"Normalizing" -- when the abnormal is ignored to emphasize the rest

     "Normalization" is spoken of quite a lot these days -- primarily by those criticizing the traditional media. But just what is normalization? Well, not too surprisingly, it is the process of ignoring parts of a person or a situation that would NOT meet the description considered "normal" and emphasizing (usually quite out of proportion to the abnormal portion of the situation or person) what is expected -- or "normal". Distortion of reality -- whether to make it appear "normal" or to make it appear "dangerous" or "oppositional" -- is very dangerous because the reactions that might make sense, if it was real, are normally inappropriate and counter-productive for a distorted reality.
     As an instance of description, attributes of a leader might include diplomatic, patient, assertive, charismatic, hard-working, reliable, moral, stable, competent, mature, respectful, logical, eloquent, honest, responsible, sharing of credit, ... It is rare for a leader to have ALL such desired characterizations but -- if someone in the position of leadership has only one or two of these attributes and these are emphasized while the others that they don't have are ignored -- that is "normalization".
     The following are a couple of historical examples of the general scenarios where normalization took place. In the first, there is an attempt to make someone, or something, which is quite abnormal seem normal by ignoring that which is not desired. In the second, the abnormal is not ignored but it is ridiculed and minimized (it will become obvious to everyone so it's not something about which to worry). There is a third type where the normalization is used to squeeze someone, or something, back into a stereotype when the story, fully described, actually contradicts the stereotype; going into such an example requires a lot of back-story and, perhaps, might be done in a future blog.
     One example from history of the first category concerns that of Benito Mussolini. In 1922, with 30,000 of his "blackshirts", he marched into Rome and declared himself "leader for life" -- that is, totalitarian dictator. He was the leader of the Fascist movement at that time. The press (mostly printed newspapers -- some radio) of the time mostly gave him either neutral or mildly positive coverage. Why? There were two significant factors -- one was that Italy, relatively newly coalesced into a single country, was in turmoil and undergoing both economic and infrastructure chaos. The other is that the U.S., and much of western Europe, was in the midst of the unregulated ultra-capitalism phase which led to the Great Depression. Strong, enforced, control of a chaotic populace seemed to be a generally beneficial thing.
     Yet, there were many parts to both Mussolini's personality and political behavior which were strongly against the declared values of the U.S. and western Europe. He strictly controlled the press and dealt severely with any criticism of himself or his actions. He did what he wanted without regard to any existing written, or common, law and often used violent means to eliminate (murder) anyone in direct opposition.These aspects of his rule were rarely reported (Ernest Hemingway and The New Yorker were a couple of exceptions). By leaving these out, Mussolini was presented as a "normal" leader.
     Mussolini's contemporary -- and part of the World War II "Axis" -- was Adolph Hitler. His treatment by the media was somewhat different from the positive slant given Mussolini, and is closer to the second form of "normalization". Hitler was able to have some of the positive reactions adhere to him as the "German Mussolini" as he was portrayed as being with him and like him.
     However, his actions were so outrageous that the media literally refused to believe them. In addition, they were faced with a situation of a choice between self-censorship and not being able to report at all. This leads to a very important, and difficult, question -- which is more useful -- having to report things that are known to be false or not being able to report at all?
     Finally, they kept assuming that the people of Germany would "soon" recognize what an outrageous monster that he was -- but by that time, his control was so firm that anyone who objected to him or his actions was promptly shot or sent to the concentration camps. The majority of Germans was willing to just do whatever they needed to do to survive.
     They had moved past the point where the general citizenry could easily stop him -- they had probably passed that point in 1933 when Germany's equivalent of the U.S. Congress -- the Reichstag -- gave Hitler unlimited "emergency" powers to bypass the law via the "Enabling Act". Before that, they could have voted out the Nazi party and restored democracy. Instead, we had World War II and casualties of 50 to 80 million people.