The NEW New Normal

When I spoke at Faith Church earlier this year about the new normal, I had no idea that what the new normal looked like then would morph into what it looks like now. None. Nada.  I saw the new normal as a political problem – foolish me. My flights of fancy, impacted by 8 years of Obama in the White House (followed by his successor), led me to believe that we as a society would come to our senses and move forward, not backward. I expected us to see what apathy, stubbornness, and buying into the Ayn Rand myth of individualism had gotten us. Instead, we as a society, or at least certain segments of us, seem hell-bent on riding that one-trick pony straight into hell for the foreseeable future. This latest crisis, coronavirus, has just compounded my feeling of being in sky fall. (Cue Adele here.) So, she said, what have we learned from all this? I have learned that some people in this country will vote against their own interests, just like they’ve done for more than 350 years. I’ve learned that some people need to become more pragmatic and less idealistic. I watch people who are on the bottom of the barrel believe that those on the top have their best interests at heart, even in the presence of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I’ve seen people marching for the freedom to share infections among their nearest and dearest -and others – because they don’t trust government – a fear stoked by propaganda and false narratives. I’ve been watching alternate facts being put forward as though they are the gospel, spin so dizzying that I feel nauseated. I’ve learned, again, that cultures/civilizations/nations/empires tend to do the gavotte, so many steps forward, some sideways, some back before they clumsily lurch forward again. What have you learned lately? What is the new normal for you?