Way to go, David.
3
Physicians - you mean those people who get paid too much???- take care of sick people !
5
I could barely finish the article without falling asleep- like anyone really cares how people reacted to pandemics 100 years ago -
I hope we understand diseases a little better - medicine has advanced considerably and therefore we won’t be acting like our ancestors did.
...you’re living in the past Mr Brooks
4
You say health care workers are the exception. I'm a pain patient, and when the Narco-Nazi rules called the "opioid guidelines" (what a joke) came from Atlanta, my doctors and health care workers demonstrated the passion I'd expect of a crocodile. My doc/clinic of 10yrs fired me, refused to prescribe my pain medicines, not even a sufficient amount to let me taper off them (DIY opioid pain med withdrawal Is not fun), didn't refer me to another doctor for continuing care. I might as well get my pain care from the friendly neighborhood heroin dealer. Now that the CDC is scrambling to deal with a crisis that at least in within their purview, unlike the opioid hysteria epidemic, cooked up by the agency and their PROP friends to benefit the $42 billion annual US Rehab Industrial Gravy Train, my trust in the CDC is at zero.
4
With your cold-hearted arguments against better healthcare for all Americans (M4A) your words fall flat, Mr. Brooks.
7
Pandemics kill compassion? Most Republicans are safe then, I guess.
11
Try not to laugh at this, compassionate readers. I had a vision of the headline "North Korea, only country with zero Covid 19 cases with extreme social distancing" accompanied by a photograph of a smiling Kim Jong Un shooting their last known carrier in the head.
2
I don't even care if people are nice to me, but for Pete's sake, could you stop buying up all the toilet paper?
12
The Anima of the world is inflamed- her id aroused-
Anything could happen. Be nice to your mothers.
1
Hopefully we won’t have another Spanish Flu to teat your thesis of “goodness”. This virus is not nearly as deadly as the Spanish Flu.
2
this isnt that kind of pandemic. i dont think im going to hate myself because im laughing at all the fools out there.
1
Don’t expect any surprises from the epitome of moral disease, Mr Trump.
Trump kills compassion.
1
Uh, David, maybe all those women who some man imagined would come to his society’s rescue were busy tending their own families. That quote reeks.
3
As do Barbarian Cultures and single-minded ignorance; we have allowed both to grow in our "Free America"!
1
Dispatch from Seattle, all is not lost:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/coronavirus-sparks-an-epidemic-of-people-helping-people-in-seattle/
1
David, where have you been ? To the GOP, compassion is a four letter word.
Seriously.
5
So David, do you republicans like what you have become; “I’ve got mine. too bad about you. I’m not sharing”
5
Is is a bit funny how I am not hearing Democrats proposing to open our hospitals to illegal immigrants anymore.
You could also argue that pandemics kill foolishness.
6
Americans are not compassionate...at least not Republican Americans. Just ask them the right questions and you can find out their racism and their lack of compassion. Nope this is all Democratic middle class - mostly immigrants - who are so compassionate, they chose the profession of caring...this ain't doctors and nurses, nope this is the care workers who wipe butts and clean stained beds. that is where compassion starts, not with a robed doctor writing a script.
6
“... people didn’t like who they had become. It was a shameful memory...”
Well, for all those people who bought all the sphagetti at the Trader Joe's on Preston in North Dallas this afternoon and left empty shelves, that quote is for you.
5
David, you won't find that in Donald (Le Horrible), and according to him everything is peachy,
No worries, mate...
4
The nursing home you reference, in Washington State, can't even get ANY test kits despite many of their staff showing symptoms. The staff may be kind, as individuals, but the culture and government around them is cruel and heartless.
During the Middle Ages, when "The Black Death" (bubonic plague) killed half the people in Europe, they often blamed the local Jews. They accused them of poisoning the wells, and pogroms ensued. Wonder if things will be very different this time, for any one who is "different" in any way?
5
David. Social distancing is the community minded, selfless, prophylactic thing to do. You've got it backwards again.
4
Around the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the '80s, 3 young men with AIDS came home to our small town to die. They were put in the hospital isolation unit, but none of the doctors or nurses would see them, the nurses would not even take them any food.
The only one who did anything was my father, who brought them food and whatever medication might alleviate their distress, even if it could not postpone their deaths. Everyone asked him, 'Aren't you afraid of contacting AIDS?' and he replied, 'I have no intention of having sex with any of them, only of bringing them what little relief I can.' He was all alone.
Great man, my father, and I miss him. May he rest in peace.
40
David, In light of the current pandemic, have you reconsidered the importance of universal healthcare in the USA? Can you not see how our flawed and unsustainable health insurance system may end up causing the most damage to our society and economics? If not then you are the problem because in the face of facts you spout partisan pablum.
‘Medicare for All’: The Impossible Dream
There’s no plausible route from here to there.
David Brooks
By David Brooks
Opinion Columnist
March 4, 2019
7
Don't mourn, organize.
Joe Hill
5
suprised he couldn’t find a way to tie COVID to Bernie and then equate it to supporting totalitarianism....
3
Great column, David. Love you.
1
Judging by how the homeless are treated in my part of the world this is going to be very ugly.
3
David, COVID-19 is not the plague.
2
Well that was really uplifting Mr. Brooks..... Are you having a bad day? I think we can do better and my State is leading the way!
3
Greed kills compassion.
6
This resource could be useful:
https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/disaster-distress-helpline
I think Brooks is wrong here. Despite videos of people fighting over toilet paper, people will rise to the occasion.
