We had a normal contactor send us a cool thing that we had to share. This is a collection of social media avatars (or profile pics) that you can use on social media. Check them out above! (You can right-click to save them.) The pics are all 150 x 150 pixels, which works just about anywhere. (We have to admit: the ribbon image we use on the site is a little wonky. It still tickled us to see it turned into a clever, shareable form, though.)
We love seeing the community come up with great ideas! #NormalContact is not the volunteers that run the site and social media. Rather, #NormalContact is an idea we all agree on. To be honest, this site mostly only exists to make sure that no one can co-opt the name and corrupt the meaning. So it’s a huge honor and pleasure to be able to share some of the cool things people come up with that follow the #NormalContact philosophy. Social media avatars like this are a great way to share in low-key way.
Here’s a fun, but weird secret: #NormalContact is growing. So far, however, it seems to mostly be growing offline. We’ve seen our visitors in cities across the US slowly pop up in clusters. (That’s excluding any bots and spiders, of course.) That leads us to believe that #NormalContact is mostly spreading by word of mouth so far, rather than social media. That’s pretty cool! It means that this humble idea about relationships and interaction is spreading through relationships and interaction.
We keep our eyes out for things the community might post in addition to things people send us directly. #NormalContact is still in the early stages, but is coming into its own. Make sure to keep sharing with people, wear your ribbon, and use the #NormalContact hashtag, especially on Twitter and Instagram.
Lately we’ve received a handful of messages asking us why we squeeze #NormalContact thoughts into such short blog posts. The answer is relatively simple: it helps us keep the blog posts super focused and within the scope of #NormalContact.
To be fair, we have our share of longerposts. Most of them, however, fall very close to the SEO-recommended minimum length of 300 words. That’s the length that search engines want to see to consider a page or post a “real” page, and not just a fragment. Even though we’re likely to be suppressed by a search engine like Google anyhow, we do put a bit of effort into making sure that our posts and pages are well-optimized.
Like we said, though, the biggest reason that we post so many short blog posts is mostly about staying focused. The #NormalContact philosophy has an extremely narrow focus. Some of our volunteers would love to write about the prudence of the shutdowns and masking. Others would like to write about the tyranny of those same things. Those personal opinions are fine to debate in our team chat. (We have a lively debate channel!) But on the blog they need to stay precisely that: personal opinions.
The bottom line is this: the worst thing that we could do is not actually to be wrong. The worst thing we could do would be to betray our own purpose with #NormalContact. This movement is about a small but powerful idea that goes beyond politics: the idea that our humanity comes first before fear. Or, as the authors of the Declaration of Independence put it: “We mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” And so for that reason, if nothing else, our blog posts often run a bit short. We hope you can forgive our choice of focus over quantity.
When all is said and done, what will be the most important lesson to be learned from COVID-19? Will the most important thing be the importance of masks? What about social distancing, not shaking hands, and judging someone when you can’t see their face? Or maybe the most important thing will be listening to the “experts” blindly, even when they change their minds but the science stays the same?
In the 2003 movie “Secondhand Lions” the main character, Walter, is a boy quickly becoming a young man. He gets a preview of a (much longer) coming-of-age speech from Hub, his great uncle. It comes when Walter is having a bit of a crisis. He’s been told a huge story, but the evidence seems conflicting. This leaves Walter unsure of what to believe. (Pretend that the story was about a disease. Sound like a familiar situation?)
If you haven’t seen the clip, you owe it to yourself to see it. (Heck, watch the whole movie. It’s absolutely fantastic.) Fundamentally, the speech (or at least the part we hear) says that sometimes you have to choose what you will believe, whether there is any evidence or not. You choose these things because you choose to believe that beauty, love, and goodness are the most important things to believe.
So when it comes to COVID-19, then, what do we choose to believe? We believe it’s important to hug the ones you love. A hand on the shoulder while someone cries is better than Zoom. You shouldn’t go too long without sharing your smile with the world. Strangers are worth meeting and talking to. And the most important lesson about COVID-19? Surely it will be that we can never again allow a disease to make us forget how to recognize the humanity in each other and have normal contact.
Editor’s Note: this piece could be difficult to read. It will probably challenge you to consider your opinions in a different way than you’ve considered. To really grasp it will probably require some time following the links. It also doesn’t tell you what to think about any issue. There is no insult intended to anyone, regardless of their opinions. If you were sent this article by an acquaintance they are not necessarily suggesting that you actually forgot how to think. You may want to share it with people who disagree with you on issues other than COVID-19.
