#318 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Wednesday April 6)
Good morning,
The pandemic we are living through is not unique. Disease has been a major player throughout human history. For a great survey of that phenomenon and the effects on civilization, try reading the seminal Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond (yes, a UCLA professor). What differentiates more modern plagues from earlier scourges of disease, beginning with smallpox, is that mere palliative care was replaced by the ability to inoculate against the pathogens and fight them after the onset of infection. The current vaccine is a further advance from earlier vaccines, in that is not based upon “infecting” the patient with a virus (alive or dead), instead employing mRNA technology that can be modified to respond to this and, potentially, other diseases. What it is unique about “plagues” today is the availability of vaccines and therapies that would have been unheard of during past plagues.
Modern medicine has allowed us to control the pandemic in part because so many people participated in the effort to eradicate the disease through inoculation and modifying the social behaviors that otherwise allow infection to spread indiscriminately. Add to this is the ability to deliver mass quantities of vaccines throughout the world in a relatively short time. The reason we haven’t made greater inroads and suffer through multiple variants is in part due to supply chain challenges globally and in part because some people refuse to be inoculated (and that’s peculiar and nearly inexplicable). And while we are not “over” COVID, we are in significantly greater stead than in past pandemics.
LESSONS OF PAST PLAGUES
Past plagues offer lessons for the current one. We are most familiar with the Polio epidemic and the the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1917-1918. They are the most close to us in time, offering photographic images of people who, but for somewhat different dress, are walking along familiar streets and looking remarkably like us. Signs encouraging the wearing of masks—and the resistance the admonition to do so—are so relatable.
While the nature of a plague may resonate through history, so too do the actions of our ancestors in the aftermath of “their” plague. M.T. Anderson wrote an instructive piece in the February 20 edition of The New York Times about some lessons from the “Black Death,” the plague that ravaged the world between 1347 to 1351. Somewhere between one-third and one-half of the European population died as a result of the Black Death. But it didn’t stop there, as Arab historian Ibn Khaldun states: “Civilization both in East and West was visited by a destructive plague which (sic) devastated nations and caused populations to vanish. It swallowed up many of the good things of civilization and wiped them out.” For a great, readable, summary not only of the plague (although it plays a central role to the story), but of the time of the Hundred Years War and the makings of Europe is A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century, by Barbara Tuchman.
WORK/LIFE BALANCE
In his article, Anderson points out that there was a reckoning with labor after the devastation of the Black Death, not unlike the reckoning we are experiencing now. Back then, workers, many serving in indefinite serfdom, but also craftsmen, artisans, and even priests, began to reassess their work patterns and the value of their work. Wages rose and labor increasingly had bargaining power. His thesis is that “the great resignation” of people from the toils they were willing to tolerate, at wages the market provided, prior to the pandemic, resembles this past experience. In our own day, the Labor Department reported in September that 46% of all full-time workers are considering new jobs.
Unfortunately, Anderson finds that, after the initial gains of labor, a restive population resorted to violence as different groups jockeyed for position as society remade itself. The parallels are instructive—frustration, followed by questions of work/life balance, followed by anger at the disproportionality of wealth and power. In their case, violence ensued. It is not unreasonable to expect the same today. But today we have more modern systems, democratic institutions, and the lessons of history to help guide us. That said, I am hardly hopeful that we have learned the lessons of history.
ON THE EDGE OF CRISIS
Anderson points out that “America’s legislators must ease the tremendous—and potentially violent—pressure building up with actions that address the things that contribute to our national feeling of futility: raising the minimum wage, assisting with debt, balancing the tax code…creating solid infrastructure jobs…” If, however, the elites perform as they have in the aftermath of the Black Death, resisting these not unreasonable needs and demands, “by clutching everything to themselves, in the end [they] will push their nations into crisis, and be left with nothing but mourning, fear, flame and misery.”
BALANCING RIGHT AND LEFT…AND NO EVIDENCE TO BACK UP CLAIMS
On another note, I do not deny, nor apologize for, my bias against Donald Trump and all those who voted either not to certify the 2020 election or not to create or cooperate with a commission to investigate the events of January 6, 2021. I have had a series of detractors take me to task for being “too liberal” or not accepting that the tough, brave, visionary President Trump would never have allowed the Russian invasion of Ukraine (despite his denying funding to Ukraine in an attempt to have them do his bidding, his unfounded claims that Ukraine was helping Joe Biden, and his repeated statements of admiration for Mr. Putin). They say I’m being unfair.
But here’s the rub. After making the argument that I am in the thrall of the left, rarely do these detractors offer a concrete piece of evidence supporting those who have displayed these behaviors, how their claims of a stolen election can be supported, why a committee to understand what actually happened on January 6th was not necessary, and/or how Mr. Trump would have better navigated our problems today. Have at it. I’m all ears.
Have a great day,
Glenn
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