1
The same three governors of N.Y., NJ and CA preaching for sanctuary states with open borders, were the first 3 governors to declare states of emergency and institute forms of martial law. #Hypocrites
Earthquakes don't always bring people together.
After the Great Kanto earthquake in Tokyo 1923, the Japanese locals scapegoated the ethnic Koreans living there at the time and thousands were massacred by mobs.
3
Mr. Brooks describes the end state of plague, but it is worth considering how we get there. Ignorance, and denial is where it starts. For example, I am supposed to go to a large government meeting in another city with people from all over next week; talk of cancellation is not being taken seriously.
When ignorance and denial fail, as they always do, panic and overreacting starts. The US is now entering this stage; Canada is still in denial, but we will catch up.
When panic becomes the norm, then selfish cruelty, described by Mr Brooks, is enabled. Unfortunately, Trump is very good at this, so cruel overreaction will be the order of the day.
2
Mr. Brooks.
"In all pandemics people are forced to make the decisions that doctors in Italy are now forced to make — withholding care from some of those who are suffering and leaving them to their fate."
This does not happen yet. It might in a close future, but not now. Two references:
Yesterday's NYT column by By Emanuel, Phillips and Persad https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/opinion/coronavirus-hospital-shortage.html
Then (in Italian) https://video.repubblica.it/edizione/milano/coronavirus-il-primario-di-niguarda-basta-fake-news-non-e-vero-che-lasciamo-morire-i-pazienti/355598/356164
In the video Dr. Fumagalli, head of ICU at Niguarda Hospital, the largest in Milan, said two days ago "Enough with fake news: it is not true that we let patients die".
2
Agree. Just to add ignorance in time of pandemic is the worse enemy. Educate people e have a tenfold chance of survival compared to the ignorant masses. I am a professor of medical geneticin an academic institution. I was tonight at a supermarket to buy some items which I needed. I was amazed that the shelves of toilet paper were empty. All the ignorant masses are pathetic. Toilet paper will help them to survive against the coronavirus.
3
Not your best David. Especially the references to the plague-- at a time when pestilence was viewed completely as a malediction from God. Most of the world has progressed a bit since the enlightenment/ humanism and the age of Science.
3
At time of writing, Secretary of USDA confirms that cuts to food stamps will proceed as scheduled (April Fool's Day, no less). Best case some 800,000 people would lose assistance pre-Corona: estimates now around 1.5 million. When the poor get hit, hit them 10x harder. Smart, effective and timely policy decisions...really spiritually uplifting: the earmark of the Trump Administration.
12
Mr Brooks, HOW does this mesh with your other narrative about strongly compassionate people, whom you called "the weavers binding community together?"
Do they suddenly become irrelevant outliers, or will they defy these dire predictions, and model compassion for the rest of us?
1
Not just with humans. Did you see that video of hundreds of monkeys fighting over one banana in the streets of Thailand? All because there are no tourists these days to feed them? Google it. It was in the NY Post and horrifying.
1
Fight the moral disease: vote Trump and the entire GOP out of office. Everywhere.
8
A lot of Americans are complaining how rotten their lives are because there aren't any basketball games. These people won't be exhibiting any compassion. On the other hand, a couple friends and I went out the other night and fed the homeless in a church here in town. We were lined up to do that before COVID hit, and we went through with it, and we had an absolute blast with these people. It's compassion toward others that gets you through the rough times. It's just that a lot of people don't have it to begin with, and they're not going to get it now. Maybe things will tighten up if they get as bad as they did in 1916 but maybe not. Maybe we'll find out.
Nobody is learning from that old story, and we're acting just fine without knowing that story, as our madness is just in getting toilet paper, bottled water, hand sanitizer and masks that are sold out yet I don't see anybody wearing them.
People go mad at each other mostly via political meddling that pits some against others over nonsense factions who hold too much power over a once freer people.
2
It's all too easy to proclaim how compassionate people are & will be. As long as long has you have no skin in the game & no risk. Evaluations tend to be ,,,,,reconsidered ? When the question becomes do I take care of me & mine or a stranger or acquaintance first? The answer is I suspect encoded in our genes self sacrifice rarely gets passed on. For all the people proclaiming what they will do? The truth is none of them are sure of what they will do when the time comes.
As for triage if medical facilities become overwhelmed? it's almost inevitable that someone will have to make these decisions. If there are more patients then medical care available? then some will get the Black spade at their feet as we did in another place & time. The Black Spade meant no care just palliatives not for Medevac except on a space available basis. Reserve limited Medevac availability for those who could be saved. It's not pretty, it's not nice, and they don't put it in movies. But sometimes someone has to make very these kind of very hard calls. Who gets what medical care or evac is available and who gets the Black Spade. And if facilities get overwhelmed? Mr. Brooks is right someone will make these calls. There will be NO option.
And about how M4A or the equivalent would prevent these kind of decisions? M4A wouldn't have change the number of Hospital beds or Medical professionals available whatsoever.
1
Yes, it's nice when people overcome their fear, and help those in need. But Covid-19 has low mortality rate (Epidemiologists don't have a very good estimate, but probably less than 3% and closer to 1%). But would those health care workers show up if this was a small pox epidemic with 20 - 30% mortality in a naive population in which everyone is susceptible? Or the Black Death that wiped out from 50-75% of Europe's population after doing the same to China and Asia. When Ebola first emerged in the Congo in 1976, and periodically thereafter, the healthcare workers, including doctors and nurses, almost all died trying to take care of patients. There were some villages without a single survivor, and the case fatality rate averaged 70-90%.
