Make “Being Normal”, Normal Again

And don't let the bastards bring you down

Madness, “Our House” 1982

A little while ago, I wrote a social media “note” here on “The Substack” saying “Make being normal, normal again”.

A few people said the obligatory “what’s normal?” and a couple of people said that they would prefer to be anything BUT normal. But for the most part, I think people generally got the gist of what I was going on about.

When I say “being normal”, I don’t mean being a bland, conformist dullard. To be fair, I may have meant it that way back when I was an annoying party going twenty-something in those fuzzy days of the 90s. But that ship has not only sailed, it hit a rather unpleasant iceberg sometime around the early 2010’s and is now languishing in the watery graveyard of normality at the bottom of a vast ocean of batshittery. Not just for me at my “cough” older age, but as a society.

So I put it to you, my dear normal reader, that “being normal” now means the opposite of being a conformist dullard. To me, being “normal” means not being a completely unhinged zealot, and rather paradoxically, it seems that being a “radical loon” is actually the current dullard conformist position. They may not be in the majority, but they hold the reigns of cultural and political power and are the loudest and most arrogant amongst us.

Up is down, right is wrong, and being a sane and reasonable person, (which is what I would call “being normal”), is now being peddled by the usual suspects as some kind of outrageous heresy that must be stamped out of society.

For the severely post-modern, circular, wanky pedants who feel the need to tediously “dismantle” literally everything, split all the hairs of normality and ask “What is normal? What is right and wrong? What is good and bad?” We must unequivocally tell them to “Sod Off!”.

They have spent at least the last decade bamboozling not only themselves, but anyone else they can tangle up in their rancid web of nonsensical bullshit. And I say us “Normal People^TM” with common sense, who know our arses from our elbows, must remain steadfast and resolute in our commitment to our proper, right and normal knowledge of actual “reality”.

We know the answers to these dumb-arse questions. We always did. Don’t let these muppets confuse you.

Any parent will be familiar with your four year old tying you up in knots with a simple, repetitive “why?”. Of course, as annoying as this can be, it’s still kind of endearing and forgivable coming from a curious young child.

“Put your raincoat on”

“Why?”

“Because we’re going out and it’s raining and you’ll get wet”

“Why?”

“Because rain is wet”

“Why?”

“Because…….err….. Look. Just put your raincoat on!”

“Why?”

“Because I said so!”

To be clear, the child didn’t “win” this debate. But anyone who has had the misfortune of trying to reason with a brain-addled ideologue of the “progressive” variety, who is lost in the toxic-sludge of “Critical Theory”, will know that this is exactly how it feels like trying to debate them.

And so I was pottering around at home the other day, listening to music, and “Our House by Madness” popped up on my “household chores motivational 80s playlist” (Yes. I know. It’s a bit cringe, but I’m too old to give a shit).

As soon as it started, I felt a rush of nostalgia and was simultaneously hit with a feeling of joy at how uplifting the song is, but also a kind of heart-wrenching melancholy at how things have changed for the worse pretty much across every possible metric you could throw a stick at. And to all those “akshually” people who still have a phantom Thatcher ghost hiding rent-free under the bed of their 80s student activism imaginations, get over it. Honestly, let it go. You’re really boring your grandchildren.

The song’s simplicity and celebration of normal family life is refreshing and seems almost quaint to us now. But it’s the final fast paced vocal section before the final repeat of the first verse that really properly “did me in”.

I remember way back then when
Everything was true and when
We would have such a very good time
Such a fine time
Such a happy time
And I remember how we’d play
Simply waste the day away
Then we’d say
Nothing would come between us
Two dreamers

Father wears his Sunday best
Mother’s tired she needs a rest
The kids are playing up downstairs
Sister’s sighing in her sleep
Brother’s got a date to keep
He can’t hang around

We all have our nostalgic, lump-in-the-throat, trigger points. For me, on this particular afternoon, it happened to be hearing “Our House”. On a different day, it may be something else, and for you it will no doubt be something entirely different.

