“I feel bad about the world” — Worthwhile Language Advice
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A recent question from a US-based reader:
“I feel bad about the world. I felt bad before the election and the fires and his first days in office and now I feel worse, like totally hopeless and exhausted. Any anthropology insights that can help?”
I’ve got two handy concepts, one from anthropology and one from German psychology (I’ve seen how much English speakers love all those fine-grained German words about emotions, and I’ve got a good one for you).
First is Alexei Yurchak’s idea of hypernormalization. Yurchak was one of my dissertation advisors — he’s a cultural anthropologist who grew up in Russia in the late Soviet period and wrote about life at that time.
For late Soviet citizens, there was a constant disconnect in their everyday lives. There was a general pretense that systems were functioning, and like there wasn’t a huge gap between “authoritative discourse” and reality. This discourse masked the endemic corruption and looting at the top. And people were unable to envision an alternative system of social and economic organization.
This glossing over how fake and dysfunctional and corrupt and unsustainable things were, this compartmentalization, this living your everyday life as if things are ok, this is what he called hypernormalization.
This is fine.
I did my dissertation research in provincial Russia 10 years after the fall of the Soviet Union. And one of the hardest adjustments I had to make was to the rarely discussed gap between official rules/reports and reality.
Everyone local expected there to be a big difference between how things were described in official ways and how they actually were. Again and again, I’d hear someone say, “In principle… (В принципе)” to describe some rule that “in reality” — usually left unspoken — was not being followed in the slightest.
When I came back from Russia, I expected the world around me in California to be more “normal,” more congruent. But with my newly trained eyes, I started to see more of that dissonance, that gap between what authorities around me said and how the world really worked. Especially for people who weren’t in power positions and who were rarely (if ever) represented in power positions.
And in the decades that followed my return from Russia, that gap between what authorities say in speeches and on television and in newspapers and the realities that people are experiencing seems to have grown even bigger, at least here in the US.
People can feel the systems failing, can feel that dissonance between words like “robust economy” and “competitive housing market” and “affordable healthcare” and what they are experiencing themselves and see all around them.
That hypernormalization, that cognitive dissonance, is exhausting and psychologically damaging and leaves many people feeling unbalanced and unmoored.
When this happens in interpersonal interactions, we use words like invalidation and disconfirmation and gaslighting. And psychologists have shown that being invalidated and gaslit is damaging. “Is it me? Am I crazy?”
But we don’t have common language for it when it’s happening at a societal level. The more we can cut through the hypernormalization, the more we can name and define and scope out the problems and systems failures, the more we can ground ourselves in reality and figure out how to move forward.
Detail from Ode on Melancholy by Will Hicock Low (Art Institute of Chicago)
The second handy concept is one I was working with a lot before leaving academia — it’s called Weltschmerz and means literally “world pain.” There are a few definitions, but the one I have found the most useful can be summarized as “the pain you feel when you perceive the gap between the world the way it should be and the world the way it actually is.”
In the last decade, we have dealt with, among other things, a global pandemic that killed millions and disabled many millions more, the political rise of ultra-right wing and fascist politicians and parties, and increasing numbers of “once in a lifetime” climate crisis events such as floods, hurricanes, and fires.
For many of us, this is not how the world should be.
And since January 20, the new US Republican administration has been using “shock and awe” tactics — systematically rolling back protections and pushing for the active discrimination against and harassment of all kinds of vulnerable and marginalized people.
The administration is even claiming that some groups people don’t exist, for example, transgender and non-binary people. (There’s that gap between authoritative discourse and reality again.)
And this purposeful onslaught has had the desired effect for many. Many people feel hopeless, exhausted, miserable, stuck, fearful, enraged, and more.
This is Weltschmerz in action.
So how can knowing about hypernormalization and Weltzchmerz help? Well, knowledge is power, and with this knowledge, you can chart a path out of feeling sad and hopeless and stuck. Here are some suggestions based on my own plans to pull myself out of my own Weltschmerz and sadness. (I’ve been hearing about Black folks “sitting this one out” and prioritizing their joy and health and peace over all — if this is you, then this section won’t really apply.)
Focus and put energy into bolstering your mental and physical health. Get off screens, go into nature, socialize in person with people (but make it easy for immunocompromised and Covid Cautious people), take in art and music and other things that make you happy.
Limit your doom scrolling and news consumption. Compartmentalize your news intake, and work to find news sources that aren’t disconnected from reality and promoting hypernormalization. If you’re in the US, this may mean having non-US news sources as your main way of getting information.
Divide and conquer when it comes to issues. Put together a group and divide up who covers what. You can’t be an expert in everything, you can’t follow and understand everything, and you shouldn’t be swimming in these waters all the time anyway. Share information and recommendations for action.
Find one thing you feel like you can control and work on it. For my executive readers, this may be your company benefits, protections, and culture. For people in HR, it may be updating and enforcing a code of conduct and workplace civility. For people with less power, it may be debiasing some aspect of your workplace culture, or making sure your company’s website is accessible. Outside of work, it may mean taking focused political action.
Make a disaster plan. The LA fires showed me that I need to have a go bag put together and ready, and the ICE raids that have started up in my region have showed me I need to have a plan for if I am present during a raid. The more you’ve thought through in advance what you’ll do if something terrible happens, the easier it is to implement your plan.
The world is a complicated and difficult place, and there are people out there who are invested in your feeling bad and helpless and stuck.
The more you can preserve your health and strength, keep yourself grounded in reality, and focus on small sustainable things you can do to nudge the world in a better direction, the better you should feel.
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Dr. Suzanne Wertheim is a linguistic anthropologist who uses language to give critical insights about both current events and workplace culture. She facilitates workshops and gives keynotes to organizations large and small.