Contagion stalks the countryside as the invisible man. You can't see it, and when people are falling down around you, terror takes over. Sure there is a moral dimension, especially with our mind's propensity to jump to the most outlandish rumor, conspiracy, and tale of evil ravishing the population. During and in the aftermath of the plague, people turned on those around them. The Jews poisoned the wells; God punished all of us because of apostates and heretics.
2
Apparently - they also kill logic,reason, objectivity, and journalistic balance & responsibility.
1
Let us not forget the NYC Public School Nurses who are on the frontline with 1.1 million children.
6
Since January the total world wide death toll from Coronavirus is at roughly 4,900 people.
I don’t mean in any way to minimize the virus but by all measures it is not a world wide killer by any imagination as Brooks points out by comparisons to other pandemics in world history.
Far more disturbing to me is the reality of the daily life/ death ratio of people living in the Third World, a world that makes up more than 38% of the global population.
Consider this:
On average 15,000 children under the age of 5 die every single day In Third World countries from disease, dysentery, malnutrition and starvation from lack of drinkable water and other disparities.
That’s right--15,000 children under the age of 5 die every single day.
15,000 died today, 15,000 will die tomorrow, 15,000 will die on Saturday and Sunday and every day next week and next month and every day next year.
They live in places like Africa and Asia and Latin America and rural India.
And one week from now, 105,000 children who are alive today will be dead from diarrhea and malnutrition in the Third World . They live in abject poverty in huts with no electricity, no running water, no toilets and no access to hospitals or health care of any kind and no one, save groups like UNICEF, the WHO and some Catholic/Christian charities do anything to help them.
Where is the world panic? Where is the media 24/7 freak out coverage?
if only the media paid one quarter as much news hype every day to saving these poor human souls.
6
David Brooks should try his hand at fighting the moral disease of the Republican controlled US Senate, which refuses to pass bills to address the economic strains this will soon place on average families all over America. Stop lecturing the victims of corrupt government and turn your attentions to the conservative elites and their moral failings.
9
Very special people indeed: “We have not had issues with staff not wanting to come in,” an Evergreen executive said. “We’ve had staff calling and say, ‘If you need me, I’m available.”
2
This is not a disaster. This is not the Plague. This is not the Spanish Flu. This, too, shall pass. The take-away here is simply this: when fear goes to war with facts, fear always wins. Remember the Y2K world-wide computer meltdown and certain apocalypse to follow? Or the End of the World in 2012 As Predicted By Mayans? You missed one thing, David. The run on toilet paper and paper towels by hoarders these days by people who have gone stark, raving nuts.
1
You can’t kill compassion where it has never existed. I’m looking at you trump and republicans.
5
I am OK. Both my mother and nursie sister called to check on me because I am 60.
Ya got family, you are good.
Even if you die, they will plan a nice funeral. Morbid, but true.
No, no. Conservative Compassion died long ago. About the time Saint Ronnie was elected.
3
Read "The Patron Saint of Plagues" by Barth Anderson.
Description of the "problem" complete with well-researched and referenced materials. One question: Where's the call to action? What is the author doing other than tut-tutting about the past?
A nation that allows massive homeless encampments when it can afford not to has already killed compassion.
4
Once again David Brooks shows how divorced he is from the lives of the rest of us who live outside of Manhattan (and, I will bet, most of those who live in Manhattan). We care about our communities and our communities care about us. Moments like this bridge political, racial, religious and political differences for almost all of is. I suggest David take a sabbatical and go live for a year in a town with less than 10,000 people where he will see how real people live and how no one cares about most of what he frets about on these pages. I suggest work in a dry cleaner or pizza shop. He should find it most edifying.
1
We needed this, thanks for your contribution to our day!
1
corrected
Agree. Just to add ignorance in time of pandemic is the worse enemy. Educated people especially in the health care profession have a tenfold chance of survival compared to the ignorant masses. I am a professor of medical geneticin an academic institution. I was tonight at a supermarket to buy some items which I needed; I was amazed that the shelves of toilet paper were empty. All the ignorant masses are pathetic toilet paper will help them to survive against the coronavirus.
1
"Let us imagine a number of men in chains and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the human condition."
Blaise Pascal
If you believe in compassion, then you should vote against every Republican running for office.
4
So, we're no better than 14th century commoners in thrall to religion, thuggery, and superstition. Thank you for fully explaining the November 2016 election results.
The world is what we would make of it. I will continue to try to make this a better world.
2
Crikey!
Not much sweetness and light in that one, David.
The stable genius has already declared this as “foreign “ virus and laid the blame for spread on European Union. Not a good omen for international comity or cooperation!
3
Brooks, you should be using your column to call for Trump to resign and step aside in favor of Mitt Romney — who made his reputation saving the Olympics from a planning disaster. Anything else is the usual waste of time from the Reagan/Friedman/Rand super elites who love to see the little people suffer because they think it builds character.
3
May be the media needs to highlight these heroes instead of incessantly covering the death toll and markets. That will inspire the public to be the better angels
2
The moral disease hails from our national leadership, not COVID-19. We have been sick for a long time.
2
'It also wouldn’t be a bad idea to take steps to fight the moral disease that accompanies the physical one.'
