The normalisation of the abnormal is well and truly here; and we have it in a wide spectrum of flavours. We no longer flinch when informed of some atrocious wrong-doing in government. Politicians lie shamelessly, reverse policies to suit the day’s ‘weltanschau’, and blithely accept money from vested interests and foreign powers. Not so long ago, these things would have been grounds for serious consequences; therefore they were invariably covered up in a slimy blanket of subterfuge. Leaders wouldn’t dare to allow any of their sordid doings to reach the light of day, lest they be nailed to the cross of public disapproval. But slowly and surely, these nabobs of nasty have come to realise two things; that although the public is well apprised of any wrongdoings:
  1. They are incapable of contextualising them
  2. Wouldn’t know how to remedy them even if they wanted to.
For the overwhelmingly most part, we have lost the last generation to insipid and watered down education. As George Carlin was fond of saying, “they want a population just smart enough to run the machines and dumb enough not to ask questions”.
But this uneducated horde also includes members of previous generations, those who feel they have been locked out of privilege and entitlement. We see them every day. They post comments online that are neither witty nor intelligent, and don’t understand why no-one else considers them clever. They trash others in a futile bid to elevate their estimation in the eyes of others. Oh the anonymity of it all! I think there is an inverse relationship based on how nasty you behave, and how far you are from the theatre of discourse.
Case in point: I am a fairly big sized lad with an ability (disability?) to turn my face into an infinite number of disapproving looks. People rarely screw up when I am in the room because our society mistakenly equates size and perceived toughness with authority. Do most folks need a moral arbiter in the environs to keep their idiot quotient in check? Unfortunately, I believe most do, so they behave pretty well. Put them behind the semi-anonymity of a shopping cart and the potential for rudeness ratchets up a notch…in a car, even more…online on Facebook and at least half of us pretty much lose it. Syria? Well it’s not OUR country is it? Better to act out our worst impulses halfway around the world, after all we wouldn’t want to air our military grievances on home soil now, would we?
But this is all normal now, isn’t it. Half of ‘Murica voted for a psychopath. The heir to a Canadian icon wears his shoes backwards, and our BC Liberals will garner probably close to half the votes despite having ruled with the scruples of a Mussolini for the better part of the century.
Until we start behaving with personal accountability and the capacity to question power, I fear that these abnormal times will become even more deeply ingrained as the norm