Article Review: The New Normal Is Only "Click Bait"?

Faintly, now starting to sound loud terms New Normal in every report in the media. Terms that may not be foreign, but may lose meaning because they are only limited to hashtags. In fact, the term was present and became known since the incident Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in mid-2007 to early 2009.

Amitai Etzioni was one of the first to review the new normal in his article entitled "The New Normal". He draws this from how most Americans are re-evaluating their way of life and starting to value satisfaction from non-consumerist sources. As a phenomenon, a new normal emerges from the response of the American people to GFC by starting to simplify their lives, starting to think about saving more and contemplating far more in the future for their survival.

Etzioni's writing, review new normal based on various surveys conducted post-GFC. Starting his discussion, he pointed out how 54 percent of Americans now feel more anxious about their lives than in previous years and 57 percent have more anxiety about the future of their families than they actually do. Etzioni tries to ask whether after the GFC, people will look back on their old lifestyle and continue to make consumerism a source of life satisfaction or they will start looking for new sources of satisfaction from exploring meaning in a relationship, culture and spiritual which is then referred to as new normal?. Although reflecting on the recession before the GFC, namely in 1990-1991 and 2002, it appears that most Americans are still returning to their normal lifestyle before the recession occurred and continue to make consumption as a way of their life satisfaction.

In the range of 2008 to 2010, a poll conducted by Newport (2009) and the Pew Research Center (2010) shows that most Americans began to reduce their spending, by buying cheaper goods or minimizing consumption of alcohol and cigarettes, even canceling or cutting cigarettes. their vacation plans. Likewise with the results of the Corso survey (2010), post-GFC, Americans go to salons less frequently to style their hair (38 percent) as well as using dry cleaning (24 percent). In fact, some residents have started using refillable water bottles instead of buying bottled drinking water and no longer subscribe to newspapers or magazines. An August 2010 survey conducted by Rassmussen also showed that adults were 44 percent less likely to go out foraging than six months earlier.

Not only about lifestyle changes, but also how the meaning of happiness shifts due to GFC. Although the results of the Euro RSCG Worldwide poll in the October-November 2009 range showed concern about the declining quality of life for Americans with 85 percent saying society had become physically lazy. Yet, 67 percent of Americans believe the recession reminds them of what's really important in life. Some 48 percent of respondents said they are actively trying to find out what makes them happy. Even saving is then felt more enjoyable than spending money (Newport Survey, 2009 with 59 percent and Euro RSCG Worldwide Survey, 2010 with 87 percent). Seemingly simple life is also valued more with an emphasis on utility and not prestige. At least this shows that there is great hope to change their behavior in life new normal.

In short, most Americans are beginning to recognize a lifestyle that is different from the previously predominant patterns of consumerism and there is an effort to redefine what makes life good. In fact, Etzioni showed no positive correlation between socioeconomic status and happiness. In fact, it is often found that the level of happiness tends to be the same for different economic classes, with the exception of the very poor who tend to be less happy than other economic classes. Although economic growth has slowed since the mid-1970s, the reported happiness of Americans also tends to be very stable in both high and low growth periods.

Richard Easterlin (1974) in his study reported a phenomenon which has since been labeled the “Easterlin Paradox” which says that although at a certain point in time, higher incomes result in more happiness, in the long run (10 years or more) an increase in a person's income the state does not guarantee the happiness of its citizens also increases. Japan is an oft-cited example of the Easterlin paradox. Between 1962 and 1987, the Japanese economy grew at an unprecedented rate, more than tripling its GNP per capita. Yet overall Japanese happiness remained constant throughout that period (Easterlin, 2005). Amartya Sen also stated that people living in poor countries often have a better quality of life than those living in more affluent countries (Sen, 1999). Even so, it does not mean that we then ignore efforts to improve the welfare of the poor as things that do not contribute to their happiness.

Several other non-material indicators of happiness expressed by Etzioni are family life such as the experience of a vacation with family. The consumption of experience is considered more meaningful than the consumption of physical objects. Human relationships ultimately play an important role in happiness; conversely, people who are socially isolated tend to be less happy with higher levels of anxiety, negative moods, sadness, hostility, fear of negative evaluation, and perceptions of stress. In addition, their levels of optimism, happiness, and life satisfaction are also lower than people who have strong social relationships.

Another source of immaterial happiness is the level of one's religiosity. That participation in religious activities that have deep meaning for individuals is closely related to happiness. Art activities such as painting, dancing, music and storytelling have also been linked in several studies to increased psychological well-being and lower levels of anxiety and depression.

