those who live in the edges, the Fringe Dwellers; those whose Values, Rules, and Roles do not match the cultural model, are not accepted by the norm of society. Every society has them, and those people who have been indoctrinated into societal normalcy don’t like them. Their lifestyles challenge the Collective Ego of society that thinks in the absolutes and definitions of "compliant" and "deviant." These absolutes often leads to “One-True-Way-ism” and the “We’re right – you’re wrong” stories of Collective Extrinsic Ego.

Values are relatively generalized beliefs of virtues and moralities, meaning and merit, putting value or importance to aspects of the culture. These include culturally accepted symbols and archetypes that hold meaning, and the society’s view on art and beauty.
Cultural Rules dictate which behavior patterns and attitudes that are expected, accepted, or prohibited. Although some Cultural Rules are made into Laws, many of the behavioral expectations that govern our lives are not (like blowing your nose in public). These are usually ideals and ways of belief or living that we take for granted. They form and are formed by the collective Values of the culture in which we live. These are the Expectations that are not usually Law, but enforced through the Egoic "peer pressure" to conform to a Social Role.

Social Roles are sets of cultural expectations of individuals in specific situations and circumstances. These roles are defined by the culture or subculture, dependent on the Values and Rules associated with the role and behavior, and are known to differ greatly between cultures and subcultures. Characteristics attributed to Social Roles are arbitrary and subjective. The roles we tend to take for granted may not be present in other cultures, or may change drastically.

Social Roles tend to find a distinctive place in the individual and/or collective ego. As Social Roles become institutionalized and part of the norm, society often loses sight of the cultural significance the expectations originally held. Another shortfall is the stagnation of the culture; society may fiercely defend an ideal that needs to change in order to support growth and evolution.

Modern Western society often struggles between situational fluctuations (such as economic difficulties, advances in technology, etc), and the desire to maintain cultural status quo. This collective “tightening grip” of Egoic peer pressure may actually encourage further development of the fringe societies who actively reject the Values, Rules, and Roles. This rejection elicits Tricksteresque behavioral deviance that may be considered disgusting, embarrassing, frustrating, annoying, or even threatening to the societal norm. Although the cultural institution is striving to bring the limit closer to the comfortably defined center, the original meaning of the prohibitions is blurred, lost, or is no longer necessary in the evolution of the culture.

It is the Collective Ego of modern Western culture that dictates we must all chase that elusive "American Dream." It's the cultural institution that dictates we must all try to get a good job, own a home, two cars, marry, and have children. It's the indoctrinated who feel threatened by those who refute these values... who neglect and reject anyone who doesn't conform to the subjective views of society. It's the people who are so entrenched in the Collective Ego of society that they cannot feel empathy, compassion, or acceptance for the Fringe Dwellers. They shelter themselves and their children from seeing the homeless... speak with contempt of those who choose non-conformist lifestyles... and get caught up in the "superior/inferior" dialogue of their own egos.

It really becomes interesting when the indoctrinated themselves also belong to a subculture that was once so far "outside the lines" of cultural normalcy that it was considered the Fringe.