Boiling Frog Syndrome: How Creeping Normality Is Killing Society

2 years ago
18

"For that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Everyone thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all the common interest; and only when he is himself concerned as an individual. For besides other considerations, everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty which he expects another to fulfill..." - Aristotle

America is changing. It always has, and it likely always will. The country that we love is adjusting to the needs and desires of its current citizenry, and in most cases, that's a wonderful thing. The idea of gradualism, otherwise known as creeping normality, is a process by which a significant change can be accepted as normal and acceptable if it happens slowly through small, often unnoticeable, increments of change. By its very nature, gradualism is neither positive nor negative; merely just the holistic nature of change.

What happens when gradualism is artificially created though? Is it still gradualism, or is it forced evolution? According to Jared Diamond, author of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, disaster doesn't happen with a bang, but more so with a whimper. Death by a thousand cuts, otherwise known as Lingchi, describes the disaster we may be experiencing perfectly.

Join the Wolf, Bull, and Baewolf in episode 63 as they discuss creeping normality and related ideas to understand the unique change our society is progressing through. Are these merely "growing pains" of America, or is it something far more sinister? Tune in to find out!

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