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Episode 10: They Couldn't Do It Without Us: The Psychology of Normallizing Deviance · The Original Self Podcast

0:12
Welcome to the original self podcast. I'm Evet
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DeCota, owner of DeCota Life Coaching and a psychology
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informed life coach. I explore resilience mindset
0:24
and the courage to become your authentic self.
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This is a space for honest conversations about
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growth, identity, relationships, and the messy
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moments in between that shape who we become.
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Between the salon chair and coaching sessions,
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I've watched people move through life with patterns
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they never notice. Patterns that are subtle,
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familiar, and incredibly hard to see from the
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inside. Today, we're going to talk about something
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that I believe is one of the most urgent and
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under -examined forces shaping our culture right
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now. This is episode 10, They Couldn't Do It
1:04
Without Us, Normalizing Deviants. I want you
1:24
guys to think of something that would have genuinely
1:26
shocked you 10 years ago. Something that you
1:31
might have said, oh no, that couldn't happen,
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or that would never be acceptable. Or maybe it
1:38
was people would never allow something like that.
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Got it in your mind? Whatever that was that was
1:45
so shocking 10 years ago? Now ask yourself, is
1:49
it still shocking? or have you just adjusted
1:54
or accepted it? We used to have a word for when
2:00
powerful people did terrible things and faced
2:04
no consequences. We called it corruption. Then
2:09
we called it scandal. Then we called it complicated.
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Then we stopped calling it anything at all. Somewhere
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between the scandal and the silence, That's where
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normalization lives. Because here's the part
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no one wants to say out loud. You've watched
2:31
the shows. You've followed the trials, maybe.
2:35
You clicked on the stories. You shook your head
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and then maybe you discussed it with someone
2:40
else. And then you moved on. So did I. So did
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almost everyone. And that, not the predators.
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not the corrupt politicians and billionaires.
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That's what I want to talk about today. Because
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they couldn't do any of it without our willingness
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to eventually stop being surprised. That adjustment,
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although quiet, gradual, and almost invisible,
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that's normalizing deviance. That's what we're
3:20
talking about today. That's where we're going.
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Before we go any further, I want you to sit with
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something. Is there something happening in the
3:31
world right now that you have quietly adjusted
3:35
to? Something that would have completely outraged
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you years ago and now just feels like background
3:42
noise? Just notice it, and then we'll come back
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to it. Let's define the anatomy of deviance.
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There are two ways to define sexual deviance.
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The sociological definition is what society considers
4:00
abnormal or immoral. And that line moves depending
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on the era, the culture, and let's face it, who's
4:09
in charge? Who holds the power? The clinical
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definition draws a harder line. It refers to
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sexual behavior, fantasies or urges that cause
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real harm to others. It's often without consent
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and it's a compulsion the person cannot control.
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The first definition is intentionally vague.
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The second focuses solely on harm. Most of what
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I'm going to talk about today dependent on us
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staying stuck in the first definition just long
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enough that nobody asked the second question
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of who got hurt. In psychology the term paraphilic
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disorders are designated when the behavior causes
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real harm. It's got to involve someone who didn't
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consent or create significant distress or dysfunction.
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Not every unusual sexual interest qualifies,
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but pedophilia and rape fall squarely in that
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category. Now here's the part that connects everything.
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Economic deviance and sexual deviance are not
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as different as you'd like to think. They grow
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basically from the same soil. They're both rooted
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in power. They need to control others, assert
5:48
status and take what feels entitled. Whether
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someone is manipulating financial markets or
5:57
manipulating people, the underlying psychology
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is remarkably consistent. It's a willingness
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to dehumanize and the belief that the rules simply
6:11
do not apply to them. Sociologist Robert Merton's
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strain theory explains, this is what he says,
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that when people cannot achieve what society
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tells them they should have, like wealth, status,
6:28
and maybe power, some don't abandon the goal.
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They actually abandon the rules in which to get
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there. to achieve it. When you layer narcissism
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on top of all of that, you get someone who genuinely
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believes the rules were never meant for them
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in the first place. So social and political deviance
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is the category that makes all other categories
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possible. Tribalism overrides moral judgment.
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And then you have motivated reasoning, which
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means that we arrive at conclusions first based
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on who we want to protect. And then we work backward
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to find the evidence. And institutional deviance,
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when the organization designed to enforce accountability
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become the ones providing cover. That's the most
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insidious form of all. I know this personally.
