A study was conducted in 1967 by a man named Martin Seligman. In Part 1 of this study, three groups of dogs were placed in harnesses. Group 1 dogs were briefly put in harnesses and then released. Groups 2 and 3 consisted of “yoked pairs.” Dogs in Group 2 were given random electric shocks, which the dog could end by pressing a lever. The dogs in Group 3 were connected to a Group 2 dog and received a shock whenever Dog 2 received its shock. However, the lever did not stop the shock for Dog 3. Thus, for Group 3 dogs, the shock was entirely “inescapable.”
Later, all dogs were placed in a small box in which they would receive the same shock. Dogs from both groups 1 and 2 quickly jumped over a low partition to escape the shock. However, the group 3 dogs simply laid down because they had learned that they could neither control nor end the shocks.
Our culture has become like the Group 3 dogs. We are continuously and repetitively being shocked, and we, too, have learned that the shocks are inescapable. School shootings, bombings, acts of terror, and suicides no longer shock us; they have become common. Social media and the internet have taken over our children’s lives. “Nudes” and pornography have not only become common but acceptable and even praised. Nothing is sacred. Sex has become more prevalent than deep conversations, and any sense of modesty has long been vanquished by oversexed bodies splashed anywhere possible.
However, what we seem to have forgotten is that there is a difference between common and normal.
Just because something happens with frequency does not mean that it is normal. Prostitution is common but certainly not normal. We have forgotten that humans are created good in the image of a Creator and that it is the good that should be considered normative.
We, like Group 3 dogs, have laid down in the midst of the pain. We have accepted the shocks as routine and have ceased searching for our way out.
I admit—I do not see any readily apparent escape route from what has become “common” in our world. Still, I refuse to view any of the aforementioned issues as normal.
This age of tolerance, which is good in so many ways, has also caused us to turn a blind eye and accept the unacceptable. I realize there is no way to stop the “shocks,” but can we at least jump over the partition of resignation and try to live lives that seek to embody true normalcy and proper perspective?
Certainly, it must be better and more fully human to grieve and suffer the pain of the shocks than to become desensitized and lay down in defeat.
