HyperNormalisation is a word that was coined by a brilliant Russain historian who was writing about what it was like to live in the last years of the Soviet Union. What he said, which I thought was absolutely fascinating, was that in the 80s everyone from the top to the bottom of Soviet society knew it wasn't working, knew that it was corrupt, knew that the bosses were looting the system, knew that the politicians had no alternative vision. And they knew that the bosses knew they knew that. Everyone knew it was fake, but because no had any alternative vision for a different kind of society, they just accepted this sense of total fairness as normal. And this historian, Alexei Yurchak, coined the phrase "HyperNormalisation" to describe that feeling.
I thought "that's a brilliant title" because, although we are not in any way really like the Soviet Union, there is a similar feeling in our present day. Everyone in my country and in America and throughout Europe knows that the system that they are living under isn't working as it is supposed to; that there is a lot of corruption at the top. But whenever the journalists point it out, everyone goes "Wow that's terrible!" and then nothing happens the system remains the same.
There is a sense of everything being slightly unreal; that you fight a war that seems to cost you nothing and it has no consequences at home; that money seems to grow on trees; that goods come from China and don't seem to cost you anything; that phones make you feel liberated but that maybe they're manipulating you but you're not quite sure. It's all slightly odd and slightly corrupt.
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