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This happened in my own childhood parish when
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I was 16 years old. The brothers I knew were
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molested by my favorite priest, a man that I
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was in awe of because I just thought he was the
7:54
most spiritual being I had ever met. When the
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truth came out though, the church moved him.
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They didn't report him to the authorities, didn't
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turn him in, he wasn't arrested. And they didn't
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protect those boys, those brothers. They protected
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the institution over a child, over children.
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I watched the people around me rationalize it
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because I think the alternative was too uncomfortable.
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But that was my real first education in normalization.
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And it taught me something that I'll never forget.
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I found out that the silence of good people is
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just as much a part of the system as the actions
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of a predator. The psychologist Albert Bandura
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spent his career asking how people do terrible
8:52
things and still live with themselves. His answer
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was called moral disengagement. It's a set of
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mental mechanisms that allow us to switch off
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our conscience when it becomes inconvenient.
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Perpetrators justify their behavior. They diffuse
9:15
responsibility. They dismiss consequences. They
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have to dehumanize the victim. What makes Bandura's
9:26
work so uncomfortable is that these mechanisms
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don't only operate in perpetrators, they operate
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in all of us. In institutions that look the other
9:39
way, in colleagues who stay silent, in audiences
9:44
who keep streaming the content or buying the
9:47
R. Kelly records, watching the Woody Allen films
9:51
even after he married Soon Yee Previn, his long
9:54
-term girlfriend's daughter, who he was around
9:58
when she was 12 years old and had entered Mia
10:03
Farrow's life. It's in voters who still cannot
10:07
bring themselves to admit that they were wrong.
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Their choice was wrong because any other conclusion
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would demand they confront the cognitive dissonance
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that they spent years avoiding. Moral disengagement
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is the engine that makes deviance sustainable
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for the people committing it, and for everyone
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around them who decides consciously or not that
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it's easier not to know. Sit with another question
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before we go further. Think of someone you admire,
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whether it's politically, creatively, or maybe
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even personally. Have you ever looked the other
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way at their behavior because of how much you
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valued what they gave you? What did it cost the
11:04
people that they harmed? So how does deviance
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become normal? Diane Vaughn studied the Space
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Shuttle Challenger disaster. She found something
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that had nothing to do with engineering. The
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engineers apparently had been seeing small warning
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signs so many times without catastrophe that
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the sign stopped feeling like warnings. The deviation
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became the norm. And then one day, obviously,
11:40
the shuttle exploded. Von named this the normalization
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of deviants. During the incubation period when
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things are going wrong, but nothing's blown up
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yet. We tell ourselves that everything is fine.
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Jeffrey Epstein operated for decades. Harvey
12:02
Weinstein produced films for decades. The banks
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gambled with the global economy for decades because
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nothing catastrophic had happened yet. Until
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it did. Vaughan's key distinction is the one
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that matters the most. This is not about bad
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individuals making bad choices. It's about systems
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that slowly redefined what is acceptable until
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the acceptable becomes policy, becomes culture,
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becomes just the way things are. Then there's
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the research that should have changed everything
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and mostly didn't. In the 1980s, psychologists
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Linz, Donnerstein, and Penrod exposed men to
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films depicting sexual violence against women
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over five consecutive days. With each day, their
13:09
anxiety decreased and their enjoyment increased.
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And after the five days, Those same men showed
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measurably less empathy toward a real rape victim
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in a trial reenactment than men who hadn't been
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through the five -day exposure. The media they
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consumed changed how they saw a real woman in
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a real courtroom. That's not a theory. That's
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a documented finding, and it points directly
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at what we have been watching. Entertainment
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doesn't just reflect culture, obviously. It shapes
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it. 365 Days is a Netflix film where a woman
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is kidnapped by a crime boss who gives her a
14:06
year to fall in love with him. It was one of
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the most watched films of 2020. It was kidnapping
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framed as romance. or possession framed as love.
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What about the show Game of Thrones? It gave
14:25
us rape as a plot device so routinely that audiences
14:30
began to accept it as atmosphere. It was always
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consistently shot from the perpetrator's point
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of view, framed as character development, not
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her trauma. Or the show Ozark? Which built an
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entire series around making you root for a money
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launderer Who measured success not by whether
14:53
justice is served but by whether he escapes it
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That's exactly what we've been conditioned to
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think about financial criminals in real life
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Don't get me wrong. I love that show But it's
15:09
interesting when you break it down who we're
15:12
rooting for What all these shows have in common
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is that they are brilliantly made. They have
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devoted audiences, like I said, including me.
