Hypernormalization
I’ve been thinking a lot about how fucked things are. And that is a very broad concept. There is government and system breakdown happening in the United States and in other countries. There are wars, genocide, scarcity, and needless death throughout the world. And there is a particular kind of helplessness and a freeze response that I and many others are feeling. What can I do? Will I be OK? Will WE be OK? And yet, I still go to the dentist and walk my daughter to school. What the fuck is going on? Shouldn’t more be happening?
In an article published in the Guardian by Adrienne Matei, I learned of the term hypernormalization, first coined in 2005 by scholar Alexei Yurchak. The article describes it this way, “Hypernormalization describes life in a society where two main things are happening. The first is people seeing that governing systems and institutions are broken. And the second is that, for reasons including a lack of effective leadership and an inability to imagine how to disrupt the status quo, people carry on with their lives as normal despite systemic dysfunction-give or take a heavy load of fear, dread, denial, and dissociation.”
That’s a lot to process. And we can’t process it all at once. But it’s a start. It’s a name. It’s something to coalesce around to try and start to grapple with how we feel. The article continues, “Hypernormalization captures this juxtaposition of the dysfunctional and mundane.” And continues, “Witnessing large-scale systems slowly unravel in real time can be profoundly surreal and frightening” There is a mass trauma and shock response. There is mass fear, confusion, and isolation.
There isn’t a lot of good news here. And I know that in my limited perspective as just one person I can’t speak to every atrocity in the way it deserves, but I hope over the course of this blog I will use this platform to try. Standing silent is not an option. The article also mentions a turn toward collective action and solidarity as a way forward in confronting hypernormalization. We have to stick together. We have to fight together. So here’s my pitch to you. Get out there and protest. Make a sign and walk. Join a community group. Find something you care about and find others who do to. It might not feel like a lot and maybe it isn’t. But hopefully it is. We have to try.
In Solidarity,
Alicia
