The New Normals ... 2022

 

The second half of the 1900s saw general improvements in the quality of life - I am making many of these observations based on my personal experience of the environment.  On the geo-political front, one saw the rises of democracies and the demises of lesser forms of national administration; on the business front, one saw the digitization of information and increased automation; on the societal front, one saw the rise of secularism and acceptance. (This is not to deny that there still remained significant sections of society that were "left out"). If we defined day-to-day life as "the normal", the normal improved generally over time, notwithstanding small ups and downs along the way.

Since the turn of the century, we have been seeing a high frequency of events that have each caused a quantum fall in the world order (From another frame of reference - a person in a different geography and/or socio-cultural-economic situation - the view may be different, but the trend is uncannily the same):

1. Sep 11, 2001 was the first such event. Not only did it cause unprecedented damage to life and property, it changed world order to what we came to call "the new normal". In this new normal, travel became an order-of-magnitude more difficult, as traveler had the burden of proving themselves innocent and safe to other travelers by going through a high level of security. Such security measures also got implemented at the entrances of buildings. Certain types of people (based on their name and looks) started getting looked at with suspicion. Nations went after each other in retaliation.
2. Nov 2016 - the election of Donald Trump as the US President. While I had thought that I had seen the lowest of the lows, the year leading up to the Trump election and the four years of his rule demonstrated that the lowest of the lows can be easily breached, as I saw them breached over and over. Hate-mongering under the guise of free speech became acceptable behavior. Racism and police brutalities against minorities saw a rise like never before.
3. Mar 2020 - COVID-19. Science went for a toss as a year of COVID overlapped the Presidency of Trump. Social distancing became the new normal, and remote work for knowledge workers became the favored form of work. The myth about physical collocation for team efficiency was busted, the term "the great resignation" came into existence to represent the section of workforce that did not care to go back to their pre-pandemic work lives. Even as the economy recovered with a bang from the fall it took in March 2020, the chasm between science and personal freedoms cemented itself in a large fraction of society.
4. Jan 2021 - the U.S. Capitol Insurrection. The new low (normal) includes those who decry but cannot do a thing, and those who look the other way calling it a feature of a democracy.
5. And then ... Afghanistan (Aug 2021) ... and Ukraine (Feb 2022) .... nuff said!

With the new normals coming at us at increasing frequency, "back to normal" seems such a distant mirage!