Does this mean that you will stop aiding and abetting what passes for Republican ideology in your strained attempts to defend the indefensible?
3
The moral disease was present before the Corona virus- manifested in Donald Trump.
2
We are getting what we deserve for electing an incompetent president, his vice president, and other members of his party to serve the public. There were actions that could have been taken, research that ought to have been done, and more. None of it was done because our president and his administration and advisors do not care about protecting America. They care about their fortunes, monetary and otherwise. Now it's our turn to pay the price for their selfishness and our misplaced trust.
3/12/2020 9:41pm first submit
2
Given that social solidarity is such a foreign idea in this country, things are about to get real ugly.
Trump and his republican devotees, who blindly drink his kool aid, have lived in their fairyland so far in his term. But faced with the first significant challenge that trump did not initiate, they are failing miserably. In 2018 Trump and Bolton nixed the top White House official for leading the U.S.response in the event of a deadly pandemic, with no replacement. So what do we expect. Chaos. And that’s what we have right now. For all you Evangelicals who also drink the cool aid “you reap what you sow”.
The Unites States response to the Coronavirus crisis is equivalent to a third world Country. A debacle. My son, age 44, who lives in Southern California, has been coughing, with fever, sore throat and fatigue for over a week and can’t get a Coronavirus test from UCLA today! Flu test negative, therefore most likely Coronavirus but can not be determined in the country where “anyone who wants to be tested can be tested for Corona virus”.
Wake up people. Do you want to continue this charade? We need real science. Not lies. Replace Pence with someone who doesn’t bow at the Trump altar, with a scientist/doctor who can, at least, provide knowledge and not political spin.
1
Yep, we should learn from those on the front lines and be more altruistic. Only way humans will make it as a civilisation.
We have a drug discovery platform we've used to predict which drugs will work against SARS-CoV-2 which I think is pretty clear now (though we do think we can do better, a lot of what is currently in clinical trials for this pathogen are within the top 50 predictions):
http://protinfo.compbio.buffalo.edu/cando/results/covid19/
“Dread overwhelms the normal bonds of human affection.”
That’s what I said when I saw the media fall in love with then candidate Trump’s hate game in 2015-16.
And, surely, there went the “normal bonds of human affection”
1
@Brian Prioleau
And this is how misinformation and xenophobia spread... your story just doesn’t add up. You’ve been sick for two weeks but assumed it was asthma. You claim you have the Coronavirus but haven’t been tested. Your wife knew you were sick and yet traveled to Mexico. And just now you remember it came after helping a group of Chinese travelers on March 9th which was four days ago. Sounds to me like the Chinese (and the Mexicans) should be worried about having come in contact with you and your wife. This is not a timeline that works and blaming the Chinese and the US government is hardly a productive response to a global crisis.
2
Not necessarily. Momento mori* can overcome hesitation to be self-sacrificial (see Romans 8:36, too) Now from Eric Metaxis:
Between 250 and 270 A.D. a terrible plague, believed to be measles or smallpox, devastated the Roman Empire. At the height of what came to be known as the Plague of Cyprian, after the bishop St. Cyprian who chronicled what was happening, 5,000 people died every day in Rome alone.
The plague coincided with the first empire-wide persecution of Christians under the emperor Decius. Not surprisingly, Decius and other enemies of the Church blamed Christians for the plague. That claim was, however, undermined by two inconvenient facts: Christians died from the plague like everybody else and, unlike everybody else, they cared for the victims of the plague, including their pagan neighbours.
This wasn’t new—Christians had done the same thing during the Antonine Plague a century earlier. As Rodney Stark wrote in “The Rise of Christianity,” Christians stayed in the afflicted cities when pagan leaders, including physicians, fled.
Candida Moss, a professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Notre Dame, notes that an “epidemic that seemed like the end of the world actually promoted the spread of Christianity.” By their actions in the face of possible death, Christians showed their neighbours that “Christianity is worth dying for.”
* "remember death" or more colloquially "remember you will die" (eventually)
1
You don't need a pandemic, David. Your Republican party has spent much of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries draining compassion from this country culminating in its apogee, Donald Trump. The responsibility for our tragic state lies with you.
2
Some moments reveal the character of a person. David Brooks is wrong about humanity's lack of compassion. He's probably just talking about himself and his Conservative fellows as usual.
"In “The Decameron,” Giovanni Boccaccio writes about what happened during the plague that hit Florence in 1348: “Tedious were it to recount how citizen avoided citizen, how among neighbors was scarce found any that shewed fellow-feeling for another..."
From a book titled "A Pessimist's Guide to History" - Regarding the plague of 1348 --
"All efforts to understand the plague or to stop its spread failed miserably.
[...]
In another wild misbelief that spread with the plague across Europe - Christians began to blame Jews for causing the plague, and in may cities massacred them. In Basel, Jews wre burned alive in wooden buildings; in Speyer they were put into wine casks and rolled into the river.
In Crimea, a Tartar army afflicted by the pplague used it to their advantage in battle. They catapulted corpses of plague victims over the walls of cities they put under siege."
Now - where was it that I read about an Asian woman being assaulted on the Upper East Side of Manhattan a few days ago by someone screaming at her that she and her people are responsible for the Coronavirus -- ?
Mr. Brooks is correct - as we observe history about to repeat itself...
Trump did not know his grandfather died in the 1918 Pandemic. What does that tell us?
1
Disconcerting to be expendable.
