What If Our Current State of Affairs Is Actually ‘Normal’?

One thing unusual about this unusual essay was that it took until the last sentence to read that too-new-normal word that we hear and read ad nauseam: "Exactly how funny would that be?" [Just when will we have to read/hear something sans that first word? (Or should this be "Exactly when ...?"?!)]

People have not ceased trying to shape the world, but it is much more difficult now that artificial entities have usurped people's First Amendment rights and dismantled free and fair elections. How are people supposed to defend our rights and limit tyranny of government and creatures of law with both hands tied behind our backs? I have to question “normal”–these decades-long swings of rule inspired by People Power, then swings of oppression, pollution, and wealth inequality controlled by the Monied Power. Are these swings driven by internal flaws of human nature from our love of power and our fear of other? Or are they driven by a legal framework that is severed from the moral pulse of humanity? After the American Revolution, our young nation threw off the yoke of British monarchy and drew up new founding documents. These documents were based on law of our former oppressor. It is unreasonable to expect that the outcome of rules that built empires would be a free and fair democracy. Maybe it’s time to question the basis of our laws and see if with our 230-year hindsight, we could craft new rules that inspire a new normal that grounds law in natural, not economic, realities like the limits of our planet’s ability to support life; that builds credibility and respect domestically and abroad; and that inspires its citizens to participate in and maintain a real democracy. Those who lack the vision for a better tomorrow need to get out of the way for those who dream and do.

Denial of reality cannot be normal, because, to remain alive, our ancient ancestors depended upon recognizing the reality of natural phenomena. Rationality, although not perfect, is in the human gene pool. The current distortion of our rationality will be temporary -- either by humans recoiling from the consequences in time to jerk back to reality or, if the recoil is too late, by destruction of our species in drastic climate change or a nuclear holocaust.

There have always been conspiracy theorists in America. Rarely have they ascended to the presidency. Men in power haven't always respected rule of law or the truth, but few Presidents repeatedly outright disregarded both while threatening independent institutions. Foreign interference and possibly collusion by the President or his closest family/aides definitely isn't normal. The way the tax bill passed wasn't normal, as historians tell us repeatedly, citing Reagan's tax bill among others. It's not normal for the President to appoint his family members to the West Wing, or for the chief negotiator on Israel-Palestine to be the President's son-in-law, who has exceedingly close financial and personal ties to one side. The President casting suspicion on entire groups of people hasn't been normal in several generations. Banning Muslims and getting a KKK endorsement aren't normal. Building a wall isn't normal; nor is disregarding proven facts and scientific principles. According to UCLA poli-sci statisticians who track politics back to the 1800s, this is the about farthest right the Republicans in Congress have been, ever. Not normal. These issues have occurred, of course, but not always concurrently, or on such a grand scale (aside perhaps from racism). The only normal thing in our democracy is that a rich white man is President, and over 50% of eligible voters didn't bother casting a ballot in 2016. Those are par for the course.

I spent this evening watching YouTubes of Ray Charles "America" and Pete Seeger's "This Land is Your Land", in tears for the loss of the "normal", humane direction that my 68 years has led me to believe was the future and opportunity of my country. Disagreement is "normal", but, as our Constitution advises, so is Compromise for the better good. Trump may be a 'moron', but the real responsibility lies with the Congress and the Republican Party, which is in NO WAY serving the people that they have deceived.

Continuous lying is not normal and that is the current aberration that defines this administration. Proclaiming up is down and right is wrong has never been normal and never will be. While a partial dysfunctional country has always existed, we have never had a leader at the helm who attempts to distort reality on a daily basis. No, that is not normal no matter how you view it.

No. I do NOT agree. I will not accept what is going on as normal. We have become a society that is cold, coarse, and cruel. Our leaders are making life worse for the majority and we are letting them. Our music, TV and movies, our games, our literature, is filled with violence, much of it directed against women, and we wonder why they are abused? We wonder why there have been 14,312 gun deaths so far this year and 327 mass shootings? We wonder why in the richest country on earth our cities are filled with homeless and hungry men, women and children? It is because we have taken the wrong path and we don't care enough to change. We see the damage and we don't care, as long as it doesn't touch us, we don't care. If we want the world to change, we have to own this. We have to take personal responsibility for it and personally work to change it. Therefore I, Bruce Higgins, of San Diego, CA will work to change my part of the world. I will be more honest, I will be more compassionate, I will be more courteous, I will not give the one finger salute to someone who cuts me off on the freeway (a very hard thing for me), I will be kind to those in need, I will also be kind to those who are insulting and rude (also a very hard thing for me). I will hope my actions will be an example of what is possible when I succeed and a warning of what not to do when I fail. I will not give up when I fail, but will try again and again until I succeed. I hope others will also help me.

