What is ‘malignant normality’?

The interior of the crematorium at the first gas chamber ever built in the infamous World War II Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. Hitler’s Aryan race supremacy ideology made it seem acceptable to dehumanise and kill groups of people like the Jews and Romany. — Filepic

I recently came across this term: malignant normality. It was in some articles about ­certain world leaders and how they have changed or are changing the world for everyone by imposing certain rules. Is there such a term?

Yes.

This term was believed to be coined by Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Dr Robert Jay Lifton in 2017.

He basically said that there may be situations in which “... alternate facts, conspiracy theories, racism, science denial and delegitimisation of the press become not only acceptable, but also the new normal”.

He continued: “If we do not confront this evil, it will consume us.”

In a nutshell, if we live in an environment where all these things that are considered abnormal become “normalised” for long enough, we will believe that this is the way things are meant to be, and lose our faculty for reasoning and questioning right from wrong.

This sounds complicated. Has this kind of situation happened before?

Yes.

If we look back at Nazi Germany, that is exactly what happened.

The Germans back then were people with “normal” ideas, like you and me, just going about living their daily lives.

Then suddenly, they had a new and very charismatic leader in Adolf Hitler.

Because of the intense propaganda during that period and what the Germans themselves had suffered after the First World War, the ideas perpetuated by Nazism – such as genocide – became accepted and normalised.

Not everyone living in that society needed to believe completely in Nazism.

They just had to be willing to live in a society that perpetuated it.

Over time, actions that would have been considered terrible by any rational person – such as killing people in gas chambers – came to be considered “normal” because the media kept on perpetuating it as so.

Because Hitler is, in today’s psychological terms, what would be considered a narcissist and he was their leader during the Second World War, the beliefs and morals of millions of German people were radically changed in that period of time.

It should be noted that these same German people did not have those beliefs and insights only 12 years prior.

And after Hitler died and the Second World War ended, these same people then saw what they went through, realised what they were made to believe in, and were filled with horror at themselves.

One of my German friends, whose parents lived during this period, said: “We are too busy trying to atone for our past.

“Even if you all in the rest of the world have forgotten our past, many of us haven’t.”

Wow. OK, let’s say you were a doctor, and you took the Hippocratic Oath to heal ­people. If your society said you now had to kill people, will your oath as a doctor be overridden?

It can be overridden.

Many Nazi doctors probably did not completely buy into all of Nazism’s ideologies, but their job (or boss) required them to do experiments on people or kill people.

So, because these evil ideas became the “malignant normal” for them, or because they were too afraid of what would happen to them if they didn’t go with the flow, they did what they had to.

A passport in the name of Helmut Gregor, who was actually Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele – a physician who conducted inhumane experiments on prisoners in the Auschwitz concentration camp in repudiation of the Hippocractic Oath. — Photos: AFP filepic

So malignant normality can only be perpetuated by leaders?

American clinical psychologist Dr Ramani Durvasula theorised that malignant normalities are actually mass delusions that originate from a specific source.

In Nazism’s case, Hitler took his own personal grievances and ideological thinking, and channelled it into a mass philosophy embraced by millions of people because he was their leader.

He had a narcissistic and high conflict personality, which is essential to perpetuating malignant normality.

Leaders of countries have the most effect on malignant normality and the terrible consequences from it.

But it can also result from a leader of any sort.

Take, for example, the leader of a religious cult.

People in that cult do not have the insight any more that their beliefs are not normal because they are inside that cult and have been “brainwashed”.

So, when the cult leader ­isolates them from the rest of society and tells them to do ­terrible things, which may include killing themselves, they believe it is normal.

But you, on the outside, can tell that these people are in a cult and their belief system is wrong.

Take another example closer to home.

Let’s say you have narcissistic parents who either physically or emotionally abused you.

You grow up thinking this abuse is normal.

Then when you get married, you have a family and you start this cycle of abuse all over again, with yourself as a perpetrator.

You find yourself telling your children, “When I was little, my father used to cane me until I couldn’t sit down”, as a justification that this is “normal” behaviour.

But it is not.

Society has evolved to have a better understanding of mental health and the psychological impact on children who have been through this type of parenting.

So what was considered normal parenting in the last century is not today.

Are people living in a malignant normality considered as having mental health issues?

Not in the way you would ­consider an individual having mental health issues such as depression or mania.

Shoko Asahara was the leader of the Japanese religious cult Aum Shinrikyo, which was responsible for the deadly sarin gas attack on the Tokyo Metro in 1995. He convinced his followers that only they would survive a prophesied World War III and take over Japan.

But it is considered to be a shared psychosis, perpetuated by a narcissistic leader who does really have mental health issues.

Many of us might not be particularly well-versed with psychology.

So we might not recognise that something is off so easily when malignant normality is being perpetuated.

But the people who do recognise it should educate others on what it is.

Dr YLM graduated as a medical doctor, and has been writing for many years on various subjects such as medicine, health, ­computers and entertainment. For further information, email [e-mail]. The information provided is for educational and communication purposes only, and it should not be construed as personal medical advice. Neither The Star nor the author gives any warranty on accuracy, completeness, functionality, usefulness or other assurances as to such information. The Star and the author disclaim all responsibility for any losses, damage to property or personal injury suffered directly or indirectly from reliance on such information.