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And in every single one of them, the deviance
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is the draw. We don't watch despite the darkness.
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We watch because of it. And that distinction
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matters more than we're willing to admit. Journalism.
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It has a responsibility that it frequently abandons.
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When a powerful person is exposed, let's say,
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the story always follows the same arc. First,
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it's the revelation, then the statement, then
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the think piece, and then on to the next story.
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The monster narrative is journalism's most reliable
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tool for living. Everyone else off the hook.
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When we frame Harvey Weinstein as a singular
16:19
aberration, we don't have to talk about anyone
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else or anyone that we knew. Or everyone who
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knew. The monster contains the damage. The system
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walks free. And the language does the rest. Misconduct.
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instead of rape, or indiscretion instead of fraud.
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My favorite, inappropriate relationship instead
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of abuse of power. When we reach for a softer
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word, we're not being careful. We're being complicit.
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So let's talk about the protected class. These
17:03
are not aberrations. These are case studies and
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how deviance gets protected. maybe even celebrated,
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and definitely absorbed into our culture until
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it stops feeling like deviance at all. R. Kelly
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wrote a song called, Age Ain't Nothin' But A
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Number, and we made it a hit. He married Aliyah
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when she was 15, he was 27, and the music industry
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just shrugged their shoulders. The abuse was
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never a secret. It was hiding in plain sight,
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inside the music, and we sang every word. It
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took over a decade, a documentary, and a federal
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conviction in 2021 before anyone was willing
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to call it what it already was. Rape, kidnapping,
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and pedophilia. Let's move on to Bill Cosby.
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the American dad for 30 years. I grew up on his
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recorded comedy routines, laughing hysterically
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with my family. I saw him twice in concert and
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left with sore cheeks from smiling and laughing
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so hard. Along with his comedy, he also lectured
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Black America about pulling up their pants and
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being the best that you can be. He did all that
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while he was drugging and raping women in hotel
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rooms. 60 women came forward. 6 -0. 60. He was
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convicted in 2018 and then a technicality set
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him free. Not because he didn't do it, but because
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one prosecutor made a promise to another prosecutor
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and broke it. He walked out of prison in 2021
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while those 60 women had nowhere left to go.
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That is not justice. That's the system protecting
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its own comfort. Let's go way back to Roman Polanski.
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He pleaded guilty, he's such a gen, in 1977 to
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the statutory rape of a 13 -year -old girl. He
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fled to France before sentencing and never returned.
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And my favorite part in 2003, the Academy, the
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Motion Film Academy gave him an Oscar for Best
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Director, while the entire room of his peers
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gave him a standing ovation. If you want one
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moment that captures how completely the industry
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normalized its own deviance, I say choose that
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one. Let's go to our favorite topic, Jeffrey
20:09
Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein was the hub of everything.
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He pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor
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and received a deal so lenient it became its
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own scandal. He got 13 months in a county jail
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with work release privileges. Then he went right
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back to his mansions, his private island, and
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his little black book. The most powerful people
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in the world kept taking his calls. They kept
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flying on his plane. They kept attending his
20:47
dinners. Because he made himself deliberately
20:51
indispensable, financially, socially, and strategically.
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His network touched politicians, billionaires,
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royalty, and celebrities across every party,
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every industry. Wealth and access were the mechanisms
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of his protection. He did not operate despite
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these people. He operated because of them. Next
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on my list is Michael Jackson, who was the soundtrack
21:26
of my childhood. I think the Jackson 5 played
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in my house the way air moves through a room,
21:34
naturally, without a question. When the Thriller
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video premiered on MTV, I recorded it on VHS,
21:44
if you don't know what that is, look it up, and
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played it over and over until my brother, my
21:50
best friend and I learned every single step of
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that dance. We practiced it so many times, I
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heard my dad ask my mom if this was for a school
22:02
project. Of course, my 14 -year -old sassy, annoyed
22:08
self whipped my head around and said to him,
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Oh my God, Dad, we have to learn this. When Michael
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Jackson moonwalked during the Motown 25 special,
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I jumped up from the floor and tried to do it
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right on the spot. My brother and I practiced
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it until we had it perfected. Michael Jackson's
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music and movement were not just entertainment.
