Normal?

We have seen some encouraging return of audiences to arts events and other places where people congregate. During the pandemic there was a lot of hope for things to go “back to normal” - as though life in the twenty-first century ever had a degree of stability. Recent years were not without abnormal events - in New York in 2001, or 2020 with an insurrection in Washington, or the discovery of mass graves near Canadian residential schools. The world before the 1950s wasn’t exactly normal either, but the 50s remain a dream world to return to for many.

We are hearing “normal” preceded by “new” in descriptions of climate change now. There’s a deception in feeling that the heat, flooding and fires will stay at the same level as they are now. We just have to accept that and deal with it and that will make it OK.

What a cop-out. It shows how we resist facing the reality that there is only a now - and that a future that depends on what we do today. Doing the same things will not create normality, however dysfunctional. It will only make things worse.

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