Normalcy Bias as Civilizations Topple
Hurricane Helene has wrought devastation in western North Carolina—far from the coast, where we expect to see such damage. The rising death toll has already exceeded 100, and thousands are separated from the rest of civilization due to destroyed roadways. Much of the relief is still being airlifted in, because it’s not possible to otherwise reach those most affected.
We become accustomed to hearing about such stories in Florida or New Orleans, but for the people who live in North Carolina’s mountains, this wasn’t a consideration. There was no preparation for such a thing, and there were no warnings that described just how severe the impacts would be. Had such warnings been issued, likely nobody would have believed them.
We all live with the expectation of certain types of tragedies—sicknesses, car accidents, violence, all things that we cannot truly prepare for—but we emotionally adjust to the knowledge that they’re there. We merely wish to keep them out-of-mind for as long as possible. The idea of being separated from the rest of civilization, not to mention food, water, and shelter, is unthinkable. Yet, it happens.
Our normalcy bias (our tendency to believe that our current state of non-crisis will endure), makes it possible for us to live our day-to-day lives without worrying about the things that could happen, but most likely won’t. It wouldn’t have been normal or even healthy for those in the mountains to prepare for hurricanes. Yet I also think this same psychological phenomenon is holding so many back from seeing the direction of our society.
People take for granted that the infrastructure that they rely on will always be there, and that their 9-to-5 office jobs in obscure fields will always have relevance, because they always have, for us. But Rome did fall. The Ottoman Empire is no more. For the inhabitants of those eras, it’s indubitable that they thought their particular civilization would endure—perhaps even as the Visigoths approached Roman borders.
The current political saga in the U.S. seems to imply that there is no action that could destroy the country or otherwise be irreversible. As if we could expand the welfare state without limit, open the borders completely, release the bulk of the nation’s prisons, decriminalize drugs, and there would be no consequence. Because America has been here for longer than we can remember.
Yet it’s just not the case that tomorrow will always look like today. Our decisions have tangible impacts on our society and our posterity. Good intentions, if we are to assume the best about those who wish to make sweeping changes, do not guarantee positive outcomes. And good intentions cannot absolve us of culpability.
Sadly, the generations that are born in the aftermath of societal upheaval are normalized to them—they experience a normalcy bias from a different point of reference. To those for whom “gay marriage” has always been accepted by the state, they struggle to understand what a reversal would look like, let alone how such a reversal could be justified. Similarly, those who came of age after an expansive welfare state are more easily influenced by the arguments that contracting it would result in worsening conditions for some people. They weren’t around when those same groups were more likely to thrive without the incentive to flounder. After a policy has been adopted, it becomes harder to look at it with objective eyes, and easier to be emotionally manipulated by anecdotes. We accept the current as the norm because of the comfort of its familiarity.
Yet as we slide further away from where we should be with every generation, each acclimated to their level of descent, we will eventually arrive at a point from which we cannot rise, or even sustain. It is not the case that what we have will always be, and we must not remain so focused on the present that we forget how we exist in a much broader reality. Those who came before us offer a different glimpse of what could be. If we are sliding, as few deny, then we are going somewhere that will look different from today, and it is incumbent upon us to acknowledge that reality, prepare for it, and aim for the highest good always.
Great insights and perfectly true. I would only add that we need to get on our knees. Societies fall apart because they are not bolstered by the preserving force of faith. America has lost its Christian identity and is about spent before its 250th birthday. The faith-filled Middle Ages preserved an entire multi-cultural civilization for a thousand years. It was really the Black Death that transformed it into a lesser age of faith. Prayer is needed so that we don't die spiritually and every other way.
Reminds me of what I call "The Church of Bad Shit Happens to Other People". It virtually never crosses the minds of the faithful that fate might step up at any minute and turn their lives inside out. Only people on the news die in plane crashes and house fires, have surgeons remove the wrong kidney, get mauled by their neighbor's pit bull, have their daughter disappear without a trace, and you name it.
Pains me to say I strongly suspect these types make up a majority, at least in the western world. What could possibly go wrong as we ride the endless wave of technical progress and zombie prosperity kept alive on equally endless credit?
In the Middle Ages, truly faithful, who believed in the eternal and not the temporal, kept little "memento mori" motifs and objects nearby to remind them of the everpresent reality of Death. Misfortune did not come as a shock to them, I would wager.