{"id":976,"date":"2021-09-22T00:10:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-21T16:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zularifin.com\/eng\/?page_id=976"},"modified":"2022-11-14T11:04:27","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T03:04:27","slug":"what-is-normal","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.zularifin.com\/eng\/anchor\/what-is-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"Living in New Normal. What is ‘Normal’?"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Living in the New Normal. What is 'Normal'?<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\u00a0<\/p>

We raised this question about ‘normal’ simply because it seems that we take it for granted.<\/p>

Our argument is simple. What if the ‘normal’ that we take is wrong, or false? So, are we now living in a ‘new wrong’ or a ‘new false’, and move on with it? This cannot be!! We must know what is ‘normal’ before we proceed with living in the ‘New Normal’.<\/p>

In an ever-changing world, nothing remains the same. So, what is normal today may not be so tomorrow. Hence, what is the ‘normal’, and how is the ‘normal’ decided. This writing is meant to provoke some thoughts on the ‘normal’ from few different perspectives.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

The etymology and origin<\/span><\/p>

[from HERE<\/a>] c. 1500, “typical, common;” 1640s, in geometry, “standing at a right angle, perpendicular,” from Late Latin normalis<\/span> “in conformity with rule, normal,” in classical Latin “made according to a carpenter’s square,” from norma<\/span> “rule, pattern,” literally “carpenter’s square,” a word of unknown origin (see norm). Meaning “conforming to common standards or established order or usage, regular, usual” is attested from 1828 but probably is older than the record [Barnhart].<\/p>

Meaning “heterosexual” is by 1914. As a noun meaning “usual state or condition,” from 1890 (in geometry as “a perpendicular” from 1727). Sense of “a normal person or thing” is attested by 1894. Normal school<\/strong><\/span> “training college for teachers” (1835) is a translation of French \u00e9cole normale<\/span> (1794), a creation of the French Republic; the notion is of “serving to set a standard.” The U.S. city of Normal<\/span>, Illinois, was named 1857 for the normal school established there.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p><\/section>

Where did the word ‘normal’ come from, and why does it have the power it does in our lives, in our institutions, in our world? How did it become like air\u2014invisible, essential, all around us? Look up normal<\/em> in any English dictionary and the definition is \u201cusual, regular, common, typical.\u201d There are people who study this kind of stuff, and have written books and articles about it. These books, articles and others, have knocked normal off the pedestal and into the dirt. Because normal is<\/em> contingent\u2014on history, on power, and, most of all, on humans to determine.<\/p>

As the scholars have noted, the word normal<\/em>\u00a0entered the English language in the mid-1840s, followed by\u00a0normality<\/em>\u00a0in 1849, and\u00a0normalcy<\/em>\u00a0in 1857. This is shocking for a word that masquerades as an ever-present universal truth. When\u00a0normal<\/em>\u00a0was first used it had nothing to do with people, or society, or human behavior.\u00a0Norm<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0normal<\/em>\u00a0were Latin words used by mathematicians.\u00a0Normal<\/em> comes from the Latin word norma<\/em>\u00a0which refers to a carpenter\u2019s square, or T-square. Building off the Latin, normal first meant \u201cperpendicular\u201d or \u201cat right angles.\u201d<\/p>

Normal<\/em>, however, even as a distinct word in geometry, is more complicated than it seems. On the one hand,\u00a0normal<\/em>\u00a0is describing a fact in the world\u2014a line may be orthogonal, or normal, or it may not.\u00a0Normal<\/em>\u00a0is an objective description of that line. But a right angle, in geometry, is also good, is desirable, is a universal mathematical truth that many mathematicians, then and now, describe as a type of beauty and perfection. Here we see two facets of\u00a0normal<\/em> that are familiar to us now and make it so powerful. Normal is both a fact in the world and a judgment of what is right. As Ian Hacking wrote, \u201cOne can, than, use the word \u2018normal\u2019 to say how things are, but also to say how they ought to be.\u201d<\/p>

A bunch of other words out there were looking to rival\u00a0normal<\/em>:\u00a0natural<\/em>,\u00a0common<\/em>,\u00a0ordinary<\/em>,\u00a0typical<\/em>,\u00a0straight<\/em>,\u00a0perfect<\/em>, and\u00a0ideal<\/em>. The list goes on. But here\u2019s the thing, normal<\/em>\u00a0had a key advantage because it could mean more than one thing. Its ambiguity was its strength.<\/p>

It\u2019s scary to think, but it\u2019s true: We have\u00a0normal<\/em>\u00a0today not because of some deliberate process, or even an organized conspiracy, but because it\u00a0worked<\/em>\u00a0better than other words. People started using\u00a0normal<\/em>\u00a0in many different contexts and in many different ways because it was there, because it helped them do something, because other people were using it, because it rolled of the tongue, because it gave them power.<\/p>

When\u00a0normal<\/em>\u00a0was first used it had nothing to do with people, or society, or human behavior. It meant \u201cperpendicular.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

So who used\u00a0normal<\/em>, and why, and how?\u00a0Normal<\/em>\u00a0was first used outside a mathematical context in the mid-1800s by a group of men (gender pronoun alert\u2014everyone in this history of normalcy is a man) in the academic disciplines of comparative anatomy and physiology. These two fields, by the 19th century, had professional dominion over the human body.<\/p>

