The
past months have been instructive as we endure an unforeseen emergency which
has yet to show any sign of letting up.
If we believe the more pessimistic predictions, the future will be
permanently altered and not for the better.
This
is the third major crisis the country has faced in less than twenty years. First there was 9/11, which itself came on
the heels of the tech meltdown. Next was
the bursting of the housing bubble. Now
it’s the wide swath cut by an unseen killer bearing the awkward moniker SARS-CoV-2.
Being
slightly north of fifty, I’m alarmed at the increasing frequency of these calamities. Life in America has never been entirely
secure for average people, but the worst thing I witnessed in my first three
and a half decades were the stagflation and oil shocks of the 1970s. Even if you throw in the domestic turmoil
over Vietnam and Watergate, the difficulties of that era seem positively quaint
in retrospect.
A
sense of unity is essential for a society to meet extraordinary
challenges. What that means is a matter
of one’s personal worldview, however. For
me, the closest example that comes to mind is Britain during the Second World
War. Confronted with an existential
threat and living through years of material hardship, the British people met
the challenge with plucky cheerfulness.
A
quick glance at your newsfeed or cable news will show instead that the fissures
plaguing us before coronavirus have only deepened. This should be surprising to no one. The cultural and economic wars experienced by
the past two or three generations have left us so divided the divisions may be
irreparable.
Material
satiety has done a lot to paper over these differences, but this has become
less feasible as time has passed. After
the attacks on New York and Washington, George W.’s advice was to go shopping
and visit Disney World. We did, and the downturn
quickly passed. If you stayed employed
through the Great Recession you probably came out okay; many of those who didn’t
had yet to fully recover before the COVID-19 anvil landed on them.
Economic
pressures are indisputably a factor driving the reopening controversy on the
part of laid off workers and small business owners who abruptly lost their
incomes. But the great cultural divide
in American life overshadows the coronavirus response as it does everything
else.
A
closer look at the news since March brings this conclusion into 20/20
focus. Three and a half years of “fake”
news accusations and “alternative facts” has made the discourse (if you can
call it that) a bit unreal. A local news
channel interviewed churchgoers defying a closure order a couple of weeks ago. One worshipper said he wasn’t concerned about
the pandemic since for him it signaled the beginning of the End Times. Another said he wasn’t worried because God
would shield him. Neither wore face
masks.
Face
masks have become an unlikely bone of contention of late. If the opinion pieces I’ve read are any indication
(and the President’s own statements echo this) it’s that being required to
cover one’s face is a sign of weakness.
It is a form of forced submission, and so to go without a mask is an
expression of one’s manhood.
Asinine? Emphatically yes. But there may be an added dimension to the
pushback over masks. An article in The
Atlantic proposes that the reason so many white males on the Right reject
masking is that it makes “vice signaling” difficult for them. Put differently, covering their faces makes
it less likely for them to receive credit for any public mischief they commit.
Vice
signaling, as you’ve probably surmised, is the flipside of the conservative
snarl phrase “virtue signaling.” The
MAGA contingent wants the world to witness its bad behavior and dares us to do
something. In the social media age,
however, this can entail blowback as we have seen on recent two occasions. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, both
involve the deaths of black men.
The
stalking and murder of Ahmaud Arbery is notable in that the perpetrators were
so sure they would suffer no consequences that one of them recorded it on his
phone for posterity. The death of George
Floyd at the hands (or, more precisely, knee) of a Minneapolis police officer
this week was caught on camera by several onlookers. One would think that the nauseating
procession of public violence against people of color over the years would
inhibit would-be race warriors and law-and-order thugs, but no. Not only have they been emboldened, but they
want the notoriety of going viral.
The
Arbery and Floyd killings perversely demonstrate that while so much of our
world has been upended some things do not change. But as horrific as these deaths are, the extent to which the pandemic has disproportionately harmed minorities demands even more attention. Not only are they more likely than whites to
have the kind of underlying health issues making them vulnerable to COVID-19,
they are less likely to have health insurance and are more likely to work in
the essential jobs necessary to keep the country’s head above water. The soft violence of social inequality will
do far more harm to people of color over the pandemic than any random attacks
on their young men.
Throughout
it all, I’ve been hunkered down at home.
I am one of the fortunate ones whose bosses have commanded to work from
home. I have ventured out twice since
early March, once to the supermarket (before dumping my shopping needs upon gig
workers via Instacart) and once to the bank.
Each time the world looked normal albeit with lighter traffic. Everyone I interact with, few as they are and
mostly limited to neighbors and the aforementioned delivery drivers, has been
normal and even pleasant. My risk of infection is very low. By all rights my only enemy should be
boredom.
Yet,
I continue to look at the world with trepidation. The antics of the Trump
administration, its disingenuous minions, and its unhinged supporters have
become less amusing and more appalling as this year’s election draws near. I’ve assuaged my frustration with and distaste for daily life with occasional travel abroad, the future prospects for which
are now remote. Weeks of confinement, while tolerable,
has also heightened a state of anxiety that sometimes drifts to the edges of paranoia.
I
thought I was immune to this; who knew? I
can’t be alone. It’s our new normal.
©
2020 The Unassuming Scholar