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They were a language. It was like a shared experience
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that connected an entire generation to something
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that we genuinely felt was magical. Which I think
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is exactly why what came next was so devastating.
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When the rumors surfaced about his abuse, I didn't
23:02
believe them. I thought people were just after
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his money. There's no way that he could do that.
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I had bought it completely into the wealth and
23:14
hierarchy of protected deviance. The logic was
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simple and seductive. Someone that beloved, that
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gifted, or that important to the culture could
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not possibly be capable of abusing children that
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he professed to love so dearly. That fame functioned
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as a character reference, for me anyway. The
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money functioned as proof of innocence. And I,
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like I said, like millions of others, accepted
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it without examining it. It's not until the year
23:59
2020 when I watched the documentary Leaving Neverland
24:03
that the real horror of his deviance came into
24:08
clear view for me. The testimony of Wade Robson,
24:14
whom I completely admire as a brilliant modern
24:17
choreographer, and the other boy was James Safechuck,
24:23
who we watched in the Pepsi commercials, was
24:26
specific, detailed, and deeply credible. I was
24:32
devastated. My childhood hero had used his fame,
24:38
his money, and the very magic that made him untouchable
24:43
to gain access to children and systematically
24:47
abuse them. This particular cruelty weaponizes
24:53
your love for the perpetrator against your ability
24:55
to see clearly. The more you love them, the more
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the system can count on you to look away. And
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the more we collectively look away, the longer
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the abuse continues. The only female that I could
25:13
think of that is deviant is Elizabeth Holmes.
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She's the one that built Theranos on a costume
25:21
and a con. The con was the turtleneck, the artificially
25:27
deepened voice, the Steve Jobs mythology. She
25:33
convinced investors, hospital systems, and basically
25:39
all of Silicon Valley that her company could
25:43
diagnose hundreds of diseases from a single drop
25:47
of blood. This technology didn't exist and it
25:53
never worked. Patients received false results
25:58
and made life -altering medical decisions based
26:02
on fraudulent data. For years, she was celebrated
26:07
as the most important female entrepreneur of
26:10
her generation. not despite the fraud, but because
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the culture was so hungry for the story she was
26:18
selling to anybody. And that because of that,
26:24
nobody looked closely enough to see that it wasn't
26:27
true. Let's move on to two of the largest financial
26:34
deviants. Bernie Madoff created the largest Ponzi
26:38
scheme in history. It totaled $65 billion. It
26:44
was protected for decades by prestige and the
26:48
assumption that somebody that successful couldn't
26:51
possibly be a fraud. Or Sam Begman Freed, I love
26:57
that his last name is Freed, was convicted in
26:59
2023. He was deliberately, he looked deliberately
27:05
disheveled. He was a grifter. who built a crypto
27:11
empire on the performance of generosity as moral
27:17
camouflage. That's a really fancy way of saying
27:21
he was full of shit. That shield though allowed
27:25
him to get away with a swindle of a lifetime.
27:30
If you appear to be giving it all away, people
27:34
don't usually ask where it came from. And then
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my last one, my absolute favorite, is Donald
27:43
Trump. He didn't just normalize deviance, he
27:49
made it a brand. He was found civilly liable
27:53
for sexual abuse and defamation in the E. Jean
27:57
Carroll case. He was criminally convicted on
28:01
34 counts of business fraud. He was caught on
28:05
tape bragging about grabbing women without their
28:08
consent, and he called it locker room talk. And
28:13
disturbingly, many believed it. He's vilified
28:17
the media as the enemy of the people, while simultaneously
28:21
using them as pawns in his malignant game of
28:26
narcissistic attention gluttony. He understands
28:31
before anyone else the outrage is just another
28:35
form of ratings He did not need good press He
28:40
just needed press and they gave it to him every
28:44
single day every single minute Every single time
28:48
he wanted it Then came the payoffs Foreign governments
28:55
funneled money through Trump hotels while Saudi
28:58
Arabia Sovereign Wealth Fund propped up his golf
29:01
courses through L .I .V. Golf. Apple, Meta, Amazon.
29:08
They all lined up to genuflect. They wrote checks.
29:13
They attended summits. They posted congratulations.
