[It's a tangled web, so I'll just plunge right in and see how far I can get before other projects require my attention.]
First, we'll need to accept that every exception has its rule; naming exceptions is a fast track to derailment via distractions. It's the overall trends I'm trying to grasp, and that means making some broad generalizations at points. Unless I wanted to turn this into a major dissertation (and surprise, I don't), then trying to absorb the basic trends is about the limit. We can get into specifics in comments-discussions. If it seems like I'm painting with a pretty big brush, well, at times I suspect I'll have to be if I don't want to be at this all night.
A week or so ago, I noodled around about orientalist fiction, riffing off (and on) "orientalizing": a prevalent or predominant culture's Other-ing of a subordinate culture. Yes, usually this is just called the 'dominant' culture, but 'dominant' is such an accepted term that it's hard to keep a question in our heads as to whether it's the right term. So instead let's say a 'norm' consists of the Prevalent or Prevailing Values, PV for short: it's the 'norm', the 'standard', of this western world against which all else is measured: male, white, western/anglo-european, cis-sex, cis-gender, heterosexual, christian.
That combination of adjectives may not be a universal truth on this entire planet (because it's far far beyond my scope or knowledge to get into the sticky-wicket clash of privileged westerners in an Asian setting), but it is the prevailing 'norm' by which anything else is a deviation of one or more degrees. While 'prevalent' has connotations of being (or is assumed to be) the most wide-spread, 'prevailing' also implies 'coming out on top' with its attendant implications of 'over something else'.
Also, in general terms we'd say the western world is the prevailing culture, except that a) culture is not monolithic (and it can get fuzzy if we try to treat it as so), and that b) the use of V for 'values' may help to underline the fact that what's being transmitted is an understanding/expectation of what's valuable — that is, "that which moves farther away from the prevailing values is by definition less valuable."
( And so begins another installment from the brain of kaigou; in this go-round is pondered types of divergence from the norm and the issue of culture, among other things, with more coming soonly. )
First, we'll need to accept that every exception has its rule; naming exceptions is a fast track to derailment via distractions. It's the overall trends I'm trying to grasp, and that means making some broad generalizations at points. Unless I wanted to turn this into a major dissertation (and surprise, I don't), then trying to absorb the basic trends is about the limit. We can get into specifics in comments-discussions. If it seems like I'm painting with a pretty big brush, well, at times I suspect I'll have to be if I don't want to be at this all night.
A week or so ago, I noodled around about orientalist fiction, riffing off (and on) "orientalizing": a prevalent or predominant culture's Other-ing of a subordinate culture. Yes, usually this is just called the 'dominant' culture, but 'dominant' is such an accepted term that it's hard to keep a question in our heads as to whether it's the right term. So instead let's say a 'norm' consists of the Prevalent or Prevailing Values, PV for short: it's the 'norm', the 'standard', of this western world against which all else is measured: male, white, western/anglo-european, cis-sex, cis-gender, heterosexual, christian.
That combination of adjectives may not be a universal truth on this entire planet (because it's far far beyond my scope or knowledge to get into the sticky-wicket clash of privileged westerners in an Asian setting), but it is the prevailing 'norm' by which anything else is a deviation of one or more degrees. While 'prevalent' has connotations of being (or is assumed to be) the most wide-spread, 'prevailing' also implies 'coming out on top' with its attendant implications of 'over something else'.
Also, in general terms we'd say the western world is the prevailing culture, except that a) culture is not monolithic (and it can get fuzzy if we try to treat it as so), and that b) the use of V for 'values' may help to underline the fact that what's being transmitted is an understanding/expectation of what's valuable — that is, "that which moves farther away from the prevailing values is by definition less valuable."
( And so begins another installment from the brain of kaigou; in this go-round is pondered types of divergence from the norm and the issue of culture, among other things, with more coming soonly. )