David, I watched a conversation you had on CNN International with Walter Isaacson and the way you analyzed some of the challenges facing America almost had me tears impressed highly by your moral rectitude. So now I'm thinking America has not reached the optimal level yet that Sanjay Gupta says is a tipping point. And America cannot feed its kids in a crisis, the most expensive health system ever failed at the starting gun, the public health information system has become an Orwellian platform of disinformation and confusion, 45 not 'getting it' and the VP becoming an agent for political reaction to tap down the crisis. How is it that the US can mobilize USD 2 trillions wasted in Afghanistan and Iraq while the nation's medical cabinet has no test kits? Why is it that American exceptionalism fails America each time: Vietnam, Middle East, war on terror, war on poverty and now biohazard contagion? I urge readers to check out Ian Johnson's piece in NYT opinion. The lack of swift response in the US was political, ideological and now certainly criminal. All because 45 listens to GOP's propaganda network Fox News, which essentially labeled covid19 as just minor 'Chinese flu.'
2
Insightful piece, either you are a caring person or you are not.
Character is developed in children, either you have it or not.
Dr. King and so many others had love for their fellow man no matter how horrific times became. Jesus loved the world and all of the people .Jesus didn't say I cant be bothered because you are black ,or old or poor, he loved
This morning Trump just finished blaming President Obama for the CDC mess that Trump deliberately created. When Trump the leader of the Trump party of people who have no soul you cant expect people to be gracious to others.
We need to eliminate the Trump negativity and ensure that the haters arent allowed to destroy the rest of our society.
Leadership,honesty matter and with Trump the GOP in charge are soulless walking zombies.
Its easy just be good people and do the best for each other.
Stop overthinking kindness
1
If God is anywhere in this he clearly favors the virus. The microbes have been around a lot longer than we have and will outlast us all.
1
Postscript: On a failed trip to Costco today, I was struck by the irony of the closely packed hordes, bunched together at the registers, panicked at the prospect of running short of bottled water and toilet paper, longing for all the dissappeared disinfectant wipes.
85
Many commenters have described how useful social media, skype, and so on are in a situation where direct physical contact is precluded. True.
But I just got back from a smallish town in Minnesota where I visited my 89-year old mother, helping her to settle into a memory care wing of a home for the elderly. My sisters live nearby, but it happened that they could not be there for an important few days. I’m 63 with asthma but it’s my mom, so I took off work, grabbed a plane and held my breath for the entire flight to and from. Seeing mom, holding her hand, establishing lunch preferences, feelings and ancient bonds in the 3- to 4-word utterances still available to her (between the occasional “and who ARE you?s”) made me understand that being a son and a parent runs deeper than I could ever have imagined.
Now it happens, that hours after I got off the plane back in Newark, my sister called me and told me mom's home just shut its doors: no more visitors. My mom is completely unable to navigate social media platforms. Even the phone, welcome though it is, is challenging, But then, she doesn’t need words to know that she’s lonely, that she misses us.
The night before I left, as I walked her through the darkness of the hallway to her room, my mother suddenly said, with such clarity, “Love never ends.” Now especially, hold those around you as closely as you can.
4
I look forward to Mr. Brooks' commentary, and as per usual, he makes a compelling argument. I live in a small town in Maryland and the way our community has rallied to ensure those that are food insecure will be able to have access to food and other basic needs. Mr. Brooks, when this is all over, I invite you to visit us in Frederick. We will show you your hope of finding an antidote for the moral disease has been realized; it is merely compassion and care for our neighbors.
May not like who we will become? Republicans are already there and have been for a long time.
4
Unlike most previous pandemics there are two major differences. Getting ill was seen as a moral judgement from
G-d. For most people that is no longer believed. Pandemics are believed to be a natural phenomena with a scientific solution. The other difference we no longer have people in the streets praying for the pandemic to go away. Instead there are doctors and scientists working night and day to develop both a vaccine and a cure.
Humanity’s response to the coronaviris exposes the frailties of the human mind which is rooted in ignorance. One’s beliefs in these situations (the subject of life and death) can be a deep, intrinsic part of identity. And those with opposing beliefs can be perceived as a threat to one’s identity or sense of self. The I sense. Ego. Even those that one agrees to cherish can be perceived as the enemy. Coronavirus and fear exposes the flaws and weaknesses of the human mind.
My wife and I are the parents of an incompetent special needs adult. We have spent our entire married years ( and in may respects earlier) preparing for this era. We have watched as the American culture has slowly destroyed community, which has weakened those who will be in need during and after this crisis. Money and Facebook will not save you. Take it from me.
The only irony is that the digital revolution may equip us to redefine work. One can only hope that it will free up the energy that will become compassion.
My brotherhood are flung far around the nation and world, many have died or dealing with the effects of aging. I know they can't come and save us. They would. We thought that government would do that for us. Instead, we have the real pathogen. Trump.
Brooks is so right. Don't miss what can turn out to be a generational opportunity to fix what is wrong in the world. But, please, know that there are plenty of grandpas out here who have been on your side all along. Many have even died for you. I am one who may not get there with you.
Just remember those like my son. Their lives are in your hands.
1
The title had me ready to pounce, but the content was thoughtful.
Both of my parents, born in the 20's, Depression kids who lived through grinding poverty - retained fear of being rendered powerless again that no politics or economic changes could shake
My mother was more the one who would look after her own like a tiger, distrustful, determined to hold onto what she had.
