Are you normal? For goodness sake, I hope not!

WTF is wrong with some people? Are they really normal? Yes they're! And that's the problem!

Humans like to feel hopeful, humans like to feel successful. Successful parents, successful at making friends. They like to feel that their political idea's are right. They like to feel that their life has meaning, is worthwhile. Colloquially, humans like to feel that they are "successful", "happy", "attractive", " intelligent", "cunning", "good", etc. They like to hope they will be healthy (if not now - hopefully, more healthy in the future. E.g., diets, exercise, etc)

Businesses make money selling products to people using happy and healthy narratives. Businesses sell products using "natural" or "nature" narratives. These marketing strategies vary from complete bullshit, for example, online "environmental" shops say their product is "natural" & "chemical free" (a dumb sales pitch aimed at ignorant consumers), whilst other products are generally accurately (honesty) advertised.

I say honestly, because the people that work in the businesses that sell products using disinformation are, by definition, aware that their advertisements are bullshit. But, contact them & they try to conceal their bullshit (by saying more bullshit). To be fair, you're average bullshiter is so dumb, they actually believe that their bullshit will work on me. Or rather, they don't know me personally (contacting them via email), so they simply repeat the same marketing bullshit they day to the average consumer. The truth, even in an email, could lose them sales. Greenwash only works if the consumer is ignorant. Those "adults" (mature?) that don't feel that they should be environmentally responsible, aren't greenwashed. They tend to be the greenwashers (how cunning of them? Or is it stupid of them!)

However, l diverge.

So, in this context, what's wrong with these people is that they are "happy" to make money by using deception. In fact, many adults are "happy" to use deception. Many adults life's are more fake than real. They feign their level of intelligence & ethics by "gas lighting" the conversation. Accusing the better people of "lecturing them" or being "condescending". For instance, the "adults" that socially criticise the "experts", but, not so much the evidence (the research).

There isn't one word to psychologically group one person under. Even "sociopaths" have a charming nature - when it suits them. When they're "happy" "sociopaths". In fact, if the "sociopath" isn't explicitly, intentionally, plotting to deceive or lie someone or another, they are, at least for a time, quite "normal" (average on the psychological spectrum of behaviours)

However, it's the statistical outliers that make certain behaviours abnormal. For example, in a world of capitalist consumers, trashing the planet for, for an example out of multitudes, for make-up products, is considered quite "normal". In a world of ecopaths, a world in which humans "normal" social behaviours are harmful to nature, ecocide is what the average person perceives as "normal". So "normal" that they don't question their harmful activities. So "normal" (average) is their perceived right to, for example, buy whatever they want, travel however they want, that they perceive anyone that critically evaluates their average consumerism behaviours as "weird" and "condescending" and "lecturing". Or "hypocritical" for not being "perfect" (in a fossil fuel monopolized society).

In a world of "normal" homo sapiens, many of whom don't "believe" (understand) that they're animals (homo sapiens), "normal" is, in part, at times, seriously, some crazy shit (colloquially speaking)

However, so as to try and avoid "lecturing" (how dare l suggest l am healthier than "normal" - to a #narcissist), l will now simply describe one, out of a multitude, of "normal" (common, average) social interactions that l have had the misfortune to experience with the average "normal" adult.

As normal (in many cultures. E. g., towns, cities, countries. I.e., "normal" human behaviours), an "adult" is burning something or another and causing smoke pollution. It used to be quite normal (quite often) for me to try to talk about smoke pollution to these average adults doing their "normal" air polluting activities (trying to "educate" is perceived as "lecturing" - by the dim wit). Until l realised that they were beyond help (beyond the scope of reason).

l'd try various methods to infer the general science, the actual reality in this context, that smoke pollution is extremely harmful. That, together with the rest of the air pollution that "normal" people are exposed to during their lives, smoke pollution is another "nail" in their "coffins". In other words, air pollution is so "normal", so common in many "normal" cultures, that humans dying prematurely - due to the effects of prolonged exposure to air pollution; is a normal way to die (painfully).

But, normal people are ignorant fools (more often than not. In an ecological context). In that, because they don't have the background knowledge, the intelligence, to perceive that it's them that are making quite normal mistakes, they never learn (they can't learn from the mistakes that they're not aware they're making). "Normal" people are not scientists. "Normal" people believe in spirits ("ghosts") and all sorts of crazy, but quite normal!, (average) beliefs.

Now, here is the "rub", subjectively, psychologically, "normal" people, the average behavioural psychology of humans, are detached from reality, in part, at more times than is healthy for them. For them, wood smoke is a normal part of their life. The pathologies (e.g., coughing, stress), the diseases that air pollution causes are normal (average symptoms) aspects of their life experiences. Being scientifically illiterate is all they "know". Their imaginations, that they don't understand are not objective reality, are their realities.

They really do believe in ghosts ("spiritual"). They really do believe that burning wood is natural, therefore can't be "that bad" (not that they question their "normal behaviours).

Don't get me wrong (as "normal" folk regular do. Often intentionally - when honesty doesn't "suit" their normal agenda's & false assumptions), "normal" can be healthy. For "normal" to be truly healthy, "normal" must become average. For example, it should be normal for adults to want to breath clean air. It's not normal, there is something wrong (a mistake) when populations of adults are not aware of how their air polluting activities are harming everyone's health. By definition, if these adults were aware, but didn't care, that is, by definition, sociopathological (insanity).

However, the good news, at least from my point of view as an psychologist, is that they are, on average, "simply" #greenwashed.

Green washing is quite normal - in a world of people where "normal" is #ecocide.

#psychology #sociopath #ecopath #narcissism