#Normalcy is dead.
Yet we have yet to bury it.
Climate would've killed it—if #covid hadn't.
Yet normalcy is dead.
Yet we have yet to bury it.
We only got so many #spoons.
We can bury ourselves or bury the dead.
We only got so many spoons.
Use them wisely.
Previously: https://mastodon.social/@beadsland/109317477421500057
(Originally April 22, 2022 on Xitter.)
A quotation from Mignon McLaughlin
After the chills and fever of love, how nice is the 98.6 degrees of marriage!
Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 1 (1965)
More about this quote: wist.info/mclaughlin-mignon/80…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #mignonmclaughlin #love #marriage #normalcy #passion #relationship
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTrBchub2/
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#Normalcy ain't right now.
Big box is confused, where all the people at?
They are at work and having sleep for dinner.
Australia's new national environmental standards
"Former ACCC chair condemns proposed exemption allowing minister to approve projects that don’t comply with law. Samuel, who led a 2020 review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, also argued a loophole that effectively exempts native forest logging from the laws “shouldn’t be there”.
“Logging operations should be subject to the same rules as mining, agriculture, urban development and so on." >>
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/14/graeme-samuel-calls-for-labor-to-ditch-national-interest-workaround-for-environment-laws
The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act)
The problem of ministerial discretion and “national interest” exemptions. >>
https://mastodon.au/@Bellingen/115528660854362227
Authoritarianism—but make it look like the rule of law. >>
https://mastodon.au/@Bellingen/115528971744822369
#EPBCAct #biodiversity #NationalInterest #law #exemption #MinisterialDiscretion #FastTrackApprovals #VestedInterest #ParliamentaryScrutiny #EnvironmentalLaw #conservation #regulation #governance #democracy #NSWLogging #landclearing #DualState #lawlessness #authoritarianism #LawGuardrails #normalcy #EmergencyPowers #NationalInterest #legitimisation #exemption #constitution #state #governance #LoggingImpacts
A quotation from Hannah Arendt
The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together, for it implied — as had been said at Nuremberg over and over again by the defendants and their counsels — that this new type of criminal, who is in actual fact hostis generis humani [enemy of humanity], commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he is doing wrong.
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Epilogue (1963)
More about this quote: wist.info/arendt-hannah/42625/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #hannaharendt #arendt #clearconscience #commonman #crimesagainsthumanity #criminal #enemy #evil #Holocaust #ignorance #immorality #naivete #normalcy #normality #responsibility #warcrime #wrongdoing
Authoritarianism—but make it look like the rule of law.
Lawlessness dressed up as law.
" The ‘dual state’ framework explains how a dictator can exercise power while life appears mostly ordinary.
The court is adjusting the law to make place for arbitrary power.
In a dual state, the high “court’s role is in creating affordances within the law that operate as off switches for the law…
This is precisely why the dual state is so dangerous: It allows the would-be autocrat to consolidate power under the cloak of democracy and norms. "
>>
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/10/dual-state-supreme-court/
The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship >>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dual_State
#DualState #lawlessness #authoritarianism #LawGuardrails #normalcy #EmergencyPowers #NationalInterest #legitimisation #exemption #constitution #state #governance #VibeShift #democracy
A quotation from Samuel Johnson
That familiarity produces neglect, has been long observed. The effect of all external objects, however great or splendid, ceases with their novelty; the courtier stands without emotion in the royal presence; the rustick tramples under his foot the beauties of the spring with little attention to their colours or their fragrance; and the inhabitant of the coast darts his eye upon the immense diffusion of waters, without awe, wonder, or terrour.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Essay (1753-06-26), The Adventurer, No. 67
More info about this quote: wist.info/johnson-samuel/79944…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #samueljohnson #background #banality #commonness #familiarity #neglect #normalcy #novelty #staleness
A quotation from Douglas Adams
I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English author, humourist, screenwriter
The Salmon of Doubt, Part 2 “The Universe” (2002) [ed. Peter Guzzardi]
More info about this quote: wist.info/adams-douglas/66399/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #douglasadams #age #aging #gettingold, growingold #henoed #innovation #naturalorder #normalcy #perspective #progress #technology #luddite
