hypernormalization

hypernormalization can be defined as "a state where a fabricated, artificial version of reality becomes so pervasive that society accepts it as normal."

on Monday i was part of a group exploring the themes of hypernormalization, including how it can lead to disillusionment and disenfranchisement. it's made me think about examples of hypernormalization in my own life and how i have accepted or denied some of these realities. it's also made me reconsider what i think i know about resistance and the idea of a singular moment or person which would catalyze a revolution, which i addressed months ago in my state of the nation writing.

my longtime accepted reality has been one that has insinuated (to varying degrees) that revolution is no longer possible, and we are met with the concepts of compromise and slow concessions being made in order to achieve long-term socialist goals. what i want to be true (that some form of instantaneous revolution is possible) and what appears to be true (that revolution is more of a slow, uphill battle) are incompatible. i am in cognitive dissonance considering both ideas to hold equal weight, at this point in my life. and i don't know which i believe more.

my Right brain (politically, not hemispherically) insists upon the latter, and my Left brain continues to push for the former. i used to believe that Bernie Sanders would be some sort of Lenin figure who would garner his initial support for election into a working-class movement that reconfigures society away from the elites and into the hands of the average citizen. i thought he was further Left than he could let on, because he was a part of the bourgeois electoral system. i have since come to believe that i was wrong and that he has used his knowledge of the language of revolution and Left causes in order to bring countless progressives and Left-leaning people into the Democratic Party rather than form a third party or a working-class revolution of some kind. my naivete disenfranchised me.

i am not a Lenin. i am not a Marx or an Engels. i'm just a Desi. and maybe that's good enough. i don't know that i'd want the responsibility of the power that comes with a massively influential platform. i see the way that Hasan Piker has become a wedge for liberals and Leftists alike, further dividing people about what (or who) is believable or worthy of investment.

i can only do what i can do. i'm reading more. i'm working with others towards actions i believe have the potential to change the political landscape of the US. but i've been wrong before. i was a part of The Satanic Temple for 8 years, but i left, and here's why.

there is no perfect person, no perfect organization, no perfect workplace, no perfect idea. a friend reminds me often: "is this a hill we're willing to die on?" some hills are covered in flowers, and some are sand dunes.

i don't want to die, but i suppose the question is, if i had to, where would i like to be?