Putting ‘new normal’ officially in purgatory
IT is poetically just that the government official who started all the blah blah about a “new normal” in our public life has been ordered to announce that the government has decided to put the cliché in purgatory for now.
It was Palace spokesman Harry Roque Jr. who gratuitously proclaimed the advent of a new normal in the country after President Rodrigo Duterte imposed a community quarantine/ lockdown throughout the country, which he later replaced with a more stringent enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) and general community quarantine (GCQ) in selected areas.
Besides reciting the new rules and regulations that would be part of the new normal, Roque declared that academic institutions should prepare for a new normal in classes because schools would not reopen until a vaccine against coronavirus disease 2019 ( Covid- 19) 9 is developed.
“We will have to be more creative, there will have to be more blended or flexible learning in schooling,” he said.
Since then, the media and government factotums have chattered with abandon about a new normal as though something had been decreed from heaven.
But last Tuesday, something dramatic happened. Roque this time announced that with the new parameters for quarantine classifications, no areas would be placed under the new normal for now.
To explain the jargon, the recalibration of parameters means assessing areas in terms of their Covid- 19 situations, the virus doubling time, critical care and risk utilization of provinces, highly urbanized cities and independent component cities.
Roque explained that high- risk areas would be placed under ECQ or modified ECQ, while areas with moderate risk would be under GCQ.
He said: “There will be no new normal for now. It means that all areas in the Philippines are under community quarantine.”
The community quarantine issued by President Duterte will end on June 30. He will issue a fresh order before the end of the month.
True to Roque’s announcement, Filipinos have stopped using new normal in daily communication. Even Roque himself took a respite in his vocabulary.
This development, we think, makes good sense. Language and society do not get poorer when a cliché dies or goes into disuse.
You might say here that, as in Catholic catechism, new normal has been sent to purgatory for cleansing.
Catholic Catechism defines purgatory as a “purification so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven,” which is experienced by those “who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified” (
1030). It notes that “this final purification of the elect…is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.”
At a secular level, there are sound and good arguments for letting go of new normal in our discourse today.
First, new normal is an overused and annoying cliché these days. Clichés lose their original meaning when people use them too often. They become trite and irritating when they are said over and over in conversation.
Typically, clichés may or may not be true. They are usually said because somebody heard them and began using them or because they thought they were cute. Then others picked up the saying and began using it. The danger in using clichés is that some people who use them might not have any idea what they mean
Yesterday, “a new normal” was constantly on some people’s lips because of Roque’s official banter. It was used in reference to the Covid- 19 pandemic that has spread all over the world. People predict and wish for a new normal.
There are many things wrong with saying “a new normal.” First of all, the expression is a paradox. Something can’t be new and normal at the same time. Either something is new or it is normal. It can’t be both.
Something new is something unprecedented. It is something that has never happened before. On the other hand, something normal is a tradition because it happens all the time or most of the time.
A stint in purgatory will be good for new normal, if it can ever get purified.