tycho wrote:For me to understand absurdity I need to believe that there's a 'normal' I subscribe to, and aberration from this normal is likely to be an absurdity especially if it 'rubs me the wrong way'.
Very well.
I present to you a “normal” that is male circumcision among the Luo community. This community, their women included, hold the belief that they prefer their men “whole”. That is, uncircumcised.
To them, it is not “normal” to circumcise their boys/youth/men. It is an “absurdity” to circumcise their boys/youth/men. Having sex with such a circumcised boy/youth/man was “rubbing someone the wrong way” so to speak.
Out in the U S of fn A, a Lab Rat designs a virus that gets named Human Immuno Virus and sets it loose among the Gay community of San Francisco.
With no time, its product, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome has jumped from the Gay community into “normally” sexually oriented people. It starts killing with reckless abandon. For a long time, it was acknowledged that getting HIV was a death sentence.
This death reap spread all over the world including among the Luo community.
Then someone came up with findings that a circumcised boy/youth/man has reduced chances of acquiring Human Immuno Virus during sexual intercourse.
Suddenly, having sex with a circumcised Luo boy/youth/man is no longer an absurdity to contemplate. Circumcising them is no longer an absurdity. Tradition gets thrown out of the “hot bed.” An American Lab Rat has made an "absurdity" a reality.
Did I understand your understanding of “absurdity”, your subscription of “normal”, possible aberration from such a “normal” and its absurdity “rubbing you the wrong way” correctly with my analogy hereto?
Play do tell.