29:17
And calling it business when it was nothing of
29:20
the sort. It was tribute. The kind you pay when
29:24
you've calculated that resistance costs more
29:27
than surrender. That's not capitalism. That's
29:31
a protection racket with a better press release.
29:38
Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices
29:40
in one term. They went on to dismantle 50 years
29:46
of established law. And in doing so, he did not
29:51
just influence the highest court in the land.
29:55
He owns it. And the people cheering loudest were
30:00
the same ones clutching their rosaries and their
30:03
Bibles and their books of Mormon. Because somewhere
30:07
between the porn star and the pussy grabbing,
30:11
Donald Trump convinced Catholics, Evangelicals,
30:16
and Mormons that God had sent him. This is a
30:21
man who has never demonstrated a single authentic
30:25
moment of spiritual conviction in his entire
30:28
public life. He sold salvation to people desperate
30:33
enough to buy it. It's a con disguised as faith.
30:38
He cynically turned every accusation into a rallying
30:42
cry. Every conviction into a fundraiser. every
30:48
piece of evidence into a witch hunt. He didn't
30:52
hide it. He ran on it and won. Twice. So let's
31:00
pause here so that I can calm down. But I also
31:03
want to ask you, of the people and institutions
31:07
I just named, is there one that you found yourself
31:12
wanting to defend or qualify? Notice that impulse.
31:19
I don't know. Ask yourself where it comes from.
31:23
That impulse is exactly how the protection works.
31:29
So I wonder what normalization of deviance actually
31:34
costs us. Not abstractly or theoretically, but
31:39
what's the real toll? I think it starts with
31:44
the survivor. Survivors share something that
31:47
doesn't get talked about enough, in my opinion.
31:52
It's the internal erosion that happens before
31:56
anyone else knows. There's a question that normalization
32:01
plants directly inside the victim. That question
32:06
is, was it really that bad? That question is
32:11
not weakness. It's what happens when you have
32:15
spent your whole life watching the culture minimize,
32:20
contextualize, or excuse exactly what just happened
32:24
to you. The psychologist Jennifer Frade called
32:28
this institutional betrayal. It's the specific
32:33
compounding trauma that occurs not just because
32:38
It's from the original harm, but it's from being
32:42
failed by the systems that were supposed to protect
32:45
you. Remember the story I told you about the
32:48
priest and the brothers at my parish? The church
32:52
protected the institution and threw the boys
32:55
to the wolves with a small payoff to their single
32:58
mother who didn't speak English. In the meantime,
33:02
they moved the predator priest to the Ozarks.
33:06
to probably groom more children. Martin Seligman's
33:11
learned helplessness research tells us that when
33:16
people repeatedly experience that their actions
33:21
have no effect, reporting leads to nowhere, that
33:26
speaking up changes nothing, they stop trying.
33:30
But it's not because they don't care. It's because
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they've been taught through experience that caring
33:36
doesn't matter. Every protected perpetrator sends
33:41
that message to every potential survivor. This
33:44
system is not for you. Stay quiet. It's safer.
33:50
And then there's something called the bystander
33:53
effect. It's a well documented phenomenon in
33:56
which The presence of others reduces individual
34:01
responsibility to act. It doesn't only occur
34:06
in emergencies on subway platforms, let's say.
34:11
It happens at a societal scale. When an entire
34:16
culture watches deviants remain unpunished, the
34:21
diffusion of responsibility becomes total. Someone
34:26
else will report it. Someone else will fix it.
34:30
But no one does. Cynicism doesn't just make us
34:36
passive, it makes us complicit. Then there are
34:42
the children watching it all. Research on adolescent
34:47
media consumption is unambiguous. What young
34:51
people consume shapes what they normalize. Children
34:56
who grow up watching deviants go unpunished internalize
35:02
it as instruction for how power works. They learn
35:07
that these are the rules. They are optional if
35:11
you are the right kind of person. And that lesson
35:15
does not stay in one generation. It gets passed
35:19
down through the examples we model. The behavior
35:22
we excuse. the content that we consume, and also
35:29
the things we choose not to name. Hannah Arndt
35:33
gave us the concept called the banality of evil.
35:39
It means the most dangerous evil is not dramatic
35:43
or theatrical. It's bureaucratic and ordinary.
