The Case for Being Ordinary

It's "normal" for people to be bigoted

I am trying to boycott the word “normal” in my writing because the “normal” mind is not what we think it is. When people think of a normal mind, they are likely to think of a mind that thinks rationally and logically under most circumstances. This is not what normal thinking looks like. Thinking rationally and logically takes great effort and doing it well requires training. Even the most analytical and intelligent of us do not do it except in a small percentage of our thinking tasks. Our brain uses shortcuts to make our thinking more efficient, even though this has significant costs in terms of accuracy.

Psychologists and economists have a great deal of fun (and sell a lot of books) showing how innately irrational humans are. We’ll more easily buy something at $999.99 than at $1,000.00 (a difference of 1/10 of one percent), but we’ll buy coffee at Starbucks rather than turn the coffee pot on in the morning (at least a thousand percent difference). We’ll drink twice as much soda with a meal than we would at home because McDonalds is offering any size for a dollar. It doesn’t matter that the 2-liter bottle at home is cheaper per ounce; it doesn’t matter that we know soda is bad for us and that drinking a huge amount is a stupid thing to do. Speaking of food, think about dieting. Even if we have a huge motivation not to gain weight (ex: an extravagant wedding gown and