Imagine a world where everyone knows the emperor has no clothes, yet collectively agrees to admire his magnificent attire. A world where the cracks in the foundations of society are not just visible, but glaring, yet the inhabitants continue to dance in the ballroom as if the structure is solid. Sound familiar? This isn’t just a dystopian fantasy; it’s the unsettling reality that Alexei Yurchak, in his groundbreaking work “Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation,” termed “hyper-normalisation.” It’s the silent, insidious agreement to pretend the system works, even as it demonstrably fails, shaping our present and perhaps defining our future.
Yurchak’s theory offers a stark, chilling mirror, reflecting not only the twilight years of the Soviet Union but also the disquieting echoes in our contemporary Western societies. It speaks to a deep, collective delusion, a performative stability maintained not through genuine belief, but through a shared cynicism and a lack of viable alternatives. But what does this “pretence” truly entail, and how does it trap us in a cycle of inert acceptance?
The Soviet Precedent: A World of Empty Gestures
Yurchak, an anthropologist, meticulously documented life in the late Soviet Union, observing a society that had long lost genuine faith in its official ideology. Communism, once a fervent belief, had degenerated into a ritualistic performance. People went through the motions, attended the meetings, recited the slogans, not because they believed in them, but because it was what one did. It was the only known way to navigate the system, to survive, to exist.
The official discourse—the grand pronouncements from the Kremlin, the optimistic five-year plans—bore little resemblance to the mundane, often difficult, realities of daily life. Yet, this disconnect was rarely openly challenged. Why? Because everyone, from the top leadership to the ordinary citizen, implicitly understood the game. The leaders themselves often didn’t believe their own rhetoric, but they had to perform it. The citizens understood it was a performance, but they had to play along. This mutual understanding, this shared recognition of the absurdity, became the new norm.
The paradoxical situation where, despite the obvious failures of the system and the widespread cynicism among its citizens, life continued as if the system was functioning perfectly, creating a self-sustaining illusion of stability.
— Alexei Yurchak
It was a system on autopilot, sustained by inertia and the sheer lack of imagination for what might come next. Critical thought was sublimated into irony, dissent into private jokes. The system didn’t need fervent believers; it only needed compliant actors. And compliance, in this context, wasn’t about conviction; it was about the routine, the habit, the performance of normality.
The Theatre of Stability: How We Pretend
Hyper-normalisation isn’t about outright lies; it’s about the erosion of the distinction between truth and performance. It’s about a society that knows things are broken, yet collectively agrees to uphold the illusion that they are not. This collective pretence manifests in several key ways:
The Ritualisation of Politics: Political discourse becomes a series of predictable moves, a spectacle rather than a genuine debate. Policies are announced with fanfare, regardless of their real-world impact or likelihood of implementation.
The Acceptance of “Known Lies”: We tolerate official narratives that we intuitively know are false or incomplete, often because challenging them seems futile, or the alternatives appear even worse.
The Normalisation of Crisis: Issues that would once be considered catastrophic—economic instability, environmental decay, political polarisation—become just another part of the background noise, absorbed into the everyday fabric of life.
The Absence of Viable Alternatives: A fundamental part of hyper-normalisation is the collective inability to imagine or articulate a truly different future. The existing system, however flawed, becomes the only conceivable reality.
In such an environment, genuine change feels impossible. Why bother fighting a system that everyone knows is broken, but also agrees to pretend is fine? This shared acknowledgement of falsehood, without any corresponding will to dismantle it, creates a deeply entrenched, almost comfortable, form of paralysis.
Echoes in the West: A Modern Hyper-Normalisation?
The parallels to the contemporary West are striking and, for many, deeply unsettling. Are we, too, living in a hyper-normalised society? Consider the following:
Our political systems often feel like a theatrical performance, where leaders repeat well-worn slogans and engage in performative battles, while substantive issues remain unaddressed. Economic disparities grow, the climate crisis intensifies, and trust in institutions erodes, yet the prevailing narrative often remains one of inevitable progress or manageable challenges.
We are living in a society where the truth is no longer an objective reality, but a collective agreement on a shared fiction.
— Anonymous Observer
Do we not see this in the endless cycles of political scandal and outrage that lead to no fundamental shift? In the economic models that repeatedly fail to deliver for the majority, yet are perpetually defended as the only way forward? In the promises of technological solutions that distract from systemic problems?
When the performance of functionality becomes more important than actual functionality, we are living in the shadow of hyper-normalisation.
We, too, have become complicit in a grand, collective pretence. We know the system is imperfect, perhaps even deeply flawed, but we continue to operate within its parameters, often because the thought of genuinely disrupting it feels too daunting, too risky, or simply impossible. The sheer complexity of modern problems can contribute to this, making collective action seem futile. We become the unwitting actors in a play where the script dictates stability, even as the stage props crumble around us.
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The Cost of Collective Delusion
The theory of hyper-normalisation offers a potent explanation for why societies, even those with widespread discontent, often seem to lack the will or means to fundamentally change their trajectory. The cost is immense:
Apathy and Cynicism: When everyone is aware of the pretence, yet nothing changes, a deep sense of apathy and cynicism can take root, draining the energy for genuine engagement.
Stagnation: Real problems fester and worsen because the focus is on maintaining the illusion of control, rather than on confronting difficult realities.
Loss of Agency: Individuals feel disempowered, believing that their actions cannot make a difference against such an overwhelming, collective agreement to pretend.
Sudden Collapse: As the Soviet Union demonstrated, a hyper-normalised system can appear stable until it suddenly isn’t. The pretence can only hold for so long before reality inevitably asserts itself, often with shocking speed and devastating consequences.
Alexei Yurchak’s insights are not merely historical footnotes; they are a vital lens through which to examine our own era. They challenge us to look beyond the surface, to question the performances we are asked to engage in, and to acknowledge the silent, shared agreements that underpin our societal structures. Recognising hyper-normalisation is the first, crucial step toward breaking free from its deceptive embrace and truly engaging with the world as it is, not as we pretend it to be.
