SOC211H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Ingroups And Outgroups
Document Summary
Norms are rules established by groups to clarify expectations and guide behaviour. For norms to be effective, they need to carry some form of sanction. Norms and laws have many similarities but also some key differences. For both laws and norms to work effectively, they need to align well. "the march of civilization leads inexorably to the development of systems of rules and regulations whereby, at least in the earliest stages of this development, the group reigns supreme over the individual" The most ancient form is informal control or self-help (or self-defence) These are where our self-defence laws came from. Even the most ancient societies had informal forms of social control, the most ancient of which is thought to be self-help or what we would call self-defence today. This informal form of norm-enforcement is reflected in our criminal law defence of self-defence. In its infancy, "informal control was associated with strong in-group solidarity and equally strong out-group hostility"
