‘Normal’
My opening comments from an Academy of Ideas event, on the topic: ‘From furlough to mask-wearing: can we ever return to normal?’
I’m going to spend my opening five minutes talking about ‘normal’. Now, whenever I hear this word, I think of Jeannette Winterson’s autobiographical book, Why be happy, when you could be normal?. This title, of course, does not reflect Winterson’s own view of things: rather, according to the book, it’s a phrase her mother used to taunt her about her sexuality. Obviously, Winterson’s mother is contrasting normality with happiness, and there’s lots I could say about that, which I don’t have time for now.
Instead, I want to point out that, in this coronavirus moment, I think what’s generally happening is not that people are contrasting normality with happiness, but, rather, they are conflating the two. When most people say, ‘I just want to return to normal!’, what I think they really mean is, ‘I want to return to doing those things I used to enjoy doing before Covid came along, because they make me happy’. Or, more fully, ‘because I value them’.
Now, key to unpacking this is to recognise that normality is relative. What’s normal for me — the generalities, and the particulars of that — won’t be neatly normal for you. It’s not normal for you to type on my laptop, or to wake up next to my boyfriend. Yes, you probably have your own laptop. But you may not have a boyfriend. And maybe you want or need neither of those things. Because normality — and, more importantly, the extent to which we value it — is dependent on our needs and preferences, our principles and values. And those are different for each of us, even though we may share some important overlaps.
Ok, you might think that normality has some value of its own — related to stability, or something — but I’m not convinced by that. I don’t want to return to the normality of avoiding highwaymen when travelling between towns, or queuing for bread in a soviet labour camp — no matter how ‘stable’ those situations were for the people to whom they became normal. No, the value of normality, I’m pretty sure, is dependent on the value of the stuff referred to as ‘normal’.
Maybe you’re wondering where I’m going with this. Maybe you’re thinking, “Oh, she’s going to do that whole ‘we should use the pandemic to fix the world!’ thing”. That I’m going to suggest we break up the fundamental structures of society, break free from our capitalist masters, allow individuals to find their inner truths, and so on. Well, I’m happy to talk about those ideas. But it’s not where I’m going now.
Rather, I want to stress how depressed I’ve been by the so-called ‘libertarian’ response to the pandemic. Even more so, perhaps, than by the inhuman consequentialist response that tells us that old people are worth less than the young: I never expect much from consequentialists. But I do expect more from people genuinely committed to freedom, and what’s depressed me about the ‘libertarian’ response is not only a seeming keenness, in some circles, to embrace bad information: to delight in spreading unsubstantiated claims, alongside a failure to show any interest at all in holding the state to account when it spreads them, itself — when it lies, and uses manipulation against us. But also by a seeming keenness to hound and seek to restrain others: to publicly criticise them for choosing to wear masks, for instance. Now, both of these things — a lack of interest in good information, and the state’s suppression of it; and an avidity for, well, oftentimes, chiding sneers — seem to me inimical to a philosophy grounded in equal freedom and equal respect.
A philosophy that, unlike anarchism, recognises that there’s value to being part of political society. And that with that comes responsibility: new obligations to each other, as people we share societal interests with. That’s what the common good is. It’s been critical to classical-liberal thought — central to Locke, Adam Smith, all those good guys. And I’ve thought for a while now that those of us who claim a core commitment to freedom seem at serious risk of forgetting about it.
The reason I don’t spit in other people’s faces is not because the state tells me not to. I don’t need the state to tell me that. Rather, I don’t do it, because I know it’s wrong: because other people are living, breathing, reasoning, human beings, like me. With different needs and preferences from mine, yes. And different normals and happinesses; different understandings of what it is to value something, of what it is that counts as value. Sure, some of these people are annoying, and some of them seem plain wrong about many things. But respect for that — respect for them, as human beings — is what grounds a commitment to pluralism. It also underpins the understanding that when the state tries to make us good people — and when we leave that to the state, by behaving badly towards each other — not only does the state impose its view of what ‘good’ is on to us, but also that this can crowd out our capacity for natural virtue.
So, returning to ‘normal’? Well, if the normality we want is tied to being able to do the things that we value, then, it must also be tied to a recognition of the need to respect the people around us. And, to return to the conflation between normal and happy, it means that, when I think, ‘I want to return to doing the things that I used to enjoy doing before Covid came along’, I also have to bake my consideration for other people into that thought. And, for me, I simply wouldn’t be happy doing those ‘normal’ things, if I thought that my doing them would put others at unreasonable risk. Now, of course, we each need to assess what ‘unreasonable’ is here, based on the information we have — which is partly why having good information is so important, and why the state suppressing it is so wrong — and the principles that guide us in that. And we also need to think about the extent to which any of this is just about being happy, rather than, as I said, valuing things — or being fulfilled, or something thicker.
But setting aside some of our ‘normal’ immediate preferences — choosing to change our everyday behaviours, owing to the new unusual context in which we find ourselves, because we have good reason to believe that doing so will further the common good — is not to have our freedom restricted. And it is certainly not to be the subjects of an authoritarian state, although, believe me, I have a great deal to criticise the state for, now, and most days.
Normal can change, however, and, surely, that’s not always bad. What remains constant are the good values and principles — alongside a commitment to the truth, both scientific and moral — that we can use to help us to choose freely how to act and interact, as decent, reasoning members of a shared society.
