No, this is not normal

Ideas

12/10

Among the ideas that I have retained most from my student days are those that I have encountered and formed from the discussion that seeks to distinguish what is "normal" from what is "pathological. It is the kind of problem that still has no complete solution, like all important philosophical (or human) problems.

I remember above all two authors from my country, although from different generations. The first is one of the "greats" of sociology, Émile Durkheim, who lived between the second half of the 19th century and the first decades of the following century. Briefly, Durkheim left us as a legacy the idea that, in a society, crime is "normal, necessary and useful. Without crime a society would have no way to evolve its morals, laws and rules. To support this postulate, he argued that pain and suffering are often seen as signs of illness despite the existence of painless serious pathologies. On the other hand, there are pathologically minor situations that cause extreme pain, and there are also cases in which the absence of pain or pleasure are symptoms of illness. For the same author, illness can even be a phase of adaptation to changing external conditions. Therefore, the pathological state is useful in some cases. For example, when we are vaccinated we inject a small "amount of disease" so that our body becomes able to fight it, but in essence it is not abnormal, since it is normal to take vaccines.

The second French author is Georges Canguilhem, a physician and philosopher who was born at the beginning of the last century. He was a schoolmate of Sartre and a doctoral advisor to Michel Foucault, thinkers who surpassed him in notoriety. Canguilhem was also a rebel and activist, having been part of several pacifist, counter-power, and even Resistance movements during World War II. He defended his doctoral thesis in Medicine on "The Normal and the Pathological". In line with Durkheim, he advocates that "pathology is part of normality"; that there is pathology in normality and normality in pathology. Do you know anyone who has never been sick? Well, being sick, once in a while, is part of normality. The plot thickens when illness becomes normality. It is normal to have muscle pain after an intense exercise session. It is not normal if that same pain persists for weeks, months or years. The longer it hurts, the more likely it is that one will get used to living in that state, leading to resignation.

I fear that this is the state in which the world and the world of work find themselves: normally ill, to the point that it is already very difficult to distinguish what is health or pathology. Pain is no longer just part of normality. Pain is the normal. What illnesses does the world have? And the world of work? Several. It doesn't take extraordinary attention and insight to be able to name a few. The obsession with growth, everything has to "scale up"; the rampant increase in cases of burnout and other psychopathologies; the erosion of ecological and ethical consciousness; the evident climate change; the extreme economic inequalities; the constantly postponed or frustrated desire to have a life beyond work; the constant pressure that results from all this and much more. These are just some of the maladies of our time. Is it correct to say so, "of our time"? How long have we been living like this? Long enough for this to be the normality? Maybe. It seems.

There also seem to be signs of real willingness or, rather, need for change. Phenomena like Great Resignation or quiet quitting seem to arise from a contestatory base. The "Great Resignation," interestingly enough, does not seem to me to be a movement of resigned people. Rather, it seems to be a kind of rebellion against toxic organizational cultures. The "silent quitters" are not new, as the fad would have us believe. It is an old phenomenon¹ and more than proven² but what is new is that they are resurfacing with a rebellious intent.

Expressions like these go viral, multiplying wildly through LinkedIn posts, business heavyweights, and everyday conversations. There is also a lot of talk and writing about mental health and people's well-being at work. It is one of the great diseases of this world: chatter.

Philosophy considers chatter to be a very difficult disease to cure. Its cure, conversation, requires listeners: but chatterers hear nothing because they are chattering. The first evil that this inability to be silent produces is the inability to listen (...) Because the ears (of chatterers) certainly have no passage leading to the brain, but only to the tongue.
- Plutarch

Everyone suddenly has something special to say about these important matters, and what there is to say must be said in haste, to get there first. Haste is the enemy of listening, observation, introspection and reflection, which are the ingredients of thoughtfulness, wisdom and consideration. Good conversations are also made without haste.

Everyone has the right to speak what they want. That's not what I'm questioning. At issue is whether or not what is said contributes to maintaining this sick normality. I believe that it is important to get in touch with or discover a rebellious, even activist side to be able to contribute and influence the desired changes. However, activism is often close to fundamentalism which, like chatter, also suffers from haste. In this case the hurry is to have and maintain certainties and to reject any idea outside the doctrine followed.

To avoid falling into ridicule, activism has to be reasoned and not fundamentalist. In these times, courage and innovation do not reside in the need to want to keep up with the high speed at which almost all of us are moving. Let's create spaces to talk, to observe, to reflect, and to build together, without being obsessed with the results of these initiatives, with the solutions we need. It is true that it is difficult to go against the "spirit of the times". As we say at Way Beyond, "we don't know the best answers beforehand, but we know how to look for them, together. Let's write and talk about these important issues, yes, but calmly.