I listened to BBC Radio4 this morning as journalists interviewed all and sundry about closed theatres, opening pubs and restaurants, and what is generally referred to as ‘the return to normal(ity)’. The accepted premise is that the way we lived pre-CV19 was ‘normal’. To my mind that represents a sophisticated attitude, meaning ‘complex and probably not natural’. Maybe ‘abnormal’?
Stay with me and my thought processes on this one. Is it ‘normal’ to spend 2-3 hours a day travelling to and from a place of work? Of course not. It has ‘become normal’ but that is a different matter.
Is it normal to live in the equivalent of a small box, stacked one on top of another into a tower of ‘flats’? Of course not, but it has ‘become normal’. It most certainly isn’t ‘natural’. Put another way, it is un-natural or even ab-normal, but it seems to work for some people, some of the time.
What I’m really describing is our comfort zone. We might not like it especially, but we stay with it because it feels more acceptable and comfortable than any change might turn out to be. What timid souls we can be. How conservative.
Others don’t want change because it wasn’t their idea, and then it becomes political. We know those people as socialists, or communists or just about anything else ending in -ists or -holes. Undecideds are liberals and they are the ‘whatevers’ of this world.
And there you have it. See how easy it is to create splits and dissent simply by applying a label? Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me. HOW BIG is THAT lie?
Michael Dunn.
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