The New Normal
My good friend once said “When bad behaviour is normalized, normal behaviour becomes aspirational”. The simplicity, depth and raw truth behind that statement made me ruminate and realize as to how consistently lowering standards for decency and relief at the smallest of mercies have made us, especially the Indian society into a bunch of people who are meek, submissive and utterly happy at aspects of behaviour which should in fact be considered normal.
Its normal to be sensitive about people’s appearance, their weight or lack of it, or any other physical “abnormality” so to speak and it is not aspirational.
It is normal to not stigmatize mental issues and not aspirational.
It is normal to not harass, abuse and physically or mentally harass your partner,spouse, girlfriend/boyfriend and never can one say that “I don’t hit her/him” as though you have given the greatest gift to humanity.
It is normal to not catcall, eve tease, stalk a girl in whatever name it is whether it be the purest expression of love and not aspirational in the least.
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It is normal to show a modicum of decency and kindness to your fellow human beings and definitely not aspirational.
It is normal to not take advantage of vulnerability whether it be on the basis of sex, emotions, love and not a trait to be lauded and applauded.
It is normal to treat people equally sans colour, caste, creed, etc and cannot be the basis for praise.
Its highly normal to be sensitive about other people’s feelings, to not put down a person for any reason whether it be their orientation, their choices and their opinions and will need to be stopped being considered as aspirational.
The problem really is that all these aspects have been considered as traits which are aspirational, forward thinking and indicators of the “goodness”, “kindness” and “greatness” of a person that truly bad behaviour is often considered normal. Such is the callousness and ill will that has been perpetrated by all sections of our society that any small piece of what ideally should be considered normal behaviour is eulogized and put on a pedestal.
I have always been a strong advocate of rationalizing our actions and thoughts and normalizing behaviour. The more we constantly praise and prop up what are essentially normal acts like say the boy of the house cooking a meal or cleaning the house, the more spoilt and carefree the recipients of this behaviour become. Realizing this at this point in my life, I have made a conscious choice to speak, inform and tell people that any thing I do, which is in fact normal should be treated as such and that , though am happy at their praise, I don’t want to be praised to the heavens for it may make me pompous, insensitive and overconfident.
The more the narrative changes towards normalizing the small things each of us should do, the more the chances are that bad behaviour is called out, abusers do not hide behind the cloak of normalcy and people are held to the standards they should have “normally” been held to.
