Andrew Butcher

This past weekend, my friends and I watched the documentary, Hypernormalisation. This documentary attempts to explain the ways in which the financial, political, and social spheres interconnect to create a false perception of the world. Adam Curtis explains the habit of oversimplification of abstract and extremely complex problems in order to feel comfortable with the world in which we live and the kind of decisions we make. This is the definition of “Hypernormalisation”, the film’s title. This struck my sociological brain when the filmmaker discussed how people are often so immersed within a system that they cannot even recognize that the system exists. This got me questioning the role that the process of hypernormalisation plays in my own life, the structures and institutions that influence my life, and especially whether or not I am aware of the full extent to which my actions are being influenced. The process of normalizing a complex problem is something we do daily. Curtis’ film made me want to strive to further understand the complexities of my life without copping out to a comfortable stable mental state, but I recognize that this is easier said than done.