35:47
It might look like a boardroom, a courtroom,
35:51
maybe a studio lot. a church, even a House or
35:56
Senate chamber. When accountability disappears
36:01
long enough, people stop expecting it. The vacancy
36:06
gets filled by someone who points at the wreckage,
36:10
promises to clean it up, and then neglects to
36:13
mention that they helped make it. They helped
36:15
make the mess. That is how authoritarianism finds
36:20
its opening, not through force. but through exhaustion.
36:25
But I wonder what the literal financial cost
36:28
is of all of this. Let's see. Sexual violence
36:33
cost the United States an estimated $3 .1 trillion
36:38
annually through health care, lost productivity,
36:43
legal cost, and mental health treatments. The
36:48
2008 financial crisis wiped out an estimated
36:52
22 trillion dollars in household wealth. Families
36:58
lost the homes they spent decades building, retirements
37:03
evaporated, and the people who built the machine
37:06
that collapsed everything received bonuses. Political
37:11
corruption is measurable in every school not
37:15
funded, every hospital not built, every climate
37:20
bill not passed. The cost is paid by survivors,
37:26
bystanders, children, and democracies. And it's
37:31
not only paid in dollars, but in the eroding
37:34
belief that any of it could ever change. Think
37:42
about where in your own life you felt the cost
37:46
of looking away. Maybe you saw something and
37:51
said nothing. Maybe you stayed loyal to someone
37:55
who didn't deserve it. I've done that. Maybe
38:00
you consumed something you knew wasn't right
38:02
and kept going anyway. You don't have to judge
38:07
what comes up for you. Just be honest with yourself
38:11
about it. It's not that easy. So what do we do
38:16
with all of this? Let's try and do a reframe.
38:22
If this conversation ends in despair, it's failed.
38:27
The entire argument is that normalization happens
38:31
gradually, right? Quietly, with our participation.
38:37
Which I think that means we can participate in
38:40
making it abnormal again. The first battleground,
38:45
I believe, is language. Words are how normalization
38:50
travels. through euphemisms, through softening,
38:55
you know, what they call it. Through the careful
38:59
selection of the least threatening way to describe
39:03
something that could disturb us deeply. Misconduct
39:09
is not rape. Indiscretion is not fraud. A complicated
39:14
relationship is not abuse of power. Boys will
39:19
be boys is not an explanation. It's a permission
39:23
slip that has been handed out for centuries.
39:27
Naming things accurately is not harsh or inflammatory.
39:32
It's precise. I think precision is the first
39:37
act of resistance. The second thing is refusing
39:43
the tribal poll. That's a hard one. The moment
39:49
you find yourself defending someone because of
39:51
their politics or maybe their talent or other
39:56
relationships to you, stop it. Ask the question.
40:02
You wouldn't ask if it was on the other side.
40:05
Accountability only works when it's applied consistently.
40:09
The minute it becomes selective, it becomes worthless.
40:13
I want you to think about Eric Swalwell, the
40:16
Democrat that Many Democrats in Congress knew
40:20
about his sexual abuse history. They had heard
40:27
it rumored and did nothing to question it. That's
40:32
tribalism. Refuse it. The next thing we could
40:37
do is stop outsourcing our moral judgments to
40:41
institutions. Courts acquit guilty people. Studios
40:47
protect profitable people. Churches protect their
40:51
brand, and the Supreme Court protects its ideology.
40:57
These systems arbitrate what they can afford
41:01
to admit rather than what is right. Your own
41:05
assessment of behavior does not require a verdict.
41:11
The research supports something most people don't
41:14
believe. Re -census Resensitization is possible.
41:23
Researchers Linz and Donnerstein proved that
41:26
with sufficient distance from harmful exposure,
41:31
empathy returns. We are not permanently altered
41:35
by what we've consumed. We must make a deliberate
41:39
choice about what we continue to put in front
41:42
of ourselves. But critical media consumption
41:46
means asking one question before pressing play.
41:51
Who's the person served when watching entertainment?
41:55
If it's not from the victim's point of view,
41:59
then watching differently is most likely the
42:01
answer. For those of you with children, this
42:05
is an urgent part. Early education about Power,
42:10
consent and accountability is the single most
42:13
effective intervention available. Not just the
42:18
conversation about bodies and safety, although
42:20
that's very important and it matters enormously,
42:24
but it's the broader conversation about power.