The expression "c'est normal" is very common in French, with or without shrug. Just spotted this sentence in a quick Google search: "Avoir des stéréotypes en tête, c'est normal, et pas toujours faux." Stereotypes are normal, and not always false. Sounds right.

What we are seeing here is like a control system that is not working correctly. Oscillating back and forth and swinging wider and wider like a drunk driver weaving down the road. Or not correcting itself at all like a heating system that is not responding to the thermostat. The furnace has no idea what is actually going on so keeps burning away and making things hotter and hotter and hotter... Until the house burns down.

We say "not normal" but what we really mean is closer to "dysfunctional" or "unhealthy." As the pot heats slowly, every new degree becomes the new normal, but the frog inside is still one step closer to boiling. It is a ruinous -- but, yes, normal -- kind of denial to interrupt the frog as it croaks "not normal!" and say "I won't take your concerns seriously because you're not using the right words."

Yew, our history is full of "...partisan divisions, irrational conspiracy fantasies, bursts of political violence, absurd manipulations of truth,..." etc. However, our 24 hour TV, twitter and other technologies have magnified and made immediate every utterance, war and natural disaster around the world which can make events seem much more threatening.

"Normal" is whatever the public will tolerate. "Normal" is cute, clever and dangerous.

The concept of normal, when it comes to "things", is elastic and dynamic. Things change. But people are more alarmed by change when it comes to human behavior; particularly the changes with regards to ethics, morals and truth. There is a baseline there, we know the fundamental difference between what's right and wrong. When "the new normal" is applied to those concepts, when a lie suddenly becomes the truth, we feel we have gone through the looking glass. And it's the uncertainty of not knowing if or how we're going to return, that makes those of us who value these concepts so uncomfortable.

"Normal, " will never be defined in this case- because history is fluid and depends upon the individual's perspective. This is due to what you accept is or is not a "fact" then what is or not the "moral" principles of living life .

We’d have to believe that the nation’s history includes wild partisan divisions, irrational conspiracy fantasies, bursts of political violence, absurd manipulations of truth, willful subversion of constitutional principles and loads of bumbling ineptitude. Exactly how funny would that be? Probably not funny at all, since it would be perfectly normal.

This country has been in crisis since the Vietnam debacle. All of our politics since have been an exercise in papering over the embarrassing arrogance and abject failure of that war. The delusion of America’s greatness and moral superiority has been steadily falling apart since that time. Winning the “cold war” was a delusion as well. Afghanistan and Iraq doubled down on the vestiges of the arrogance, and made the problem worse. The current effort by the Trump White House to restore the delusion, is also doomed to failure. The author is mostly correct, that it is normal for human beings to make a mess of things. Neither America, nor the United States, nor scientific discoveries, nor plentiful food, can change human nature. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can abandon false hope.

Abebe’s essay is so on-point that it should be added to the required reading for all Americans. Trump is blessed by the irrationality of some of his opponents who cannot imagine a ‘normal’ that does not embrace their overreaction to identity politics and defines any counter opinions as ‘cultural appropriation’ or racist.

Very much so. I wish this was a book.

The last paragraph provides the rationale for what is "normal" in that much of what we perceive as now abnormal isn't really. From politics to economic equity to conspiracy theories...it's all there for more than two centuries. Even some of the past presidents have been fairly marginal at best. That said, the current one is an atrocity only angry, low information voters could and would support. Normal people see him as monumentally incompetent, dishonest, unintelligent, angry and narcissistic. Which is to say, he isn't normal and never has been. Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/ Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism

"Normal" is a synonym for "usual" or "common." Why mistake "normal" for "correct"? For instance, in a patriarchal society, mistreatment of women is "normal" as in "it is the norm" not that "it is correct." Any deviance from the "normal," for good or bad, faces stiff resistance. For instance, in a neighborhood, it may be "normal" to use a vacant lot as a garbage dump. Now suddenly a new resident tells others that what they are doing is wrong and leads by example by walking a 100 meters to sanitarily dispose trash in the municipal dumpster. This newbie will be labeled "not normal," ridiculed, even harmed in case the newbie actively prevents the others from their uncivic, yet "normal" behavior.

