#325 Mainstream Maelstrom

Filler on board, oak frame

What is perceived as normal and conventional is not a neutral and static category. Of course, it naturally changes over time, but it is also active and invasive in itself. A society defined by a majority culture always experiences the minority as a threat to its existence. The mainstream thus exercises a constant influence on the marginalised to submit or disappear. This executive power can be external, but it is often internalised, i.e. that the subject experiences an inner pressure to adapt to normality. A suction next. It is thus not always a repressive process, like Aksel Sandemose's Law of Jante, but also a creative one, in building a community where everyone contributes. The problem is that the desire for conformity at the same time threatens to obliterate the subject's position since it is precisely the distinction to the outside world that defines it. The subject is in a neurotic and impossible relationship with others, oscillating between the need to belong and thirst for freedom.