Pandemic Pensees
A few thoughts and reflective ruminations on the pandemic. What it has revealed about us, our society, our actions and reactions to the…
A few thoughts and reflective ruminations on the pandemic. What it has revealed about us, our society, our actions and reactions to the event itself.
“Now and then, it is possible to observe the moral life in process of revising itself.” — Lionel Trilling
Death. It is as if everyone just woke up and finally realized people die. Death strengthens the faculties they say, or does it. Once coffee tables were used to place the coffin upon. People died or were sent off from home. Now, death is cosmetic, a number, a mention in the news or on Facebook. We still have much to do when it comes to each of us coming to terms with death. There is no correct “way” to think of death, only your way. Each of us must deal with that issue.
Panic. Fear. Pandemonium. Hysteria. Menticide. When fearful, people make decisions, forceful, irrational decisions that they wouldn’t otherwise. We see a hardening of many people who want to do extreme things to relieve the fear, the anxiety.
Scientism. Medicine. The overriding belief that the world is made of cause and effect and science is the only true decider. This affects medicine and our approach to our health. We’ve come as societies to accept that a pill, an injection, a powder for X will end Y. It’s the only way. We’ve swallowed the medicalization pill and that is our only salvation. We forget that science is muddied water at its edges.
Information. Censorship. Power. “Information consumes attention. A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” That’s the situation we are in. Manufactured consent. With technology, our eyeballs are slaves to what others deem correct light to throw upon them, into them. Who are these powers? What are their motives? Why a dearth of alternative voices?
The individual vs the collective. Whose body is it? When does a government, a group, a company have the right to tell you what to do to or put into your body? The rights of individuals have slowly eroded through the last 2 centuries, the pandemic has just spotlighted this.
Truth vs Opinion. So many don’t know the difference. Truth is absolute. No exceptions. One out of a million that disproves it, it is out and is opinion, belief, part of public discourse to be decided by agreement, meeting in the middle. Not much is true about the facts of the pandemic.
Safetyism. There is a belief system out there which demands that we can never be too safe. We must take all measures to be safe. It is really a non-sequitur. It does not follow we should seek safety in absolute terms. Life itself is about risk, error, illness, death. Without it, we would not be alive, here and now. Yet, we see those appealing to “safety” which will always end as an appeal to totalitarian authority, a fantastic sense of safety.
Sincerity. Authenticity. The pandemic has revealed we emperors have no clothes on. We are now a full shaming culture, born of the birth pains and screams of Jerry Springer and reality TV. Community has eroded. We are ready to throw people to the lions. There is little sincerity, little human authenticity in our care of others and communication with others.
We all have to struggle with these issues. What I’ll leave you with is the thought that when struggling to be true to society/culture or to be true to your own impulses (and after coming to an awareness of what / who you are beyond just reactionary obedience), one must always choose one’s own heart.
Polonius in Macbeth —
This above all: to thine own self be true
And it doth follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.