What is normal?

There is nothing normal, no one is normal. Increasingly these phrases can be heard on Netflix shows, commercials, YouTube ads and even your therapist.

But how true is it?

For thousands of years humanity had existed with some notion of normalcy. And let me splash some cold water in your face: majority of the world still does believe in normalcy!

First of all, let’s define what is normal. Normal in a society constitutes a set of practices by a large group of people. That’s it! There is nothing more to it. Whatever the overwhelming majority does, it can be considered normal!

The core aspects of normalcy have stayed the same throughout the history of mankind. They could be distilled into few short precepts: (a) create a family, (b) procreate, (c) follow social norms and (d) respect the governmental authority. If you follow that – you will have a place in society. If not, you will be ostracized, declared a rogue or menace to the social order. To certain respect, these things still hold true even in the United States:

• When a young man or woman does not have a nuclear family, they will make sure to display pictures of their girlfriend or boyfriend or their four-legged friend to receive social validation.

• Procreation is a hard thing to fake, but there are options available: adoption and artificial insemination.

• Most people follow social norms and customs. You do say “excuse me” in public and avoid discussions on religion, politics and controversial topics.

• You pay your income taxes because you know that tax evasion is illegal.

Superfluous or cosmetic aspects to the above core principles have varied depending on the geographic or cultural environment. I can only have 1 wife here in the USA, but let me move across the ocean and I can declare up to 4 legally recognized unions.

Second of all, normalcy is not something that is good or bad. It is a morally and ethically irrelevant term.

Current societal climate conditions us to believe that there is no normalcy. This notion is reinforced by the social media, psychotherapists and social pundits.  Although the conversation regarding the culprits of social conditioning deserves a separate discussion, in the context of this blog post allow me to say that the main stream media will reinforce anything that they see as normal or socially acceptable. If human sacrifice (or Purge) becomes a recognized ceremony for maintaining the 4.5% unemployment and 5% interest rates, the main stream media will be the first to announce the necessity of this sacrifice on their social media pages.        

Current public discourse on what constitutes “normal” comes down to argumentation, definition and semantics. This generates fruitless discussions of whether normal exists or doesn’t exist. Forgetting the fact that normalcy is not colored in various shades of good or bad. But it is a mere statistical occurrence in a society.