Life is Change. In all aspects. Take it in, digest it, and keep its essence within you for as long as you live.

Where we stand today, on the threshold of possibility unknown since the beginning of time, is assuredly not normal. Never before has it been even conceivable that the entire population of the world could have its basic food, medical, and educational needs met. We are still living in only paradigms---of material satisfaction as being a zero sum game, of competition rather than collaboration, of insecurity. Of finding meaning and validity in productive work. Nietzsche thought that the crisis would occur when mankind would seek to avoid the reality of the meaninglessness of existence, through refuge in religion. Rather, the crisis or us, is our blindness to, and inability to embrace, the potential that awaits us.

This is clever, fun-to-read prose with a thought-provoking ending. But the question of what is normal is -- and probably always will be -- impossible to answer. Unlike height, weight and IQ, the signs of social and political ordinary-ness do not come in the form of a few numbers per individual, readily added together and divided by the number of subjects to get what we call the mean or average. Instead, the poor statistician is asked to perform an average over behavior patterns. That is impossible.

The writer is correct in the long term and wrong in the short term. America has shown remarkably strong internal stability since WW2, even with "speed bumps" like a presidential assassination (of which there was only one) and Vietnam to name two of the larger ones. These pale in comparison to say, the Great Depression, the Civil War, and an alarming trend of racist and classist violence that has gradually simmered down. The American public has become a placated force that even when mobilized achieves very little. We either place willingly blind trust in institutions that take barely noticeable incremental steps forward or seek to raze the entire structure to the ground. Normal or not, what the author is missing is the very real sense of long term decline. The ship of state may have weathered storms before but this is the first time in a long time that anyone has thought about it sinking.

The author is trying to normalize the idea that Trump was elected by a majority who wanted someone subnormal. Wrong, the subnormal electoral college took Trump to the WH. HE lost by 3 million votes. The system gamed him in; not the people.

I'm staunchly liberal, but I admired William F. Buckley for his civility and intelligence. Those are qualities which I consider necessary if a conservative wants me to listen to their opposing viewpoint. That's my "normal". Sadly, I'm seeing none of this from the infestation in the White House, who speaks like a drunken frat boy.

There is no normal except as a temporary optical illusion. The West has been in a state of rapid economic, social and political churn for at least 500 years. We have had one of those periods of illusions of stability for several decades, a remarkably long stretch. Life in America has changed and I have seen less severe turmoil over the 60 years that I have lived so far than any of my ancestors in the 400 years that they have been in this land. But the river was flowing under the ice all along and now the ice is breaking up as it had to and we see that it isn't the same river. Never is. You never put your foot in the same rive twice. Your only choice is the attitude that you choose to take towards it.

Sure, it's "normal" during the transition to a Fascist state. Germany during the 1930s, anyone???

Emphatically NO. It is not normal. None of your bargain-basement, third-rate “sophistry” or musings will ever persuade me otherwise.

From the comments, it would seem that people are confusing "normal" with "right" and/or "good." Good to finally see another promising quasi-opinion piece in the Times. At this rate: they might get half a dozen or so out every year.

There was a time when normal was boring or too conservative or patriarchal. In many parts of America it still is...and lot of men fighting Liberalism are those who believe "old is gold" and always normal, and patriarchy is the norm. What they are trying to normalize is "patriarchy", not the truth, gender and race quality, compassion, tolerance. diversity or democracy. What gets some Liberals into trouble, on the other hand, is to normalize everything...including stupidity, cluelessness, bad behaviors and disrespect for education or the educated mind.

"What if, when we fret that something has gone awry with America, we are merely getting a glimpse of a dysfunction that is actually normal, and has always been normal, and has merely been papered over, for a few decades, with careful management?" Exactly. We peek over the abyss and are terrified. And instead of coming to grips with that, we desperately try to impose order on what is essentially uncontrollable, everyone hewing to their own ideas of what is normal, or not. I would posit that it's not normality that we need to use as a guiding principle, but kindness. While this can seem impossible, it's the only sane and human response to the millions of tragedies unfolding in our communities every day. It's the only response that doesn't feed more hatred and more fear. The callous greed and grandstanding that we witness now, every day? Well, that's another possibility, which may well be 'normal.' But it's not 'right.' And that's another story altogether.