42:29
Who has it? How does it get abused? And what
42:34
it looks like when institutions fail to check
42:37
it. The research shows that children who can
42:41
identify and name deviants are significantly
42:46
less vulnerable to it. That's amazing. And finally,
42:54
individual moral clarity is necessary but not
42:57
sufficient on its own. Accountability needs infrastructure.
43:04
Laws with teeth. Courts that are actually independent.
43:09
Journalism that's funded and free. Or HR departments
43:16
that answer to employees instead of shareholders.
43:20
Not sure that's ever going to happen. And also
43:24
a political culture that collectively determines
43:28
the protection of power is no longer worth the
43:32
price we have all been paying. The history of
43:37
every social shift tells us that normalization
43:40
can be reversed. Me Too happened. The Challenger
43:46
findings changed NASA. Financial regulations
43:50
followed the 2008 collapse, which means that
43:56
society eventually names what it once refused
43:59
to acknowledge. And it holds accountable those
44:03
who were once untouchable. The incubation period
44:08
always ends. The only question that matters is
44:11
how many people get hurt before it ends. I want
44:16
to ask you two questions. What's the one thing
44:20
you've been calling by the wrong name? And what
44:24
would it cost for you to start naming it accurately?
44:29
Maybe bring them into a conversation you're having
44:32
with a friend and see what it brings up in both
44:37
of you. So let me bring this home. We started
44:43
today with a question, not about the predators,
44:46
not about the politicians, not about the billionaires,
44:50
but about us. About the adjustments we make.
44:55
Quiet, gradual, almost invisible. Every time
45:01
we decide, it's easier not to know. every time
45:05
we reach for the softer word, every time we look
45:09
away and tell ourselves that someone else will
45:12
handle it. That adjustment has a cost as we've
45:16
discovered. We spent this entire episode accounting
45:20
for it. $3 .1 trillion a year in sexual violence.
45:26
$22 trillion in household wealth wiped out by
45:30
normalized financial fraud. Survivors who learn
45:34
to doubt their own experiences. Children absorbing
45:38
instructions about power from content we chose
45:41
to put in front of them. Institutions that traded
45:46
accountability for self -preservation so many
45:49
times that self -preservation becomes their only
45:54
function. Underneath all of it, the same engine
45:58
runs. Entitlement? dehumanization, and the conviction
46:03
that consequences belong to other people. Moral
46:08
disengagement is spreading outward from the person
46:12
committing the harm to everyone around them who
46:15
decided consciously or not that it was easier
46:18
not to know. We are in an incubation period right
46:22
now. The warning signs are not subtle. They are
46:27
loud. documented and sitting in plain sight for
46:30
anyone that's willing to look. The question is
46:34
not whether we can see them. The question is
46:37
whether we are willing to stop adjusting to it.
46:42
Because they could not do any of it without our
46:45
willingness to be entertained by it, to vote
46:47
for it, to stream it, to excuse it, to stay quiet
46:52
about it. and to decide that this particular
46:56
person at this particular moment was too important,
47:00
too complicated, or too powerful to hold accountable.
47:06
That ends when we decide it to end. Not in a
47:09
courtroom. Not in a headline. In the daily, ordinary,
47:15
unglamorous decision to call things what they
47:18
are. Refuse the softer word. Apply the same standard
47:24
regardless of whose side someone's on. Teach
47:28
our children that power is not the same as permission.
47:34
We are forced to say goodbye to Stephen Colbert
47:36
at his home show of the Late Show. But we can
47:41
still applaud Jimmy Kimmel for standing up to
47:46
what is becoming normal and his fight against
47:50
it. Leaving the reins to the people counting
47:53
on our silence is a cost none of us can afford.
47:59
So let's stop doing that. Let's stop giving them
48:04
those reins. If this episode stirred something
48:08
in you, I would love to continue that conversation.
48:12
Coaching is where this kind of work gets to go
48:14
deeper, where you take the awareness and turn
48:17
it into something real. You can find me at decotalifecoaching
48:21
.com. I genuinely love this work and I would
48:25
love to work with you. If you'd like to read
48:28
a more detailed version of this podcast, go to
48:31
either Substack or decotalifecoaching .com for
48:34
the blog version named The Quiet Permission,
48:38
How Normalizing Deviance is Costing Us Everything.
48:42
Thank you for being here with me today and I'll
48:44
see you next time.