Heroes Not Zombies

We’ve reached a stage in this pandemic where more and more people are beginning to think about the “after life” – no, I’m not thinking about a life after death this time, I’m thinking about the life after the pandemic. Will there be a “reset” or a “bounce back” and everything will return to how it was before? Or will there be sufficient public and political will to learn the lessons and create a different, more robust, more resilient society in the future?

I’m more drawn to the latter idea because it seems pretty clear that we got into this mess by doing what we were doing. If we want to avoid the next catastrophe we have to stop doing that and do something different.

This photo stimulates some of these thoughts for me. You can see how this building has changed radically over the years. There is half an arch….what happened to the other half? It was removed to create that doorway on the right? There is half a lintel, and it’s pretty likely that the other half went the way of the missing half of the arch. The window that was there has been blocked up with stones, then either some of them have fallen out, or someone has knocked a hole in them to let some light in again. All in all, you can see that the present has emerged from the past. You can see the traces of how things were which determined how things would become.

There’s an orthodoxy around which seems to claim that the only way this pandemic will be “brought under control” is with a mass vaccination programme. Well, good luck with that. Hasn’t worked so well with the other emergent epidemic viruses in recent years, has it? Or a new “treatment” will be discovered which will reduce the severity of the impact of the virus on people who catch it. Maybe. But then what about the next one? Will the new “treatment” work for that too?

What do we know about the severity of this new disease? It hits the elderly, the poor, and the disadvantaged far, far harder than the young, fit and relatively wealthy. Is it any surprise that it hits those with “underlying conditions” harder than the fit and well? Is it any surprise that it’s exactly the same groups, the elderly, the poor and the disadvantaged who are most likely to have “underlying conditions”?

There’s a common theme there, isn’t there? Can we start with that one? If we are going to construct a new society in the “after life”, can we address our attitudes towards these sections of the population and ask how we are caring for them? Could we do better? Could we create better, healthier, more resilient lives for the elderly (maybe by valuing them more, perhaps?) Could we do the same for the poor (maybe by making them less poor, perhaps?) Could we address inequality and prejudice to improve the lives of those who are disadvantaged (maybe by making them less disadvantaged, perhaps?)

Then there are our values. Is it time to shift from consumerism to humanism? To recreate our economies around people and relationships rather than things and money? Is it time to move towards sustainability instead of single-use throwaways? To renewable energy instead of resource depleting forms? Is it time to nurture the local and the particular, rather than the global and the general?

What about our relationship to the rest of Nature? Can we decide to treat animals differently? To change the way we farm and produce food? To change the way we live on the land?

What about work? Is it right that the masses of people who we now think of as “essential workers” are amongst the least rewarded in society?

What about health and social care? Don’t these two sectors need to be integrated and better resourced? I read an interview with some French Hospital Consultants today, and they said that during this crisis, the relationship between the frontline doctors and nurses and the management had changed. Now the doctors and nurses said what needed to be done and got on with doing it, while the managers listened and then acted to do their best to enable the doctors and nurses to do what they had to do. Prior to this, somewhat amazingly, the system had evolved into one where managers set goals and targets, and told the doctors and nurses what they could and couldn’t do. Well, there’s one change, at least, that I’d like to see remain!

My point is that I believe we have to start where we are, learn how we got here, and create a different way forward. Don’t you?