JOIN USThree fallacies, one great tragedy
A lot of people ask, what can I do to help during the pandemic? For most of them, the only practical answer is to think about the next one and prepare for it better than we did this time. A fast-spreading virus which could kill large numbers of people was not entirely unexpected. Nonetheless, we didn't expect it. Why?
There are three fallacies that accompany people's lives, in a lot of situations. First, people tell themselves that 'nothing bad will happen'. This is clearly not true, since we can plainly see an abundance of unfortunate things happening all the time. To avert their eyes from this, people tell themselves: 'nothing bad will happen to me'.
This is slightly more tenable. While it is true that accidents and crimes and many other things happen all the time, it seems plausible that they might not happen to us. The percentages are favourable, we tell ourselves. People don't wear helmets, they do wheelies on their bikes, they go swimming in waters they don't understand...the list is long.
And then there's the third fallacy. People know, even if they do not admit it to others, that bad things do happen and they can sometimes happen to them. But they comfort themselves, 'nothing so bad will happen to me that I cannot recover from it'. This might work for a tumble from your bicycle or a coconut falling out of a tree on to your head, but it is less true if you're hit by a tsunami or a coronavirus pandemic.
Why do we believe these things? They're plainly not true. One explanation is that these may serve a psychological function. Perhaps it is comforting to look away from the things that could go wrong, but that doesn't really make those risks disappear. It just keeps them out of our sight.
About thirty years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was formed, and since then we've seen a steady stream of research and news reminding us that we're heading to a climate management cliff's edge. We've not only known the problem, we've even known many of the solutions all these years. But that hasn't stopped us from hurtling on, with emissions bringing us ever closer to irreversible harm.
Not only climate change, Covid-19 is a mirror to our inaction on so many fronts. We've told ourselves repeatedly that doomsday will not arrive, that it will perhaps arrive in another country or neighbourhood even if it does, and that in the unlikely event of it hitting us directly, we'll somehow find a way past it. And then, along comes a virus that swats each of those aside before we can take a breath.
And now we're scrambling. We've got to stock our hospitals with ventilators and buy enough protection kits for medical workers. We've got to conduct high-speed scientific research to find a drug or a vaccine that can help, we've got to keep people alive while their livelihoods are tumbling, we've got to do so much just to feel there's a chance to be normal again.
Was it worth it? Can we look back now and say that our inattention to really important things, despite the risks being pointed out by so many, were simply a combination of hubris and madness? Can we really treat this as the third fallacy, and say that it's alright as long as we eventually get back on our feet?
Not really. By failing to prepare, we have prepared to fail -- this is the only lesson we can learn now. Perhaps, in the aftermath of such devastation, we will invest more in public health and scientific research, we will ensure better housing for the millions who migrate for work, we will get serious about poverty and livelihoods on the edge. And perhaps, in doing all this, we'll avert a million small instances of avoidable suffering, and even the next pandemic.
In the last century, we've made tremendous progress. There are things we know today that we were totally wrong about even a hundred years ago, and there are things mankind can do today which were unthinkable then. But that isn't enough. The frontier isn't only technological anymore. It's social, and political, and moral.
It can happen again. It can happen not only to others, but also to us. And it can hurt millions of us so badly that we may not recover from it, ever. If we begin to believe that, and our choices and actions demonstrate that in the future, then perhaps the great tragedy of Covid-19 will have a small silver lining.