A normal reaction to a normal occurrence
is normal.
An abnormal reaction to an abnormal occurrence
is normal.
An abnornal reaction to a normal occurrence
is abnormal.
A normal reaction to an abnormal occurrence
is abnormal.
When I watch the 22nd Benghazi Hearing, knowing that 9-11 only merited 21, and wondering is this an abnormal reaction to the normal risks of diplomacy after an revolution. Or a normal reaction to an abnormal occurrence, the death of a diplomat???
And watching Palestine and Israel flare up again and wondering why the media present it as an abnormal reaction to a normal situation, as if Occupation and Check Points or Separation Walls and conscripting 18 year olds is in any way normal. I wonder about that.
A story- to work as a story-has to be the break in the pattern of the normal to show the abnormal, to have the surprise erupt through the complacent surface of the expected, but it all is measured by the normal.
Knife attacks in the streets of Jerusalem !!!! could that become as normal as the stops at checkpoints- or right wing attacking left wing? Or settlers yelling death to Palestinians- as normal as Palestinians screaming death to Israelis.
The drama of any story somehow depends on the territory of what is normal, but when we tolerate greater and greater levels of inhumanity, when cruelty becomes normal, torture a part of our foreign policy, then our stories shift- we define normalcy down, to quote Tip O’Neill. And all our stories become horror stories that no longer even scare us.
Remember In a colony of nudists, the man in the suit and tie is the rebel.