A list of examples of going beyond the norm:
- Hanna and Koppel (CNN), July 19 2001, Message Unit 1
- Fairchild (LCPJ), February 2004, Message Unit 1
- Demick (LA Times), October 26 2003, Message Unit 1
- Newsday, February 7 2002, Message Unit 1
- Chicago Tribune, April 10 2003, Message Unit 1
- Chicago Tribune, April 10 2003, Message Unit 4
- Chicago Tribune, April 10 2003, Message Unit 5
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Definition of
going beyond the norm
If we accuse someone of going beyond a boundary, we are normalizing the boundary. We are implying that as long as s/he says within the boundary, s/he is behaving in an ordinary, unremarkable and legimate way.
Because of this, we ordinarily speak of breaking the law or deviating from standard practice. By contrast, in patriotized speech, we speak of going beyond something that is not the law or ordinary practice, but is itself a crime or something extraordinary and outrageous. In this way we imply that the crime is the law, that the extraordinary is ordinary, that the outrage is normal.
This technique can be used either in compliments or in criticisms of the US; the effect is the same either way. So, for example, sometimes we might say that the US is going far beyond the norm by agreeing not to blow somebody up in their own home, thus implying that it is perfectly normal for the US to blow people up in their own homes if it feels like doing so. Or we might say that the US has done a very bad thing because it has blown up some people in their own homes who were not on the list of people that the US has decided to blow up in their own homes, thus implying that is perfectly normal for the US to blow people up in their own homes as long as they are on the US's list. Both the compliment and the criticism uphold this "norm" that the US to deciding who to blow up in their own homes is perfectly ordinary.
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patriotized history
