This isn't about the Dunning-Kruger effect, which deals with competence. This is a deeper, more insidious self-aggrandizement: the presumption of moral and existential normalcy—a toxic, pervasive lie that serves as the foundation for modern social persecution.
The Tyranny of the Subjective Standard
The myth of "normal" is a statistical absurdity weaponized for social judgment. There is an average, perhaps, but the average man—the mythical creature who perfectly balances every trait—is almost impossible to find.
Consider the simple dichotomy of tidiness:
- The hyper-organized individual looks at a less-than-immaculate home and immediately assigns a moral failing: lazy, inefficient, disorganized. They don't recognize that the "abnormal" person might be dedicating their time to raising children, caring for a sick relative, or pursuing a consuming creative passion that necessarily relegates folding laundry to a lower priority.
- Conversely, the free spirit looks at the relentlessly neat and tidy home and levies a different charge of abnormality: compulsive, joyless, living only for appearances.
In both cases, one person's subjectively optimized life—their "normal"—is used as a blunt instrument to pathologize another's choices. This impulse, often unconscious, is a form of snobbery rooted in the belief that one's lifestyle is inherently superior and more virtuous simply because it feels right to them.
As the philosopher Erich Fromm starkly noted, "The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane." Our shared consensus of "normal" can, in fact, be a shared sickness.
The Jungian Imperative: Completeness Over Goodness
The great psychologist Carl Jung understood the peril of living at the extremes. He spoke not of being "normal," but of achieving Individuation—the lifelong process of becoming a whole, complete person by integrating the opposites within the psyche.
Jung’s core concept is the Tension of Opposites. The goal is not to eradicate the "messy" or the "dark" (the Shadow) in favor of the "neat" or "good" (the Persona), but to hold the tension between them. A person who is entirely extroverted, entirely neat, or entirely focused on one single moral principle is fundamentally incomplete. They have repressed an aspect of themselves necessary for wholeness.
Jung famously preferred to be whole rather than good.
- To be constantly cleaning is to repress the need for spontaneous life.
- To be constantly chaotic is to repress the need for structure and peace.
The true "normal"—the psychologically healthy path—is the Middle Way, a process of dynamic balance where one can move flexibly between order and chaos, introversion and extroversion, without being enslaved by either pole. When we judge others for their life choices, we are often projecting our own repressed or unintegrated opposites onto them. We condemn the trait in them that we fear becoming ourselves.
riven by Division: Political Normalcy as Persecution
The ultimate, most dangerous manifestation of this "my reality is the norm" snobbery is the current state of political and cultural polarization. The political "center" has collapsed, replaced by two antagonistic poles, each defining itself as the legitimate, "normal" face of the nation.
In this environment, affective polarization runs rampant: one group's positive feelings for their own side are matched by overwhelming hostility and distrust toward the opposing side. The result is not merely disagreement, but the dehumanization and demonization of political opponents.
- For a self-proclaimed "normative" group, being a Trump-supporting MAGA Republican becomes synonymous with being a true, "real" American. The millions of non-supporters are then branded as illegitimate, enemies, or threats to the nation's well-being.
- Conversely, for a self-proclaimed "normative" group of Democrats or progressives, supporting the other side is seen as a moral and intellectual failure, a form of active societal pathology that must be condemned and purged.
This dynamic transmutes simple political difference into a form of societal persecution. As academic analysis of polarization notes, this division fosters a sense of moral superiority among partisans, justifying disproportionate punishment, exclusion, and the complete avoidance of dialogue. When one's political identity becomes an existential defense of "normalcy," the other side is not just wrong; they are an existential threat that must be neutralized. This is the death of democratic pluralism and a descent into tribal hostility.
Conclusion: A Call to the Uncomfortable Middle
The arrogant belief in a personal, definitive "normal" is the psychological mechanism that fuels the worst elements of human judgment, from the casual snobbery of house-keeping habits to the existential hostility of political warfare.
We are all fragmented, complex, and radically diverse. The path to a genuinely civilized society—and to personal psychological wholeness—lies in the relentless refusal of a rigid norm. It requires us to abandon the belief that our self-optimized reality is the standard for all others, and to embrace the uncomfortable, dynamic, and ever-shifting middle ground.
We must learn to look at a life that radically deviates from our own and ask not, “What is wrong with them?” but, “What unique balance have they found that I have not?” Only then can we replace the snobbery of the self-appointed norm with the humility of genuine, reciprocal respect.
Bibliography and Integrations
- Maté, Gabor. The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture. (2022). Integration: Directly addresses the cultural toxicity of defining and pursuing an arbitrary standard of "normalcy" that ignores underlying human trauma and complexity.
- Fromm, Erich. The Sane Society. (1955). Integration: Provides the powerful quote that a shared consensus (millions sharing an error) does not equate to sanity or truth, challenging the statistical basis of "normal."
- Jung, Carl G. The Undiscovered Self: Present and Future and Jung, Carl G. Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self. Integration: The concepts of Individuation, the Tension of Opposites, and the integration of the Shadow provide the psychological argument for why extremity (the perceived "norm" of one pole) is a deviation from the healthy, complete human state (the middle path).
- Achen, Christopher H., and Bartels, Larry M. Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government. (2016). Integration: Provides academic context for affective polarization and its role in modern political hostility, substantiating the claim that political division is about group identity and existential opposition, not just policy debate.
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