Do you know an idiot who refuses to listen?
There are very smart people opposed to #NormalContact. And there are also very smart people fanatical about #NormalContact. There are well-intentioned people who feel informed that are strongly in favor of masking. And there are well-intentioned people that are fervent anti-maskers. In every direction people will insist that anyone who disagrees with them forgot how to think. Why does this happen? How can you confirm that you’re on the right side?
Stanley Milgram was a social scientist in the middle of the 20th century. He is most famous for a series of experiments in the 1940s where he tried to prove (to oversimplify the situation) that it would be hard to convince one person to kill another. He was hoping to track down what it took to turn a normal person into, say, a Nazi who would turn in their neighbors for execution or even commit the execution themselves. Unfortunately, it turns out that the only thing it took to convince 65% of people to kill someone else was an “expert” in a lab coat calmly and patiently telling them that it was necessary.
https://youtu.be/mOUEC5YXV8U
Please read that last sentence again. Now, think about the current COVID-19 situation. We have experts telling us how dangerous COVID-19 is despite the science. (These experts are even so knowledgeable that their opinion keeps shifting.) Of course, we would be remiss if we didn’t point out that we have similarly-dressed experts on the #NormalContact side of thought, as well. If we’re going to be honest with ourselves we have to be willing to admit that there are probably more people than we’d want to believe on both sides that are following an expert, rather than thinking for themselves. (Edit: sharp readers pointed out that the video linked above only claims 50% compliance. Milgram conducted 25 different versions of his study. 65% was the overall result. The video above was made after only the first version of his experiment.)
Does listening to an expert mean you forgot how to think?
We can’t all be experts in everything. And so to some degree we have to be able to rely on a subject matter expert for lots of things in life. That doesn’t necessarily mean we forgot how to think, but it could. What Milgram’s research teaches us is that it is human nature to trust an expert too much, or without questioning as much as we should. This is an important lesson right now. We don’t have to agree with what someone believes to still sympathize that they are leading a life that has just as much conflict and confusion as ours.
By wearing a mask some folks think it’s not their fault if someone else gets sick. Other folks make the statement that it isn’t their fault in the first place if someone else gets sick. Those folks refuse to wear a mask at all. We have volunteers on both sides of that issue. …but they make sure not to allow that difference to dehumanize each other.
What can you do?
Are you willing to struggle with some challenging homework? Watch the movie Experimenter. (That’s not an affiliate link. #NormalContact gets no proceeds no matter where you watch it.) You can rent it on Amazon for under $5. It’s a movie, but still goes into significant depth on Milgram’s research. Spend some time thinking about what it means today. And ask yourself if you forgot how to think at any point along the way.
The 24/7 news cycle has returned to predicting the death of humanity from COVID-19. This, despite the fact that the science and actual data still indicate otherwise. Is COVID-19 the actual threat to humanity, however? We humbly submit that we’re doing a fine job of that on our own as a species.
Tensions have been high and are climbing. Some states are approaching six months of lockdowns. Attacks against non-maskers have escalated. Armed (although non-violent) protests against the lockdowns are old news.
What if COVID-19 was going to end the human race? What if the death of humanity was nigh? When some other civilization dug up our cities and our records centuries from now would we be proud of the way we’re living at the moment? Is it ok with us that we would be ending our existence with everyone possible locked away from each other?
What do we need right now?
Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased.
”Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon,” by Spider Robinson
Precisely zero social scientists would tell you that humans as a species aren’t social creatures. You don’t need them to tell you, though. The top result on Google for “restore my faith in humanity” shows repeatedly that what we call “humanity” is the result of us connecting to one another and serving one another. Humanity (from a behavioral perspective) creates joy and peace.
Every feel-good movie you’ve ever seen feels good because it tells a story of people coming together. Every news article you’ve read lately makes you angry because it’s designed to pull people apart, often with a story about people fighting and irreconcilable to one another. Are we, as humans, even trying to live with humanity?
We don’t need the help of a novel coronavirus to bring about the death of humanity. History shows that we are quite capable of that on our own. What is happening today is not new. We forget what it means to be human and have humanity. We need to remember how to be kind, how to connect, and what it means to have normal human contact.
