The bogeyman of the unprecedented
I have a friend who used to make regular and long trips to China back in the pre-pandemic days. In early January of 2020 he returned from one of those trips with a large box full of N95 masks. He told me (and anyone else who would listen) something very startling: that very soon now we would all be wearing those masks and there would be a breakdown in the supply infrastructure. The whole world would be in lockdown against this new emerging disease from China known as Covid-19.
I was doubtful at first, and I wasn’t alone. Back then most everyone was singing the same hymn from the same hymnal. It had never happened before, therefore it wasn’t likely to happen at all. But the scientific handwriting was on the wall, and by late January I was writing cautionary articles about a major pandemic that was on its way, a pandemic that would make American deaths in Vietnam look like a proverbial walk in the park.
Human resistance to the news was astounding. New conspiracy theories about the “PLANdemic” were springing up like great whack-a-moles of stupidity. When vaccines arrived on the scene in November of 2020 a new generation of anti-vaxxers were born. Together with the existing anti-vaxxers they spread their ignorance far and wide — without a shred of scientific evidence to back them up, of course.
But we were wrong about something else. It all HAD happened before. Back in 1918 the so-called Spanish flu took to the air infecting 500 million people and killing as many as 10 percent. But few who were alive back then were alive in 2020 and there existed no collective generational memory of that event. For us, the pandemic of 2020-2021 was brand new.
There was and remains much disbelief about the seriousness of Covid. We doubted it principally because we thought it had never happened before. But then, a lot of things happen that have never happened before.
For example, we’ve never had a president of the United States try to use violence to overthrow an election. We never had a former president use the language of Adolf Hitler while trying to make a comeback. We never had a former president go to prison, for that matter.
All of that is happening and will happen. Resistance to those realities is largely based on one thing: the bogeyman of the unprecedented. Humans collectively have a hard time believing that something that’s never happened before could possibly happen in the first place.
That’s absurd on its face, of course. Everything happens for the first time. But then, in the world of possibilities, not everything HAS happened. For example, we’ve never had a president sweep aside the Constitution and declare himself dictator for life. We’ve never witnessed global warming so serious as to dramatically raise ocean temperatures to worldwide disaster levels before. We’ve never seen half the United States Congress turn traitor and embrace a foreign enemy before.
All of those things and more have happened and might happen. The fact that they are new doesn’t mean they cannot happen. We need to shake ourselves loose from the idea that because something has never happened it can never happen.
Part of the problem is that we currently live in a time where the unprecedented is happening at an overwhelming rate of speed. It’s hard for many of us, including those in charge, to absorb the scale of the disasters and changes that are daily befalling us. The human brain is resistant to registering emotion beyond a certain limit, and we are hitting that limit on an almost daily basis.
That is why so many of us feel overwhelmed. These are the proverbial “interesting times” of the spurious Chinese curse. We are getting an overdose of new and “interesting” things. Disbelief isn’t just a natural reaction, it’s also a defence mechanism.
It’s reasonable to suppose that the world of 2024 will bear no resemblance to the world of 2014. It’s as if back then we lived in a cocoon of innocence. The startling realities of today are beyond comparison. News items today that sometimes get missed would have made front page history back then.
How do we guard ourselves against too much change in too short a time, against the possible incursions of the unprecedented, against a world full of what social commentator Alvin Toffler once referred to as “future shock”? I don’t know.
The best I can come up with is the slogan common to this island in World War II. We must keep calm and carry on. We can be part of major change for the good without losing sight of our humanity, without sacrificing our day to day quiet pleasures and peaceful enjoyment of our personal lives. Finding the balance between being responsible and being human is important for our sanity. I hope that helps. I find it of some personal comfort myself. Here’s wishing you all a peaceful and happy new year. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.