Social media screens display the breakdown: a kitten video, an advertisement for something unnecessary, and charity workers discussing the destruction in Gaza and the scarcity of essentials like baby formula.
Another cat, cries in Gaza, an influencer discussing meal replacements, the final breath of a Palestinian child, a humorous headline, a weight-loss advertisement, and Israeli troops shooting and murdering Palestinians while they seek "help."
Pretending that this is not negatively affecting people's mental health is equivalent to acting as though nothing is wrong and that everything is going according to plan.
"Hypernormalization" is the term for that.
In his book Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, anthropologist Alexei Yurchak, who was born in Russia, used the phrase to characterize life in Soviet Russia.
According to the whoosh-whoosh version, it explains the phenomena when everyone accepts something as normal even if they know it is abnormal and that society is broken for the benefit of a few.
In his 2016 documentary, which was titled after Yurchak's work, British filmmaker Adam Curtis examined the idea and its relevance to the West.
When I was growing up, I had my own private education on how it all works, but I did not know the term for it.
Growing up, I assumed that every family, including my father's Lithuanian family, held meetings to discuss ways to sneak money, food, and medicine in packages to relatives abroad. However, we were all keeping it a secret because nobody outside the family was ever allowed to discuss it.
I assumed that documents being stashed in lockboxes in the backyard and persons showing up at your grandmother's home after midnight with unreliable news over the phone were commonplace.
that because "someone might be listening," we were all feigning ignorance about certain individuals.
As I watched my father and grandmother figure out how much to put in a "food package" to make sure that some of the antibiotics, tinned beetroot, and god knows what else got through, I learned about paying officials in corrupt regimes.
My grandmother would shrug and respond, "It is what it is," before taking a long pull from her cigarette when I would ask her about it.
"It is what it is" is a great survival tactic, but it is also great at disarming change and preventing people from having higher hopes.
Hypernormalization is what connects the western world's acceptance of Israel's genocidal acts against Palestinian civilians as a "war on terror" and its act of aggression against Iran (according to international law, there is no such thing as a "pre-emptive strike") as a "defensive" move to the inability to ever have a serious discussion about domestic reforms that would address rising inequality, declining living standards, and growing poverty.
All of this is quite typical, therefore we should never expect anything better.
It is common to witness war crimes without your government taking action.
When the largest superpower in the world permits war crimes, attempts to subjugate allies, and employs increasingly authoritarian tactics against its own people, it is common for the media and political elite to react by demanding closer ties, even at the price of their own country's sovereignty.
Because it is usual to ignore the science and keep approving fossil fuel projects, it is normal to accept disastrous climatic consequences.
People living in poverty in one of the richest countries in the world is quite common.
People being priced out of safe houses and having a tax structure that favors the wealthy while failing to provide the majority of its citizens with a minimal standard of living are both rather common.
Giving our identities and employment to digital companies is commonplace, and it is commonplace to not even try to control how much of us they control. Targeting marginalized groups while defending millionaires is commonplace. Feeling nervous, stressed, and like you will never succeed is quite common. Have you ever practiced mindfulness? To get all of the app's features, sign up for a subscription for just $19 a month.
The goal of hypernormalization is to make you feel helpless. It is intended to give you the impression that you can only ever move within the predetermined "normal" boundaries, meaning that no true change will ever take place.
Because it creates the impression that there is no other option, hypernormalization is effective.
However, there are always other potential futures. One of the myths that sustains hypernormalization is the idea that there is only ever one way, one answer, or an endless reiteration of what has always been.
Although it appears to be trapped in its own hypernormalization chamber, the Albanese government has the opportunity to steer Australia in a different direction right now.
Jim Chalmers was correct when he stated that he would not rule out or exclude any possible changes to Australia's tax structure because we need large, audacious thinking that does not accept any of this as the norm if we are to have any chance of resolving the fundamental problems in Australian society.
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