Well, in science, the normality of a state is the baseline that makes it possible to measure deviations and their effects at all. 
Take body temperature. In most people, it sits somewhere between 36.5 and 37.5 degrees Celsius. 
If that number moves outside this range, the body is more likely sick than healthy. 
And the curve gets restless when fever has moved in.

That kind of normality is explainable — and genuinely useful.

But what about norms around behaviour and conduct, when they are demanded of us? 
Then things get a little thorny. And remarkably timely.

How so?

Well, lately the concept of world order has been mentioned in many political mouths. Including the mouth of Mark Carney — who also happens to be my Prime Minister of Canada. 

The idea itself, that the world exists within an order that nations agree to uphold, is a pleasant thought. 
If only it were organized along philosophical lines.

Immanuel Kant had something to say about this in his idea of Perpetual Peace: a worldwide peace order would be possible if states understood themselves as part of a global federation built on democratic principles and common laws.
Well, that has only partially worked out, and only at the micro level.

Philosophers like John Rawls developed theories dealing with distributive justice on an international scale. 
Rawls' theory of justice demands that social goods be distributed so that they bring the greatest benefit to the least advantaged. 
Well, would you look at that — there's quite a bit of hippie philosophy woven in there.

At the very least, these ideas gave rise to the United Nations and the World Bank. 
Both institutions play a decisive role in shaping the global political order. 

The United Nations keeps trying, again and again, to secure international cooperation — and with it, peace, security, and human rights around the world. The World Bank takes a more pragmatic approach: promoting economic development while reducing poverty through financial and technical assistance.

So, how are you doing today, dear world order?

The peace that Europe and North America once took for granted is a thing of the past. 
War and threat, with chaos and terror as their companions, now dominate the news. 
And of course, mainstream and other news sources are not generally truthful or fact-based. 
Oh no. That would be too normal.

Yes, normality within the human hierarchy of needs has become fragile and unstable. 
The daily flood of terrible, even worse, and still more dramatic events has done away with outrage altogether.

We live in a time that has catapulted stories once considered completely abnormal straight into the new normal.
It has become acceptable — even respectable — that child abusers, lawbreakers, fascists, dictators, and the incitement and disenfranchisement of minorities are rising to high positions in politics.

And yes, even the rhetoric has edged closer to the unspeakable.

Good grief. Sorry.

What a dystopian picture my synapses have painted here at five in the morning. 
Well, it hasn't quite come to that yet. That would really be something.

No — despite all the adversity and ugliness, I don't yet see the future as entirely bleak.
And no, I'm not sitting in front of my computer spending my time in naive hope. THAT would be bleak and frustrating.

We humans are never entirely normal. 
If we were, there would be no art, hardly any invention, and we could celebrate the death of creativity.

People have curiously stuck their noses out beyond the norm — and in doing so, discovered something new and abnormal. 
New ways of thinking, of acting, for the future of humanity.
Again and again and again.

This habit is also known as the spirit of invention — the spirit of thinking outside the standard. And it is precisely this abnormality that we need more urgently, more desperately than ever before.

Total Normal was yesterday.
A Normal that creates hope is today.