Amitai Etzioni stressed that all this time seeking happiness in the pattern of consumerism may be an illusory thing, because it will never meet its end point, in the sense that there will always be someone who is richer when you pursue that wealth. Even so, for a long time some Americans have tried to escape the shackles of consumerism and choose to live in simplicity and concern for the environment. The Great Recession (GFC) has forced many Americans to confront the question of whether they can adapt to a tougher life and whether they can find other sources of satisfaction. From various survey results show that the process towards the era new normal this might happen even though in the long term it needs more in-depth proof which is accompanied by promotions to hold back the pace of consumerism, as proof that there is no attempt to return to old habits old normal.

Joel Best in his article What's New? What's Normal? in response to Amitai Etzioni's article (The New Normal) do not really agree that the survey results used in building Etzioni's argument really reflect that American society has headed new normal post GFC. Best hesitates because he considers the results to be standard findings. Etzioni's shallowness in interpreting the survey results more comprehensively was further exposed when Best said that it was not too surprising to learn that the majority of survey respondents viewed their standard of living as satisfactory. A Pew Center poll conducted in June 2008 found 36 percent of respondents were very satisfied with their standard of living, and another 43 percent said they were somewhat satisfied. This is slightly better than the December 1996 poll which showed 35 percent and 40 percent respectively related to very satisfied and somewhat satisfied responses (Pew Research Center, 2011). Best also criticized Etzioni's ease with citing consumerism as a major source of satisfaction for Americans but did not indicate which polls support the materialist identity argument when instead he noted that surveys consistently show that most people say they value family, community, and religion.

In line with what Best said, indeed the building of the argument presented by Etzioni is very shallow if you want to answer the questions he set in his article about new normal, that there is a search for new sources of satisfaction beyond the identity of materialism. At least statistically, or time series based analysis time series needed to answer whether there has been a change in lifestyle in interpreting happiness by comparison ex-GFC and post-GFC (difference in difference). With descriptive statistical presentations through these various surveys, Etzioni cannot at all say that the phenomena that occur are new normal. It would be too far for Etzioni to finally conclude that most Americans are starting to realize that there is a lifestyle that is different from the pattern of consumerism that was previously very thick and that there is an attempt to redefine what makes life good.

In the end, unnoticed now new normal which has become increasingly popular as a term to describe a change in behavior in response to a certain condition (crisis) has lost its meaning. Like Joel Best's article with its title, which really needs to be absorbed, what's really new? and what is normal?. Because for me personally the process of adaptation that occurs to crisis conditions is a natural thing, and that is shown from Best's actual argument in the time span data, it cannot be ensured that digging into sources of life satisfaction that were material towards something more immaterial, namely the bond of relationships between personal, cultural and spiritual is the result of the GFC.

A little context on the COVID-19 crisis that is currently happening and starting to be hyped up new normal as a thing that must be done by society, of course only as an apparent meaning. Because really when new normal placed on the necessity of implementing strict health protocols, hasn't it always been when there was an epidemic or a bad health condition, we have been demanded to take better care of our health as recommended by doctors or paramedics? So what's new about the current health protocol? Is society new to washing hands before eating in the 21st century? certainly not. So then what is called old normal when the term appears new normal during this pandemic? it is still not clear. As a result, as I said at the beginning, the term new normal just become a hashtag without a clear meaning. That's how it is when now the world has entered the era of social media that needs hashtags, jargon, and captions as "click bait". Sometimes the meaning of a phrase is not that important, what matters is being cool.

Bibliography

Best, Joel. 2011. What's New? What's Normal?, in Sociological Forum, Vol. 26, No. 4, December 2011, DOI: 10.1111/j.1573-7861.2011.01283.x, pp.790-795.
Easterline, Richard. 1974. ''Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence,'' in Paul A. David and Melvin W. Reder (eds.), Nations and Households in Economic Growth: Essays in Honor of Moses Abramovitz, h. 35–47. New York: Academic Press, Inc.
Easterline, Richard. 2005. Diminishing Marginal Utility of Income? Caveat Emptor, in Social Indicators Research 70(3), p.243-255.
Etzioni, Amittai. 2011. The New Normal, in Sociological Forum, Vol. 26, No. 4, December 2011, DOI: 10.1111/j.1573-7861.2011.01282.x, p.779-789.
Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as Freedom. New York: Knopf.