The whole has changed quite a bit since FDR, JFK, Richard Nixon and so on. What was deemed acceptable then and what is deemed acceptable are not the same. It doe not make sense to make such a conclusion, as cultures are now meeting head on. What was going on then did no travel muck and did not reach many outside the USA. Unless one feels as he or she is alone ont the planet, political correctness does not have the same definition outside the USA. Do you think that respect owed to you what ever you do? Unless one expects that the world will succumb to the American culture without hesitation or reservations, I do not think that the debate all about is republican vs democrats, as this applies only in the USA.

I think a short description of all said here is "history of time" or "growth of culture." While the POTUS has definitely generated a lot of discussion, all presidential elections and victors define a new normal. Just a few recent examples. Ross Perot defined a new normal as a third party candidate on the ballot, he spoke a language not dissimilar from the POTUS ("you are the boss"). The POTUS uses some colorful, apoltical language dating to this new normal. Mr. Reagan with his disarming quip about "youth" of his opponent defined a new normal of an aging politician defeating an establishment and government experienced guy. And this new normal helped both in the last election as age was never an issue. Mr. McCain accused then cadidate W of a new normal by accusing him of spreading rumors of infidelity - he claimed never done before. Its not true of course. The POTUS is the poster child. Mr McCain picked the governor of Alaska - a new normal for a belligerent female nominee. And I dare say this new normal allowed nomination of the womman who had that Oscar envelope moment in November. So, the POTUS is taking this growth of normalcy to the next level (or sinking it as some would have it) I also wish this author - in defense of POTUS - had said that he is a non poltician to achieve this high office and he is a senior citizen. Old habits die hard is really the norm of the normal as far as the POTUS is concerened.

It would be, or rather we should say that it is, tragically hilarious. Also, by the way, you are using the National Public Radio strategy here of identifying any political position that isn't Ivy League approved (there are only certain people that can be tasked to lead the "American public" of course, and that's the sort of people who read Foreign Affairs, and understand how yes principles matter, but it is all very complicated you see) center-rightism as a childish desire for "sweeping change." But that's perfectly normal.

Fatherless children by the tens of millions, violent crime severely limiting lives and destroying property values across every major city, sexual behavior that has degenerated into visceral self-loathing by younger and younger people, a middle class trying to get by on longer and longer work hours to pay for other people's families, vast numbers of illegal immigrants gratifying the demands of political and economic exploiters while the American working class founders -- so what is normal again? Democrats alone broke everything that is broken in this world. They have betrayed ordinary -- yes normal -- Americans of many stripes for their short-term gain.

If a person takes the history of a country and looks back there are always certain times when the country goes off course, i.e, the Civil War. This was not normal at the time and people didn't know what to do to make it normal. So, they picked up their weapons and shot each other. The country could not have been said to have ever fully recovered. Another war like that has never happened since. Normal is the expected behavior of the people and leaders of a country. Everyone knows what it is and when it is not present. It is not NORMAl at this time.

Trump said it from the very beginning that he would destroy Political Correctness, and his supporters loved him for it. We thought Trump was talking about things voters found to be stifling, like programmed talking points from politicians, or rigid public decorum, old-fashioned manners, pesky affirmative action, disruptive minority rights, or some other thing they don't particularly like. Now we see that by killing PC, Trump meant he would stop the papering over of personal foibles or unpleasant character traits that normal people employ to keep the peace in polite company. It’s a new approach that gives voters the chance to react in real time to abominations. How different from earlier ages, the truth of which we mere mortals learn only after the protagonists are gone. FDR had a mistress and sat in a wheel chair, President Kennedy was a womanizer with a drug problem, President Nixon was obsessed, paranoid and sometimes drunk… and these are just three in living memory. Surely, most great men and women are merely human. With Trump, it all hangs out, in every dimension. We are not the better for it.

Despite what NYT followers believe, Michelle Obama does not get to define what "normal" is. A liberal and welfare state is not "normal".