But my father, out of the worst circumstances, was generous, as the saying goes, "to a fault," believed on offering help whenever you could, even if it meant your family had a little less.
Extreme poverty - and threats to health - can make people desperate. Prosperity can make people arrogant - and allow them to avoid circumstances where their generosity is challenged in a very public arena. These are after all human traits well known to the ancient Greek philosophers.
Pandemics don't kill compassion. It is, quite possibly, never present to begin with for some.
But for others the extremes of human sacrifice and nobility of spirit come to the fore. They are heroes and they have always been in short supply.
Most of us live somewhere in between, balancing fear and self/family protection with, the desire to be decent upstanding adults.
1
Thank you, Mr Brooks, for this mini-lesson and your perspective. Wisdom and compassion are sorely needed now.
3
You reminded me of the phrase my grandmother, who emigrated from Italy would say occasionally, "vedi napoli e muori", see Naples and die. Later my parents, reflecting the state of Naples sewage system, would amend it to say "of he smell".
1
Brooks can opine all he wants about compassion but he ignores the bottom line for however the public may be reacting. Potus has gutted, eliminated, and bankrupted our public health system; he refuses to believe scientific facts; he put total incompetents in charge of the CDC. He needs to stop tweeting and speaking and let Dr. Fauci, not Pence, head the response for this pandemic. Congress needs to demand and authorize funding for testing for all and supporting healthcare professionals and hospitals. Compassion would increase if the American people knew that scientists and doctors were in charge, not the GOP.
4
Looking to "God" to save us is just magical thinking. This is science pure and simple, which goes against everything that the Republicans have been working for for decades. Compassion? That quality has not been a part of Republican plans for a very long time. As this crisis grows Republicans, and the President, are actively seeking to eviscerate and destroy the ACA, offering absolutely nothing for replacement. And science is denigrated daily by the least informed, most incurious group of politicians in memory. How this crisis will impact all Americans is directly tied wrongful misinformation and inaction by Republicans, starting with Trump.
Unfortunately the man that needs to lead this charge who needs to appeal to what makes America truly great is missing in action.
1
This experience is making the point to me, again. The question isn't "what am I going to do", but "who do I want to be". This is a time of potential deep reflection and contemplation of who we are.
5
David, rather than call attention to the baser instincts of humans, perhaps you could use your platform to appeal to our better selves. Isn't it time to call for compassion? Perhaps an opinion piece on how we all can do better towards each other - and some concrete suggestions for doing that or examples of it already happening? Focusing on the negative only feeds it.
2
Would a single payer system - with costs distributed equitably across a population of 330 million - have had the foresight to have all the testing kits, respirators, beds etc needed for the eventuality of a demand surge on hand, because such a system would prioritize health over shareholder value, and therefore would not consider idle equipment to be a drain on profitability?
I wonder....
4
@unreceivedogma
Perhaps not. Perhaps that is the wrong question. For me,
Would a single payer system keep the general population more healthy and thus more able to resist the symptoms and reduce the number of severe cases when an unforeseen health event occurs?
3
@gratis I see your point, but it is still the right question: no matter how healthy people are, they are at risk to a new virus for which the human body has no immune response in place.
1
Fully implementing a universal system—Obamacare—would assuredly have helped. M4A is not the only universal system.
Please stop politicking. We all heard from St. Bernie, and this is a darn poor time for post-mortems.
YES. For example, normally kind, loving and generous Mitch McConnell has referred to a proposed funding package as "some kind of ideological...." and refuses to consider it.
Imagine that an empathetic character like Mitch can be transformed into a person that would prefer to watch people die in the streets! What's next?
5
In September 2011 during a debate among Republican candidates (the clown car) vying to to be the GOP nominee against Obama in 2012, the audience cheered when Wolf Blitzer suggested that someone with a life threatening condition would die without government provided health insurance. Again, the audience clapped and cheered the idea of letting someone without health insurance die. Even worse, none of the Republican candidates on stage expressed a word of disapproval as the tea party audience literally clapped for blood.
This is the party that supports Trump. Can they expect compassion from any of us when their time comes?
6
Where is it that we as a society expect everyone to live forever? Let nature take its course. It's how a natural balance is struck.
1
Unfortunately, the voice we need right now - that of Senator Bernie Sanders - will most likely be silenced fairly soon. He alone speaks, and spoke of, healthcare for all. He highlighted the horrible rich-poor divide in this country and tells the truth about the seriousness of our burning planet.
It is a shame that Democratic leaders, and much of the media, paints him as a scary guy, "welling things" that we aren't allowed to have in this country - unless we are well fixed.
244
Healthcare for all has no relevancy as related to the flu. I do believe that everyone should have health insurance, but that would not make any difference in a pandemic. Anyone who is sick can go to the hospital and no one is being turned away.
If we did have universal healthcare today what would be different that would be truly beneficial. The answer is nothing because we would not have more masks, more tests, more ICU’s, more respirators or more of anything.
Healthcare needs to be fixed but don’t bring it up when it’s not relevant.
57
@JimH
I fail to see your point. You're making assumptions about what we as a nation don't have. Universal healthcare in one form or another would avoid the known deaths caused already. Imagine what's going to happen to the half a million people who have no homes plus no healthcare, just for starters.
54
@EB How is Universal Health Care going to save people in Nursing Homes? They already have "Health Care". But because of their age and their bodies breaking down, their lives end.
32
David, Americans have been compassionless for a long time.
