Normalize (not) being Normal

Always wanting the cake and recycling it too

Double dutch normalcy with me.

There’s always been a dying breed of fringe-dwellers. The weirdos have been cycling off and being reborn in new bizarre ways since the dawn of sentience. The cycle is what makes things worthwhile. If the fringe wasn’t at risk of falling off, it wouldn’t be the fringe. Sometimes the fringe gets recycled into the norm, and sometimes it falls off.

The whole thing about being fringe is not being on the inside. Some people on the fringe resist the temptation of normalcy, some are repelled by it, and others are irreverent- not giving two shits that they aren’t the norm. In any case, you can either be in or out. You’re accepted by the normies or you’re not, but it seems today that the “Others” want to maintain what makes them Other, and yet still be accepted as Normal.

Wherever you breach the upper or lower limit, you are not normal.

If being on the fringe is a feature and not a bug why do we see advocates pleading with ‘folx’ to #NormalizeXYZ? The new fringe idea is to make the fringe acceptable, but you can’t normalize being different. The truth is we have a case of Others wanting to be Normals. There are certain advantages to being Other and different advantages to being Normal, but these Others want both. They want to be unique and quirky, and also accepted and well-liked. These categories are simply not compatible.

What’s missing here is tolerance. You can tolerate differences, but this isn’t the goal anymore. Tolerance used to be accepted, and now it is a fringe idea - so goes the cycle. In some cases, Others want to eliminate differences (ability, outcomes, etc.), and in other cases, they want their differences universally celebrated (sexuality, self-expression, etc.). Tolerance lies somewhere between eliminating and honoring those differences. However, this idea has been ousted because the Others have discovered Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance.

Either way, tolerance is out.

The classic example of the Paradox of Tolerance is made with white supremacy. If we tolerate people who believe their race is the only one that should exist, they are given the chance to destroy tolerance. So, should we preemptively destroy intolerance in the name of tolerance? Well, that’s the rub.

Good thing the idea of white supremacy has been a pretty fringe idea of a few Others. Of course, Others sometimes want to evangelize their ideas - making them less Other. The Others here include not only the white supremacists but those who believe white supremacy is the foundational problem in the world. In my opinion, these two ideas should remain where they are: on the fringe. But I’m not worried about it, fringe ideas are not evergreen, they will die and new ideas will be born soon enough.

Alas, the misplaced Others will try ways to bring their ideas to the Normals. One tactic used in the white supremacy argument is a particularly nasty Kafka trap. If you ignore white supremacy, it’s because you benefit from it, and if you deny it, you’re complicit. Same thing with the patriarchy. It’s quite difficult to prove this, but we can find “evidence” to support just about any social argument. For example, we might be able to say that the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the real problem in the world. Nietzche said “God is Dead”, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster killed him. This is about as valid as claiming that white men are solely responsible for the destruction of the world, but if I were peeved enough about being Other, I could find a way to get support for any fringe idea.

As for me, I’m definitely an Other. I’ve struggled with it as some Others do, but I’ve come to accept that my Otherism is about largely observation. I pay a lot of attention to the world around me and that is what keeps me on the fringe. I also notice and emphasize strange things, making it difficult to portray what I see through my bizarre lens. It’s tempting to want others to see things as I do, but most of the time I can keep it punk rock - not only accepting my fringe but loving it until it cycles into acceptance.

I think the thing is that whatever you are, be that. You’re not likely to be 100% accepted or rejected. We all need some level of acceptance, but we can’t expect it in every facet of our lives. Worrying about where we fit in the world takes a lot of time and energy, and the grass isn’t greener on the Other side of the fence.