Marginals. Meaning of the word. Who is it - "living on the outskirts" or "cultural hybrid"?

Often you can hear that people who are free from stereotypes and the habitual majority of addictions are called "marginals". The meaning of the words of many can be at a dead end, since under this concept may fall homeless, immigrants, intellectual free artists, oligarchs of a new wave. They are absolutely different layers of the population, different people. What unites them? Who is considered marginal?

Man overboard"

For some reason these individuals, social strata and groups are "overboard" because they do not fit into the framework of social and cultural norms and traditions that prevail for a given society. It turns out that to marginals can be attributed to any person who voluntarily or in spite of her avoids habitual attitudes or denies them, does not live like everyone, does not join the society. Originality, inability to communicate, a special craving for loneliness also immediately put a certain personality behind a peculiar edge of the usual boundaries.

Consider what the word "marginal" means. According to the interpretation of encyclopaedic dictionaries, it is a person who is on the border of various social systems, cultures, groups and is affected by contradictory rules, norms and values. A synonym for this concept is the declassed element, to which the representatives of the social "bottom" are considered.

It turns out that if you have one of such characteristics as originality, inability to communicate, a special craving for loneliness, you already fall for a peculiar edge of the usual boundaries, you are already marginalized. Who is it - "living on the roadside" or "cultural hybrid"? How to divide people "out of the box" - into the marginals of higher and lower levels? In this case, the first to include those who left the lower class and is at high levels, and to the second - those who have degraded or, conversely,
Found exhaustive answers to all the main questions of life?

"Living on the Roadside"

People who do not live like others who ignore social standards, but do not go beyond the legal framework, are marginalized. The meaning of the word does not mean something offensive, It rather means someone who is in the minority. For the first time this term was spread in the beginning of XX century. He used a researcher at the Chicago School of Sociology Robert Park. It was voiced in one of his essays entitled "Human Migration and Marginal People" in relation to immigrants to North America, who have not found a use in a new country that has not adopted new norms and continues to adhere to their traditions.

All shades of meaning

The notion of "intermediate element", used in studies on the life of groups of immigrants in urban social organization, can be considered a prehistory of the appearance of the term. They described the situation of individuals who are equilibrated on the border of absolutely different cultures, and the consequences of their unadaptedness in the new society. These immigrants were the first to be baptized with the same name as the marginals. Meaning of the word Over time, acquired new shades. His peculiar blurriness introduced some confusion in understanding the meaning of the term. So people began to call people outside the usual society, people with a print of physical or mental ailments.

What is the word "marginal", absent In the dictionaries of Ozhegov, Brockhaus and Efron, in TSB? In some sources, one can find only the etymology of the single-root word "marginalia" - markings or headings made on the fields of a journal, book or other printed product. Later in the "Soviet Encyclopedia" appears the word "marginal", meaning the intermediate position of the individual in a particular society.

In the modern Russian language, individuals, social strata or groups located on the "roadside", outside the framework of specific structural units and traditions, are referred to as marginals. Meaning of the word Rather vague, but recently quite fashionable.

"Extra-systemic"

The concept of the word "marginal" is somehow priceless. It is on the verge between "good" and "bad." After all, what is perceived today as going beyond the framework of the system, tomorrow may well enter into it, or may not enter, to remain "out of the board" of the social structure.

Positive and negative marginalism

The word "marginal" can be analyzed in two aspects: positive and negative. After all, the values inherent in the "extrasystem" personality, do not necessarily have to confront all established and philistine. They may well complement it.

Marginals are often regarded as "fools." Serious passion for classical music of a man from among businessmen makes him among his colleagues strange and special, since among them the values of high art are rarely quoted. In his company he is in the minority. And similar people, who feel themselves to be outsiders in their own environment, are many in history. This is AD Sakharov, AI Solzhenitsyn, A. Einstein, Thomas Mann and a number of other famous personalities. Many of their ideas were not understood and accepted by contemporaries, but were highly appreciated in the future. All names can not be listed, but the uniqueness of these individuals always creates favorable conditions for the appearance of an unforeseen, original and unaccounted case.

And there are marginalized people who hamper development. Because of their low intellectual abilities, they can not adapt in generally accepted conditions, it is easier for them to deny established norms and to lead an antisocial way of life.

Understanding the phenomenon of marginality is often attempted to interpret within the framework of a negative attitude. And you can philosophize and try to find a line between the extraordinary manifestation of the average person's personality and the usual perception of the word "marginal", which is quite difficult.