I live in Italy. I'm here at ground zero. The experience of 60 million people being locked-down, making a conscious decision to stop this contagion has been incredibly difficult and stressful. 10-fold because Italians are a friendly, gregarious people. This whole thing is antithetical to everything Italian. So what has happened? Families have become closer and stronger here. Many of my family, colleagues and friends feel a deep sense of solidarity in this existential battle against something truly life-threatening. We will conquer this with our humanity intact because "compassion" hasn't been squeezed out of this culture.
Now compare and contrast this with the U.S., a country that long-ago forgot what compassion is and replaced it with "shareholder value" economics and FOX news and Rush Limbaugh-style nastiness. As an ex-American, I'm often shocked by the depth of American cold-heartedness and avarice. I'm having a hard time believing that Americans have the strength of spirit and sense of community that we Italians do.
872
@mrfreeze6: I almost wish I were there with you! I know it must be wonderful to have family and friends building and possibly even rebuilding connections and making them stronger. I truly envy you and your peace of mind.
I'm in one of the last of the states to have a "reported" diagnosis of coronavirus. Yet, our universities are going to online only, after Spring Break of course, and so many schools are closing doors as well. I understand the absolute need for social distancing, but in some ways there seems to be an abundance of overkill. it's just my opinion.
One thing I have noticed around my area, and that is some doctors and clinics and hospitals are not requiring co-pays up front, which I must admit, blew my mind, lol. So maybe there still is a small ember of compassion left in these United States.
Good luck to you, your family, friends, co-workers, and everyone in Italy! May this"curse" pass over your doors and leave none inflicted.
51
@mrfreeze6 -- I hope you and your family and friends emerge healthy from this crisis. It sounds like you have a lot to be grateful for.
It does make me sad that the image ex-pats and foreigners have of American culture is determined by Trump, Rush Limbaugh, corporate greed, etc. It may seem trite to say "there's good and bad everywhere." But after reading your post, I feel compelled to say I see compassion in here in Colorado every day--in my kids' schoolteachers, my church, my in-laws and extended family, my neighbors, my coworkers, and random strangers. I do think Brooks is right that pandemics and crises threaten our communal ability to respond with compassion. But many Americans certainly have the capacity for it. We just need to work hard not to let our fear take over.
53
@mrfreeze6, My family is spread all over. so you are lucky in that sense. we are not sure we can fly to LA in June to see our oldest son be hooded for completing a Ph. D. For seven years he worked and how sad is that. Just this evening my wife was almost speechless in trying to describe her feelings. She said "I don't know when I have felt so confused, alone, lost, unsure where to turn since oh maybe 9.11. I wasn't scared then. I am scared now and worried." And her BFF and her younger brother both voted for Trump and she cannot accept why I want nothing and little to do with both of them.
55
David Brooks is right to point out how underwhelming people have been and will continue to be. If you're a reader of the bible you'll know human nature is originally damaged. Human nature is inherently damaged and tainted because in the garden of eden, the mother of all people, Eve, sinned against God by eating an apple from the tree of knowledge. Her guilt was then passed down to every single one of us, and now all of our endeavors are bound to fail because they are the work of a corrupt and faulty spirit. that's why out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made. Fortunately, between the stimuli and how we respond to a stimuli - we have a choice. What really matters is what we choose to do with this beguiling poetic truth, relevant to both atheists and believers. As a life long New Yorker I place no expectations on others when sharing love, kindness & good vibes. Since at times, I go unnoticed, unheard, ignored & unvalidated. Despite this, I strive to be conscious, grateful, forgiving, envisioning a perfect future, in the moment and blessed. Trump too and this pandemic will pass. #unconditionallove
I’m an agnostic, actually. And while I wish you the best, keep safe, I’d appreciate not being lectured on how I have to believe things I don’t believe in.
Your faith is your own. It isn’t mine.
2
@José Franco a lot of us don't believe that we are born sick and must be made well. If that works for you and you cause no harm to others with your belief (that will include refraining from proselytizing to others about how they were born sick), so be it.
1
In times of crisis, people need a leader to comfort them and inspire them to move forward with compassion and empathy. We have Donald Trump, a hollow shell of a man devoid of integrity and incapable of empathy or compassion. Mr. Brooks, the shortsightedness and irresponsibility of those who elected him, supported him and failed to condemn him at the outset is coming home to roost and we will all bear the cost.
2
The US has always been a cruel country. To suggest that compassion in any real measure exists here is silly. We are the nation that does not have healthcare for millions of it's citizens. We do that because we hate. We hate so much that we would rather suffer ourselves than allow the government to help the people we hate. And, because we see that the government must by it's design treat each citizen equally we destroy our government so that it cannot help the people we hate. So, there is nothing for the pandemic to kill. Americans have no compassion, they never have.
But now everyone will get a chance to see what their hatred has brought to the fore.
I do not understand why the religious don't see this as God sending a plague to destroy the evil doers. Is this not divine intervention. A miracle that causes bad things to happen to evil people. I guess that's not how the religious would spin it.
3
We are more than one person, deep inside, capable of doing things that disgust ourselves about ourselves.
Weak leadership allows for this.
When leaders become cronies with other leaders, and all those leaders are thugs, the public at large is encouraged to trample one another.
When those cronies are weak leaders, who have no idea how to govern their "subjects," the only thing that comes from the top is reaction, not leadership.
America is not leading the world; America is blaming the rest of the world and reacting.
The world, meanwhile, is dealing as best it can with a vacuum of leadership ordinarily provided by America.
