In Praise of Normalcy

It’s how most Americans want to live their lives, contrary to the assumptions of arrogant radicals.

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Protesters in Chicago hold signs as they rally against the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, on January 27, 2023.

Dear Reader (excluding any of you who confuse the “Champagne of Beers” with the real bubbly stuff),

I haven’t had a good week writing-wise. I didn’t like the Wednesday G-File. I didn’t like my Los Angeles Times column. And while I liked what I tried to write on the bathroom wall AEI, my Sharpie ran out of ink. 

Now it’s Friday, the New Year’s Eve of workdays, and I just got off the Acela and am sitting in my car, smoking a cigar and watching a pigeon carry twigs and twine to what I assume is its nest in some kind of duct above a window in the Union Station garage. 

One of my dad’s favorite questions involved pigeons. When we would go on walks, he’d point to one pigeon among other pigeons. Then he’d ask (little kid) me, “Jonah, do you think that pigeon knows he’s not that other pigeon?” 

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  1. Mattfrommo

    When you teach in a public school, you get to see the products of all types of parenting. What kids need, more than anything else, is predictability. There is a family that goes to our school that is extraordinary in this way, that is to say they are extraordinary in how wonderfully ordinary they make it look. I know it's not always easy for them. I get the sense that money can be tight sometimes (who can't relate to that) and they have to stretch other resources such as time. Yet every interaction with them is so....normal. Their kids, not surprisingly, are fantastic.

    Classrooms are the same way. While a student would love to have a classroom setting that is dynamic, most would be perfectly thrilled to have one that is predictable. You can't learn if you walk into a room everyday having no idea what might happen. The failure of our education system is not a failure of pedagogy in my estimation. As family structures have become more chaotic, we as schools have been completely ineffective at reacting accordingly. Classroom discipline is 90% of the cause of academic failure.

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    Jdupre328

    The chief reason why we are at a serious disadvantage compared with the Nazis over this business of “ big ideas” is that the evil things for which stand are novel and dynamic, whereas the excellent things for which we claim to be fighting may seem dull and uninspiring

    From the British Directorate of Army Education, Booklet i, November 1942 as quoted in the book Why the Allies Won by Richard Overy

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    Ralph S

    A well-spoken article for normalcy. Though not the point of the article, it is a strong argument for thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is looking and appreciating what we have, though not perfect, as it could be very different. Neither of the putative fringes has any idea how to appreciate that the vast majority of us will sleep without much worry tonight. Not that there not problems, but would you rather be trying to get some rest in Ukraine or Sudan?

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  4. Dougaj2

    “Jonah, do you think that pigeon knows he’s not that other pigeon?” I live in the Chicago area and regularly hear people respond negatively about politics and legal responses to public behavior, as if these are things with which they do not identify. Still, they vote machine fed democratic candidates. I think I will start asking if they know they are not that pigeon?

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    Cantorz

    "Normal people understand that paying your debts and living within your means is good."

    Umm, no they don’t. At least, not always. Or else they don’t know how to put that understanding into practice.

    Not to nitpick too much here since I agree with Jonah’s general premise, but I think he’s confusing what is justifiable and ought to be normal with what in fact is normal. Several recent studies from Pew Research show that radical viewpoints are more commonly held – on both side of the political divide – than moderate ones. Which is to say, radical viewpoints are the norm while more reasonable viewpoints are the exception.

    Back to the quote, while “Wall Street Elites” took a lot of heat for their role in the financial collapse, Main Street wasn’t guiltless. The personal savings rate turned negative in 2005, which literally means that normal people didn’t understand that living within your means is good. When very basic arithmetic is all you need to verify ones (in)ability to pay a mortgage, it doesn’t sit quite right to blame those elites for “duping” Americans into taking loans they couldn’t afford. What should be normal, and what is normal, are not necessarily the same thing.

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    Ben Connelly

    When reading this, I thought about my own childhood. Not sure why this popped into my head, but I remember noticing when I was 9 years old that when my dad was mad at me for doing something bad, he could switch it off and be perfectly friendly to other adults. Which was one of my earliest bits of evidence that adults could do this: be upset in one context and then not let that affect other contexts. In other words, compartmentalize. What I didn’t know as a kid was that my dad could do it the other way too. He never let stress at work affect how he raised my sister and I. I’ve only learned in hindsight about some of that stress - as far as I could tell at the time, nothing at work bothered him. It’s all the rage today for adults to be “open about their mental health” with their kids, but it’s actually terrible. Kids need to believe their parents are rocks of solidity. They need to have homes that are emotional safe havens (until they’re, you know, old enough to handle being an adult in the world).

    “ The more you act like the kind of person you want your kid to think you are, the more likely they are to become that kind of person when they grow up.”

    This is exactly what I mean.

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    Juan J

    Jonah, here’s a topic for either you or other Dispatch writers to consider. It’s inspired by Ryan Brown from the Dispatch Slack channel asking for “full out-of-the-box parenting advice” and the latest Good Faith podcast: Parenting, Kids, and Tech. In particular smartphones and social media. Even more specifically, the harm that TikTok rabbit holes can cause to young impressionable minds. I get what the right wing means when they accuse the left and LGBTQ+ of being groomers. It’s a crude and slanderous charge, but I believe the fear is that unformed minds are not ready for adult topics. The right blames schools and traditional media. I believe TikTok and social media have had a corrosive effect on young, developing minds. If we want normal we need to understand that our cultural landscape moves quicker than we can fully understand it. This topic also ties in with your previous column on “reasonable” free speech limits. How about limits on what minors can be exposed to and mandating simple and intuitive tools to manage kids’ exposure. I grew up with gangsta rap and video games. I believe I came out fine. But however much we poopoo social conservatives, they’ve been on to something. What we allow our kids to be exposed to can often undermine how we try to raise them.

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  8. Kaybmorrow

    Best writing ever, you held my attention ,made me reflect and think. I agree with your thoughts. Thank you.

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  9. Lrhubbard09

    Pretty bad that normal is abnormal these days. Hoping the primaries in 2023/24 bring out enough normal folks to tilt us back towards common sense.

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  10. Michael S. Johnson

    A good essay Jonah, with one caveat. I'm as frustrated and impatient as anyone with the "progressive" extremists on the left end of the Democratic party. But it's simply wrong to suggest that our two major political parties are equivalently messed up at this point. The Democrats nominated Biden, much to the dismay of the "progressives" within their party. The Republicans nominated Trump (and likely will again!). A more accurate characterization is that the Republican Party has gone completely off the rails and the Democrats are in danger of suffering the same fate unless the start pushing back harder and more consistently against the extremists in their own ranks.

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