It was this crew that first used the word normal<\/em> outside of a mathematical context, and eventually they used the term \u201cnormal state\u201d to describe functioning organs and other systems inside the body. And why did they choose \u201cnormal state?\u201d Who knows? Maybe they found the conflation of the factual with the value-driven useful. Maybe there was a professional advantage in appropriating a term associated with mathematical rigor. (At the time, doctors were not hot shit the way they are now. A doctor\u2019s cure for the common cold was leeches; headaches were alleviated by bleeding people, a treatment that killed many, which is a kind of cure; and masturbation was \u201ctreated\u201d with castration.) Or maybe they just liked the way it sounded. The historical record is unclear. But use it they did\u2014with great abundance and little rigor\u2014sort of like we do with all words in our ambitious pursuit of creative spelling.<\/p>

For these guys, \u201cnormal state\u201d was used to describe bodies and organs that were \u201cperfect\u201d or \u201cideal\u201d and also to name certain states as \u201cnatural\u201d; and of course, to judge an organ as healthy. We don\u2019t blame them for using normal<\/em> instead of perfect<\/em>,\u00a0ideal<\/em>,\u00a0natural<\/em>, and all the other words they could have used. This wasn\u2019t a grand conspiracy. So many words. So little time. Probably, they just got lazy, said screw it, normal<\/em>\u00a0will do. One word is better than five.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

The ‘Normal’ in Islamic Tradition<\/span> (from HERE<\/a>)<\/p>

In the Islamic traditions, the nafs (soul or self) results when God \u201cbreathes of His Spirit into man.\u201d This is God\u2019s greatest gift to man – the divine gift of life and consciousness or of a soul. The nafs, in that moment of creation, is man\u2019s original nature and is also known as fi\u1e6drah.This is his normal or natural nature. And, that natural nature knows itself and its Creator. It is the standard or norm according to which God created man. The nafs is in-between, wavering between the spirit and body, being more or less subtle or dense depending on where it might be between the two poles.<\/p>

In this traditional view, the man is a sacred being. But this view of what is normal is not the view of the masses because they have lost touch with their fi\u1e6drah or the perfection mirrored within them. As the typical and commonplace have been conflated, normalcy then is no longer measured by an inner sense of norm that is universal, but projected outwards in the universality of consensus (or standards set by the masses in society), with the average becoming the norm. In contemporary modern society, this practice has become accepted for knowledge no longer has its mooring in the metaphysical. Over time, this is what is acknowledged as the \u201cnormal.\u201d But there is a problem with this external criterion of normalcy\u2014it is contrived and dependent on many outside influences like motives, interests, among others. (Lakhani, 2006). In this case, the real quest of normalcy\u2014the aim for transcendence or perfection\u2014is lost.<\/p>

In other words, this aspiration to perfection has been veiled by the very act of creation, so instead of focusing on the Centre (inward heart) that is the \u201cnormal,\u201d man gets enticed by the peripheral. Thus, to be completely normal is to be spiritually awake, to see things as they are, i.e., meaning beyond form. Though such awakened souls should be the \u201cnormal,\u201d they are rare. This is so because what is uncommon, though unnatural, has become the common or the normal.
We live in a world of modernism, but modernism denies the transcendence. As such, it opposes a normativity based on divine existence, the principles of which are stamped onto our hearts. As a result, this \u201cnew normal\u201d (or \u201cab-normal\u201d) will always be subjected to the whims and fancies of time. Put differently, the ethos of modernism with its three entwined trends\u2014materialism or the reduction of reality to only the sensory or the immeasurable to only the measurable, secularization or the desacralisation of the public sphere or the erosion of conscience as reflected in the reduction of morality to the pragmatic as well as the marginalization of religion, and scientism that reduces all epistemology to empirical rationalism\u2014has estranged man from his innermost self or Centre (Al-Attas, 1995).<\/p>

Henceforth, the \u201cnew normal\/ab-normal\u201d is the loss of one\u2019s Centre and as a result, of order itself. This is so because order and harmony originate from the Centre, and the loss of centrality generates disorder and disharmony (and inwardly, virtue). Thus, modernism in severing man from his Centre has disconnected or given rise to disorder within man and consequently in his outward self (Lakhani, 2006).<\/p>

Put differently, the fi\u1e6drah, the primordial nature (or the standard upon which that God created man) is the essence of what is normal. This norm that we carry within ourselves is a transcendent \u201cfaculty of discernment by which humanity is able to perceive its spiritual origin and to recognize the pervasive radiance of the spiritual presence within itself and in all things\u2026\u201d (Lakhani, 2006, 35).<\/p>

The loss of transcendence is at root, basically a spiritual disorder, for without a Centre no person can remain normal. To compensate for this loss, the self or ego takes over as the Centre. But the ego cannot be the Centre because it lies only within the psyche and thus cannot transcend itself. Its reality is only at the psycho-physical.<\/p>

Thus, what it means to be truly human is to transcend oneself and ascend to the norm that lies within us, back to our primordial nature, when \u201cGod breathes of His Spirit into us.\u201d To be \u201cnormal\u201d then is to be spiritually sound, to be awake and conscious of God for the soul of every human being is the spirit of God (Razi 1982).<\/p>

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Living in the New Normal. What is ‘Normal’? \u00a0 We raised this question about ‘normal’ simply because it seems that we take it for granted. Our argument is simple. What if the ‘normal’ that we take is wrong, or false? So, are we now living in a ‘new wrong’ or a ‘new false’, and move […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":6,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-976","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zularifin.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zularifin.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zularifin.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zularifin.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zularifin.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=976"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/www.zularifin.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1059,"href":"https:\/\/www.zularifin.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/976\/revisions\/1059"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zularifin.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zularifin.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}