I’m seeing a lot of news articles, blogs, and conversations online that seem to assume politicians and whoever else is in charge could be controlling the pandemic. That they are simply choosing not to.
Why do we feel this need to find someone to blame every time something upsetting happens?
Social distancing in Banff, shortly before masks became mandatory downtown.
There have been clear instances of neglect and abuse in the pandemic. Plenty of the tragedies in the current pandemic are man-made.
But sometimes I wonder if the tragedy was really something that could have been averted. Sometimes I read an article or a post and wonder if the tragedy they are upset about is simply part of the human experience.
Recently, Mark Manson wrote about the expansion of our understanding of trauma. In a follow-up, he said:
I worry that, as a culture, by expanding our definition of trauma, we are shifting away from seeing it as “a terrible and unfortunate thing that happened,” towards, “something that never should have happened to me and I’m ruined forever.” It’s a subtle and seductive shift in attitude—especially because it grants one a feeling of moral righteousness—but it has hugely negative repercussions.
This resonated with me because this is what I’m seeing in the news around the pandemic.
I rolled my eyes a lot while reading The Upside of Stress. Regardless of my criticisms, the book makes some excellent points on how stress is not inherently dangerous. Contrary to the headlines, no, stress is not killing you. Fittingly, the author’s twin wrote SuperBetter, a book on post-truamatic growth.
In Rebecca Solnit’s A Paradise Built in Hell she recounts how some people report times of trauma as the most fulfilling time of their life. The horrors of war, disaster, and suffering were sometimes accompanied by a sense of purpose and community solidarity.
Her accounts suggest that we might be better off when the government steps aside and lets communities lead their own rescue missions.
We know what we need and how we need it.
But you already know this.
This is why people describe care work — the endless toil, the poverty, the fear and heartbreak — as the most meaningful work they’ve ever done.
This is why parents become parents. This is why easy jobs are not the jobs most of us would choose if we could do anything.
It doesn’t mean we accept the lack of support and the price we are forced to pay.
Do we really want different mandates made by different bureaucrats? Or do we want the tools and the power to carry out the choices we know are right for ourselves?
Most of you, like me, live in places where you have a choice between government support or doing it all yourself. It’s institutional care or nothing. Especially right now. When there’s home care support available, a government agency has more say in what care is provided and how it’s provided than the person receiving the care and the people residing in that home.
Social distancing in a deserted downtown Canmore.
So many government supports are set up in a way that they require us to prove ourselves to be utterly helplessness in order to receive any help.
So many doctors, lawyers, and politicians demand that we do as we’re told or get nothing.
They’ve told us that they’re the ones who know best and we need to place our faith in them or face the consequences.
No wonder so many people are placing the blame on them now.
Social distancing along the bluff in downtown Calgary.
Who's to blame?
I got a brilliant reply by email on how Australia and New Zealand have things under control. Very true! I'm forgetting about the rest of the world.