The new normality
05
May
When we have difficulty changing a routine that is essential to escape from
dangers, the consequences are worse than those if we accept that a new routine has imposed itself.
Of course this implies a type of culture that for some historical reason or discipline already acquired by years of tradition helps at some point, that even though it is traumatic, it is possible to be socially incorporated as a “new normality”.
It is not by chance that the term appeared in Portuguese-speaking countries, where during the pandemic crisis it was often heard, the news reports and Brazilians traveling through Hispanic countries hear the exclamation “¡No es normal!”, but the translation into Portuguese comes from the English expression (from England and not from America): “new normality”, an expression that attests its incorporation as a new expression in the United Kingdom.
In eastern countries, if we observe in airports and in reports, even before the pandemic, the use of masks and a certain calm behavior in difficult situations show that the oriental discipline is already normal, I don’t know what expression they use, but social behavior is easily observable in the west.
At the height of the pandemic we prefer to say, everything will return to normal, which would be the same as saying we only admit “old normality”, I do not want to justify the irresponsible attitude of leaders and even governments that prefer not to admit the health crisis.
Now what we will have to adopt in some states and cities in Brazil, will be a new normality that admits the exhaustion of the health system and the peak of the pandemic, the good news is that everything indicates that we are close to the upper level and the curve already flattened may fall in number of dead.
We need to react culturally by incorporating a new normality, the philosopher Byung Chul Han calls it an excess of positivity, although it indicated the fact that society is always moving in the direction of acceleration, the expression may now seem more appropriate, because the opposite is not negativity, but the pandemic reality.
Countries that managed to slow the acceleration of daily life are already reaping results, some like New Zealand (which adopted an extreme #lockdown and the president became a national idol) reaped the fruit earlier, now without the pandemic.
