Help understanding English sentence (sociology)

I’m gonna go with characterized by or proceeding from instinct rather than intellect

“Viscera” are the internal organs of the body so yes, it indicates a “gut reaction” to something. It seems to be a somewhat strange sentence though.

Visceral in this context seems like ‘actually felt’ to me.

Welcome to Fluther.

First of all, it seems like total bullshit.

However, as to the “meaning of the sentence”, part of it seems to make sense. In the sense that orthodoxy is related to behavior, it is “outward-facing” and “measurable”. But “visceral”, as others have stated, is very subjective: it’s how you feel inside “in your gut”, and in that sense it is totally inward and non-measurable. If the sentence said that orthodoxy was “visible”, then it would make sense with the rest of the sentence and the meaning of the term: orthodoxy refers to conformance to practice, as others can see.

The second word “is” is also incorrect. It should be “are” since it refers to the plural “actions”.

It’s a very poorly written or edited sentence.

I agree with @CWOTUS that this is a very poorly written sentence. It is also quite contradictory. How can something be measurable and definable but then intuitive or subjective?

Where was this sentence written? I think you need to provide more contextual information.

This is my understanding anyway. We are talking about norms/conventions. The use of the term ‘outward-facing’ suggests norms are judged or evaluated by observers rather than by those who adhere to those norms/conventions. The judgement imposed by these observers is based on either measurable criteria or by more subjective means such as intuition.

Again, as @CWOTUS explained, this is a very badly written sentence. Good writing should not be this difficult to decipher. I would very much like to understand the context in which it was presented.

^^Word and words. The sentence does not make sense.

I would need more context. The sentence by itself could mean many things. Is the topic orthodoxy (e.g. socially acceptable behavior)? The application of orthodoxy (e.g. the definitions and judgments of actions in respect to the orthodoxy? Or perhaps the establishment of an orthodoxy, or the nature of how it evolves into being amongst individuals.

It sounds like it’s taken from an old text on the topic.
I would need to know what the writer’s topic is.