The reason this particular song got me thinking, is because it’s by a band of normal working class, very talented, white straight young lads, (gasp!) singing great songs, about what they know. Their ordinary lives. And as simple and innocent as that is, there are many obnoxious finger-waggers who have been infected by the “critical theory” mind virus, who would find a particularly retarded way to scold and “problematise” this.

On a personal note, Madness grew up not that far from me in North London. So they also have an extra special place in my heart.

So, as I listened to “Our House” the other day, and was temporarily taken back to my childhood, I was rudely dragged back to the ghastly 2020s and reminded that Madness probably couldn’t happen today. Which is ironic. As we live in an age of literal unhinged madness.

For most of us who are even slightly sentimentally inclined and who miss the “good old days”, we will have a song that does this for us. There is nothing at all new about this of course. Every generation, as they get older will feel a wistful nostalgia for their youth. But I don’t believe that what we are experiencing now is a simple case of the normal “passage of time” and natural changes taking place.

There is a deliberately cruel “dismantling” of everything that we hold dear. It’s not just that our fashions and music have changed, or our attitudes have naturally shifted over time. It’s not “organic”. This is a deliberate sledgehammer. A wrecking ball. A sneering giant turd being dumped on literally everything we once cherished “on purpose”. Including our values and the things that we all know to be true and “normal”.

There are many reasons why we got here and if I was to go into detail, it would need to be a book, not a Substack piece, and I would not be the person to write that book. Many people have written extensively about how we got here.

But if you haven’t yet heard about the “long march through the institutions”, it’s a good place to start.

Here is a very brief breakdown from Google:-

The “long march through the institutions” is a political strategy that aims to create radical societal change by gradually infiltrating and taking over society’s major cultural and governmental establishments. Instead of using violent military overthrows, this theory argues that one can transform a culture from within by holding influential jobs in media, education, the arts, and law.

Culture first: Advocates believe that changing a society’s culture and values must happen before you can change its political and economic systems.

Targeting influence: The strategy focuses on institutions that shape public thought.

Key Targets: Universities, public schools, media companies, labor unions, and religious institutions.

Conservative critique: In recent years, political conservatives have used the term to explain how progressive or post-modern ideologies came to dominate most Western academic and cultural institutions.

We don’t need to read a ton of academic literature to see the horrendous outcomes of this all around us with our own eyes.

To me “being normal” means knowing it’s NOT “racist” to think open borders are a terrible idea and that we should limit the levels of “mass migration” and that it is just common sense to not want undocumented, illegal migrants, coming here in their thousands, every year from violent barbaric cultures that have vastly different values to us.

To me “being normal” means we should treat people fairly and equally under the law and in employment.

To me “being normal” means we don’t think it’s a good idea to convince children that if they’re “gender non-conforming” that they are in the “wrong body” and need pharmaceutical and medical intervention (i.e. mutilation!) to “fix them”.

To me “being normal” means that we know there are “two sexes” (Men and Women). And men and women are different and that’s fine. And we shouldn’t see the opposite sex as our “enemies”.

To me “being normal” means we should try and treat people fairly as individuals and not judge them by their sex, sexuality or skin colour, but by their actions, behaviours and character.

To me “being normal” means we don’t want our children to be politicised at school and to be learning that our country is a terrible place and that all our traditions and history are something to feel ashamed of.

I could go on. But that’s a good start.

You know when you are conversing with someone who is “being normal” because they don’t lose their shit and scream at you or insult you for having a different opinion to them. They don’t oust you from their friendship groups for not being adequately “in line” with everything they think.

Basically, “being normal” just means not being an ideological lunatic.

And if you know what I mean, congratulations. You are “normal”. Be proud of that shit and don’t let anyone bully you into thinking there’s a problem with you. They’re the problem. Not you.

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