🔥 BREAKING: #Portland is a perfectly normal city with regular weather and ordinary humans going about their uneventful lives. 🚶♀️🚶♂️ Apparently, the only thing burning is the internet's love for hyperbole. 📸🌆 #NotExactlyAPostApocalypticWasteland
https://isportlandburning.com/ #Normalcy #InternetHyperbole #CityLife #WeatherNews #HackerNews #ngated
People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them. Life is a series of surprises.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Essay (1841), “Circles,” Essays: First Series, No. 10
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/emerson-ralph-waldo/…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #ralphwaldoemerson #sloth #calm #challenge #change #comfortzone #complaisance #discomfort #life #living #normalcy #settle #statusquo #surprise #unsettling
Innumerable are the illusions and legerdemain-tricks of Custom: but of all these, perhaps the cleverest is her knack of persuading us that the Miraculous, by simple repetition, ceases to be Miraculous.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Sartor Resartus, Book 3, ch. 8 (1834)
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/carlyle-thomas/63317…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #accustom #custom #frequency #miracle #mundanity #normalcy #ordinariness #repetition
Why rejoice in the misfortune of others
One way to feel my social status improving is if someone else lowers theirs. And so, when I see someone mess up in ways that cause them to lose face, and thus lose social status, I can feel a burst of satisfaction as my own status is raised, at no cost to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude
#joy #resentment #selfEsteem #rivalry #Schadenfreude #humiliation #sociality #normalcy #morals #sociology #philosophy #criticalThinking #psychology #populism #unitarian #unitarianism #communitarianism #farRight #family #patriarchy #tradition #values
“People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don't know is the impact achieved by what they do.”
Michel #Foucault in "Histoire de la #folie à l'âge classique" (a history of insanity in the Classical Age)
#sociality #normalcy #medecineHistory #history #madness #quote #quotes #self #mentalHealth #perversion #morals #sociology #philosophy #criticalThinking #psychology #selfPower
Autism is an illegible feature
"How disabling it is depends as much on your social circumstances as it does on your symptoms."
"It turns out that, actually, most people are uncomfortable around social difference and get considerably less comfortable when you point it out."
Laurie Penny: https://observer.co.uk/news/first-person/article/laurie-penny-autism @socialpsych via @hosford42
#stigma #tolerance #acceptance #selfAcceptance #autism #handicap #normalcy #relationships #society #living #socialty #quotes #self #selfPower #mentalHealth #psychology #criticalThinking #anthropology #fragility
https://www.fogolf.com/945720/golf-club-in-el-paso-wants-to-help-veterans-transition-to-civilian-life/ Golf club in El Paso wants to help veterans transition to civilian life #Camaraderie #ElPaso #Golf #GolfClubs #LinksToFreedom #Normalcy #Program #Transition #veterans
A quotation from Josh Billings
Mankind ain’t apt tew respekt verry mutch what they are familiar with, it iz what we don’t know, or kant see, that we hanker for.
[Mankind ain’t apt to respect very much what they are familiar with; it is what we don’t know, or can’t see, that we hanker for.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, ch. 156 “Affurisms: Embers on the Harth” (1874)
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/billings-josh/76244/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #desire #familiarity #imagination #mundane #normalcy #novelty #respect #unknown #usual
A quotation from Nassim Nicholas Taleb
I don’t particularly care about the usual. If you want to get an idea of a friend’s temperament, ethics, and personal elegance, you need to look at him under the tests of severe circumstances, not under the regular rosy glow of daily life. Can you assess the danger a criminal poses by examining only what he does on an ordinary day? Can we understand health without considering wild diseases and epidemics? Indeed the normal is often irrelevant.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (b. 1960) Lebanese-American essayist, statistician, risk analyst, aphorist
The Black Swan, Introduction (2007)
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/taleb-nassim-nichola…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #exceptions #extraordinary #normalcy #normality #understanding #unusual #usual #blackswan
The step from perfectly ordinary things into the miraculous seems to me so small, almost accidental, that I wonder why it astonishes you at all, or why you trouble to reason about it. If it were reasonable it could not be miraculous, could it?
Ellis Peters (1913-1995) English writer, translator [pseud. of Edith Mary Pargeter, who also wrote under the names John Redfern, Jolyon Carr, Peter Benedict]
The Holy Thief, ch. 10 [Aline] (1992)
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/peters-ellis/3130/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #wonder #miracle #nature #normalcy #ordinary #reason
