HyperNormalisation

Today I'd like to briefly talk about one subject that's covered in the documentary "HyperNormalisation". This documentary is linked in the post, as per usual, but not at the very end; it's followed by a small non-related paragraph that I would like you all to read as well.

_{source: Wikipedia}

"We live in a strange time. Extraordinary events keep happening that undermine the stability of our world; suicide bombs, waves of refugees, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, even Brexit. Yet those in control seem unable to deal with them. And no one has any vision of a different or better kind of future..."

These are the opening words of the documentary. The term "HyperNormalisation" was invented by Alexei Yurchak, a professor of anthropology who was born in Leningrad and later went to teach in the United States. He used the term in his 2006 book "Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation", and it struck me how similar his description of the Soviet mindset during the 1970s and 1980s is to what we experience in the west right now:

He introduced the word in his book Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (2006), which describes paradoxes of Soviet life during the 1970s and 1980s. He says that everyone in the Soviet Union knew the system was failing, but no one could imagine an alternative to the status quo, and politicians and citizens alike were resigned to maintaining the pretense of a functioning society. Over time, this delusion became a self-fulfilling prophecy and the fakeness was accepted by everyone as real, an effect that Yurchak termed hypernormalisation.
_{source: Wikipedia}

Does that ring familiar in any way? "They know that we know they lie." It does to me, only this time it's not socialism or communism that's failing and being kept alive by constant propaganda saying everything is just fine. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 there was no ideological enemy anymore and the west triumphantly declared "the end of history", claiming that the model of liberal democracies are the end-station for cultural and socioeconomic progress. There was no more need for "the delicate balance of terror" that kept humanity going during the Cold War, and neoliberalism, the idea that society could be regulated by markets instead of governments became prevalent among intellectuals on the right, and even on the left.

This neoliberal ideology has been hypernormalized, so to speak. We are like the Soviets in the 1970s and 1980s; we eagerly believe in the propaganda that says "the economy is doing great, so YOU are doing great", because most of us can't begin to imagine a better system that the current status quo. Also, it's hard to recognize the faults in something you're an integral part of, it's hard to separate ourselves from that which has been spoon-fed and normalized. This is how Adam Curtis describes how it went in the Soviet Union: "Those who ran the Soviet Union had believed that they could plan and manage a new kind of socialist society. But they had discovered that it was impossible to control and predict everything, and the plan had run out of control. But rather than reveal this, the technocrats began to pretend that everything was still going according to plan. And what emerged instead was a fake version of the society. The Soviet Union became a society where everyone new that what their leaders said was not real, because they could see with their own eyes that the economy was falling apart. But everybody had to play along and pretend that it was real, because no one could imagine any alternative. [...] You were so much a part of the system, that it was impossible to see beyond it."

The documentary covers much more than these similarities, and delves deep into the modern history of the world, and how the neoliberal ideology set out to limit the power of governments, and tried to confront the complex real world with simple market-rules instead of diplomacy, democracy and political discourse. It has starring roles for Henry Kissinger and Donald Trump; Kissinger, in order to maintain the global power status quo, set out to implement policies to fragment the Arabic nations in the Middle East, and Trump started buying real-estate in New York when that city had it's greatest financial crisis. It might shed some light on why the Palestinians simply don't count in neoliberal world politics and economy, and how Syria has played a pivotal role since 1975. It also explores the birth of a new technocracy and how computer power is dedicated to regulate the new neoliberal world economy of credit and debt, how cyberspace has been weaponized to help build a fake world we can believe in. Beware; it does go to extremes at times, with mention even of a UFO conspiracy... It's a long one again, but well worth the almost 3 hour watch, even if we keep open the possibility that the documentary itself is part of the fake reality painted before our eyes, part of the "perception management" that altered our collective reality. Wonder how Trump connects to Muammar Gaddafi of Lybia? How Gaddafi was built up in the public perception, first as an international terrorist and later as an international hero? What are Bayesian belief networks? All this and more is in there; don't believe the hype(rnormalization)! ;-)

_{HyperNormalisation (2016 + subs) by Adam Curtis - A different experience of reality FULL DOCUMENTARY}

Dear readers, I must take a moment to apologize to all of you. I've been unable to respond to all those lovely, encouraging and thoughtful responses you've posted on my articles, and you don't deserve that; you deserve much better of course... It's just that I simply lack time and energy to do you justice. I still hold on to the promise I made more than a year ago, to bring you a new article every day; I haven't missed a single day until now and I love doing it. But I believe you've also noticed that lately all my posts are edited at least once after publication, and I've added corrections and errata regularly; this is a clear sign that I'm just too tired to maintain an adequate level of concentration and quality. In yesterday's post I wrote the whole thing in one go, but never realized I had the order of the books wrong, a series I know almost by heart because I've read it so many times... It was a real wake-up call for me when I realized the mistake hours after publication, re-reading it for the third time... The second book is "Dune Messiah" and the third is "Children of Dune"... I may have to re-evaluate if I'm still able to do a daily post and have enough time and energy left to seriously and meaningfully respond to your wonderful responses. Should I give up the ability to always respond adequately, or should I give up the daily posts, or do I need to limit both..? I really don't know, I'd like to do both of course, but it's time I admit to myself, and to all of you, that this is not likely to be possible again in the near future at least. Even if I can't promise that I respond, I assure you that I always read your comments, that I'm always grateful for them, and that goes for any tips or advice you leave on this post as well :-)

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