In response to my friend posting an opinion piece about how Sweden is not doing well, I posted the graph of the world numbers and Sweden’s numbers.
My friend responded that it’s all confusing.
Perhaps it’s a reframe, or maybe it’s pedantic… and… I don’t think it’s confusing at all, rather, it’s unknown. Put differently, it’s confusing to the extent that we try to make meaning and are attached to making meaning rather than letting it unfold with all the commensurate discomfort that comes with the now knowing — which is a fundamental life skill that’s not well trained in our country if you ask me.
The unknown doesn’t make sense to us. It’s like seeing a computer and being from the year 1200. It is confusing… because you don’t know anything about it and even the little bits you might make sense of don’t make much sense in the larger scope of the world. On the other hand, it’s not confusing if you simply allow it to be what it is without needing to know its nature while being attached to knowing. (Am I low-key suggesting more meditation? Why yes, yes I am.)
I believe one fundamental problem we’re experiencing around Covid-19 is that people are trying to make sense of it authoritatively. Making sense of it on its own is challenging enough; to do so authoritatively is another more difficult challenge, especially when there is attachment to that sense making as being true. Often we cling to these ideas of what we think things are to bring us comfort because it’s difficult to sit with the not knowing. To further combat our discomfort, when we assert our positions authoritatively because it can feel like the more authoritatively we assert our positions, the more we have offered a steel man when in truth, it’s more like a house of cards, especially presently as information is still unfolding.
No one is the authority on something we don’t know anything about. Some people now may know more than others, though that’s questionable since the data has not been consistent, the tests aren’t consistent and our information is questionable because we are still infants as related to this illness.
As a society that is leaning ever more toward the nanny state by the day, especially now, we look to our authority figures whom we put in positions of power because we presume they will be able to figure it out faster. Whether they do or don’t, however, doesn’t mean they aren’t going to go through trial and error in that process, which we’ve seen happening and is a normal part of the scientific method.
Beyond that, even if we did have all the information about how it functioned available, that doesn’t change the fact that in the context of knowing how it works and how to respond to that, we may still have very different ideas philosophically on what the best actions are.
I for one think humans playing god is a fairly arrogant position. What I mean by that is people doing things for other people assuming they need help without getting permission to help them first (or worse, disempowering them from trying) and operating as if that is a moral imperative on top of it… or something as simple as invoking things like, “It’s for the greater good!”
Really? How do they know that? Based on what information? Who gets to judge what is good? Who gets to judge what is good for the “greater” part of society? And how can we possibly know what future will unfold after these actions are taken?
This is a huge challenge I have with social programs because those that support them assume that the people for whom they create them need those programs which disincentivizes people to figure it out without the programs. The counterpoint is, “If you want to make the shore, burn the boat” rather than making a bunch of life boats people maybe can reach while we pretend they help those who aren’t reaching them and in the process may well be hurting and not helping just as many people. These are complex multivariate problems and authoritatively declaring a position about an unknown future seems, from my perspective in the kindest terms, to be short sighted at best.
Because it’s an opinion that an action or set of actions is for the “greater good” not everyone will agree. Then, as a society, humans attempt to invoke their authoritative stance on the greater good with authoritarian shaming — “how could you you murderer!” — because according to their subjective values hierarchy, someone not conforming to their beliefs is somehow morally problematic and deserving of the invocation of the Appeal to Emotions Fallacy while using Ad Hominem attacks. I see it as arrogant and very self centered to assume everyone is operating from the same moral structure when clearly that’s factually inaccurate.
On top of those philosophical issues, the reality is we aren’t experiencing the virus in predictable ways yet. For example, when a bunch of places reopened before the BLM protests, we didn’t see a spike. But after the protests and Memorial Day, we did. What gives? Currently, that’s because it’s not behaving in ways that are yet predicable — this piece gives an interesting look at that.
I see the lack of predictability as compounding the problem of being with the discomfort of the unknown as experienced by a diverse set of philosophical views and hierarchies of values. When authorities are pretending they know how it behaves and they don’t, then project a collective “should” onto the world based on their theory that’s as yet unproven and/or unprovable, they’re then asserting their values, as wrapped up into the “should”, as the values for everyone based on a position of power that doesn’t have authoritative data to back it up. In a country founded on treason, that is likely to backfire as a means of convincing a good portion of the population to listen.
For my part, I think the best medicine is to be equanimous about it. Easily said; less easily done.
I try to enjoy what I have now, worry not about the future, be as kind to myself and others as I can muster (which varies day to day to be sure), and honor my integrity so that as this continues to morph and change, I never feel like I’ve compromised myself in service of values I don’t support.
Hope these random thoughts help you! ✨