Hypernormalism and Hope
The shifting baseline syndrome
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22 May 2025
Hypernormalisation - coined by Russian historian Alexei Yurchak - “in the 80s everyone from the top to the bottom of Soviet society knew that it wasn’t working, knew that it was corrupt, knew that the bosses were looting the system, know that the politicians had no alternative vision. And they knew that the bosses knew that they knew that. Everyone knew it was fake, but because no one had any alternative vision for a different kind of society, they just accepted this sense of total fakeness as normal.”
Sound familiar?
If it does, it’s because we’re dealing with the same situation right now.
We know that the system is rigged. We know that we’re closer to becoming homeless and unemployed than becoming millionaires. We know that our physical, emotional, and mental health is being looted by a system focused on infinite growth.
But we continue with it.
We shrug it off and say, “This is life.”
But how can that be true?
How could all of the serendipitous consequences that allowed us to be here in the first place have happened so that poverty, malnutrition, and inequality are a considered normal?
How could all the beautiful landscapes, myriad species, and miraculous natural activities exist so that we spend our days slogging away indoors in concrete buildings?
How can we be so in need of human touch, families and friends, and connection yet spend all our waking hours looking at very disconnecting screens?
How can this be life?
Maybe we think this is normal because we haven’t been presented with an alternative.
But alternatives exist.
Better futures exist. And they’re not laced in lies, pollution, and chemicals.
They’re wrapped up in hope.
But we need constant reminders, that hope exists.
Everywhere.
"Remember that hope is a good thing, Red, maybe the best of things,
and no good thing ever dies."
- Shawshank Redemption
hope /həʊp/
noun
a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen.
"he looked through her belongings in the hope of coming across some information"
archaic
a feeling of trust.
"our private friendship, upon hope and affiance whereof, I presume to be your petitioner"
verb
want something to happen or be the case.
"he's hoping for an offer of compensation"
In the 1950s, Curt Richter, a professor at Johns Hopkins, did lots of (cruel) experiments on animals to study their behaviour. One of his most famous experiments involved using rats and studying their resilience when put in a bucket of water and left to drown.
He found that domesticated rats, even though good swimmers, would drown after 2 days when left to swim around the bucket. Wild rats survived just a few minutes.
He said, “The situation of these rats scarcely seems one demanding fight or flight - it is rather one of hopelessness… the rats are in a situation against which they have no defense… they seem literally to ‘give up.’”
He continued his experiment, now introducing the hope factor.
He saved some of the rats just before they were going to die - picked them up, held them, and made sure they were alive before putting them back in the bucket.
“The rats quickly learn that the situation is not actually hopeless” and that “after elimination of hopelessness the rats do not die.”
Just being saved once gave the rats hope, enabling them to keep swimming for up to 60 hours.
60 hours…
Shifting baseline syndrome (SBS) occurs when, “in the absence of past information or experience with historical conditions, members of each new generation accept the situation in which they were raised as being normal.”
Maybe we’ve just forgotten our baseline of being happy. Maybe we’ve forgotten that it was normal to have hope.
Maybe we’ve just forgotten what it is like to be held, to be helped, to be free, to be loved, to be fun. Maybe we’ve just forgotten how to be quiet, to be introspective, to be kind, to play, to imagine. Maybe we’ve just forgotten a simpler time, a more meaningful time, a more people-oriented time, a more nature-immersed time.
Maybe we just need to be shown that a better future exists and that this current version of normal is very, very abnormal.
What if then we could shift our baseline back to how it was a time long ago? A time where sustainability wasn’t an industry, it was just normal life.
A time where we’d listen to a coveted record for hours on end. Where we’d memorised every word on the sleeve, remembered every bass drop, were able to recite every lyric. A time where music spoke truths, healed the soul, and transported one to another dimension.
A time where we wrote hand written letters, spending time to craft every rhyme, practicing every flair and ink flourish, and then waited with bated breath until we received another, slowly peeling off precious stamps that brought with them long-awaited stories from loved ones.
A time where food was slow, mealtimes were sacred, and family dinners were the highlight of every day. A time where reading a book under the shade of a tree was routine. A time where screens didn’t rob us of real face time.
We can change our baselines. This normal doesn’t have to stay forever.
We can exchange hypernormalism with a new normal.
We can start believing that we’re going to be saved - because we’re going to save each other.
We just need to be reminded.
We just need to be shown - that hope exists, and our futures can be so much better.
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In service of our planet,
💚 Marla Lise, Earthling at The Eco Chapter
Thx for teaching the hypernormal concept. Seems very relevant