Many maxims sound good until they are scrutinized. Then they break down. This one is no different. It says, "We advance society by creating and destroying the norm." Alex Grey apparently said this. A few problems here. First, if we are always creating and destroying the norm, then that action becomes the norm: creating and destroying. This renders the maxim self-destructive, like the snake eating its tail. Second, no one can be said to have "advanced" except against a fixed standard. I cannot say I am healthier today than I was last week unless I have a standard of good health by which to judge the perceived "progress." If, for example, I believe that good health brings us in the direction of death, then to say, "I am better" would be a very dubious statement. So, to say "We advance society," we must assume we advance it by measuring it against a fixed standard. The standard must not shift or change, or our judgment of progress becomes impossible. There is a very funny scene early on in "Alice in Wonderland" in which the animals all want to have a race. The problem is that when the race starts, they all start running around in their own circles and directions. There is no set finish line determined before the race starts. When all the movement stops and they all come panting back to the Dodo bird, they all ask, "Who has won???" The Dodo thinks for a second and says, "You all have won, and you shall all have prizes!!!" It is perhaps for this lapse in logic that this aviary specimen is extinct. Now, back to our own insanity. To say we advance society, we must advance it against a fixed standard of what society should be. However, if we are constantly "creating and destroying the norm," then there is no fixed standard. We are always changing it. Unless Alex Grey means that creating and destroying become the norm, the statement is senseless. We cannot say we have advanced unless we know the goal. And in all endeavors, the goal must always stand still.
There is a further problem here, though not one of logic. It is an error in observation. Certain people are very fond of saying that norms are created or set, as though a town crier had gone about chanting to everyone that for the next ten years socks must not be worn in summer. It is truer to say of norms that they are noticed, not that they are created. It is the norm that men pursue women, because if one takes the time to go into the high ways and byways of this world, one will find, the vast majority of the time, men pursuing women. There was no first man who "created" this norm. He and all the others simply found themselves doing this, much as they found themselves looking for shelter and feeling a deep desire to cook chickens and eat them. Norms are norms because they are "normal." And normal here means "whatever it is we do by our own nature." And we no more create our own nature than we create the trees, mountains, and water that make up nature. Let's take firm hold, gentlemen, lest we get dizzy!