America has told the world, "You're on your own; we'll trade with you individually, and you should trade individually with each other. Meanwhile, we'll blame you for the coronavirus rather than taking responsibility for our lack of preparation, to say nothing of our lack of assistance and leadership. You're on your own."
This is where we are now. Are we proud of ourselves, yet?
2
The moral disease Mr. Brooks refers to at the end of his column has been apparent in American life since the country's inception. But our homegrown virus of greed, ignorance, racism, xenophobia and violence, its back broken but not extinguished by the Civil War, has been largely contained by our nation's heroic attempts to create civilized structures and to avoid, sometimes by the skin of our teeth, destroying them. Mr. Trump, his party and his followers have placed an insupportable stress upon this always fragile balance. Then what of the emergence of the Coronavirus and its attendant superstructure - climate change - as an apt symbol of our complacency in the face of such unleashed and accepted evil? This is what Brooks' column leads to but never arrives at, as have so many of his pieces. For me and my family, and hopefully for the majority of Americans and our fellow global citizens, this virus means "Enough!". Time to roll our sleeves back up and get on with the work of living and creating, again, as a civilized people.
2
What a dismal view you have Mr Brooks.... Perhaps you have have the Trump virus causing pessimism, doubt and selfishness. While there will be some who fail to be compassionate, I'd bet the majority will rise to the occasion to do what they can. If the country had better leadership from the current president, calling people forth to their higher selves, and not do things like hoard, we would have an even better chance.
I won't die of the virus. I'm in my 20s and in good shape.
It's easy to say "have compassion for the sick" or "we all need to make sacrifices" when the virus comes for both rich and poor alike.
But I would stake everything I own on a total lack of compassion from the rich for the poor when the virus has blown over and millions of Americans find they can't pay bills.
The rich can eat their money for all I care. I wouldn't lift a finger to save the life of a debt collector even if that's all I had to do.
4
I am dreading a wave of xenophobia. Talking about a 'foreign virus' planted by outsiders, the Trump administration starts blocking borders after community spread within the US because they want fear and hatred of foreigners (and by extension anyone who is "other). This generates excitement in their political base, pitting 'us' against 'them.'
The decision makers in the administration are not so stupid as to believe blocking foreigners will slow the spread of the virus now that it's spreading inside the US.
1
@David Wright
Yes, the targeting of foreigners for all of our problems has been a Trump/GOP strategy, to divert attention from real issues. With or after this true crisis, their emphasis on blocking "outsiders" will become ever more vicious - and it will play to the audience.
Brooks focuses on people turning on their "neighbors." It is interesting that Brooks, ethnically Jewish, fails to mention that during each of those plagues he mentions, the dread and fear played itself out in the scapegoating of Jewish communities (including in the U.S. as recently as the Spanish Flu epidemic). So far I have not observed that happening in this case, but Trump and his followers are going out of their way to scapegoat other groups that they view as "foreign."
5
Don't forget "Death of a Salesman" pandemics which think that prerequisite "social distancing" like Brexit, e.g., can somehow preclude mortality.
While over on conservative sites, the endless comments that the current virus is no more dangerous than a cold or the flu is circulating and the media is to blame for the fear. Add to that, the darker conservative sites are claiming it is a chinese conspiracy to take down Trump. Compassion is not mentioned at all.
5
@tom That's because they don't have any and they spend a lot of time reinforcing their beliefs that they are right and everyone else - especially the scientists - are wrong. Of course, the Chinese are now saying it's an American conspiracy to take down the Chinese.
Pity Mr. Brooks either can't speak French or didn't see the French President Macron explain how health is priceless and the government will mobilize all financial means necessary to bring assistance to the sick and save lives, regardless of what it will cost. He made a direct jab at Trump for unilaterally acting in ways that would prove self-destructive. Macron's speech caused European markets to rally. Trump's caused damage. Macron is the kind of president we need, but sadly, don't seem to deserve. Compassion is not being stubbornly heels in the mud pay as you go Republican, it's remembering that everybody has a conscience, and a little Golden Rule goes a long way, unlike Trump's wishes for a gold toilet.
2
@Max Shapiro
Macron emphasized the distinction between being a nation and a nationalist. To be a nation is to include the values that support compassion, as a matter of national identity: it's how we know ourselves to be who we are. Nationalism, (Trump's gospel) is the ability to do things that undermine the values that support compassion. Macron speaks to and for the French. Trump, sadly, speaks to and for Americans. If he didn't we wouldn't have him as our one and only president. He is our responsibility. He knows we lack compassion and that compassion is antithetical to MAGA.
1
There are very few people that I can’t muster compassion for, or towards. But I hold a righteous and powerful loathing for Trump and his Collaborators. Jesus may forgive, but I have my limitations.
NOVEMBER.
4
Not in every neighborhood, David. I’m surrounded by generous hearted people. Happen to all be democrats, but I assume that’s just coincidence.
Recommended reading: The Plague by Albert Camus
2
"Pandemics Kill Compassion, Too"
It can but it doesn't have to either.
I have more faith in most humans rising to the task of being compassionate, kind and caring than assuming this pandemic will break our spirit and turn us into cold, heartless and selfish individuals.
1
I think this Pandemic will have good effects on “the national spirit”. People will help their Neighbors, will donate to Food Banks and Homeless Shelters, and will Volunteer. We know much more today about how to avoid actually getting Sick, and which groups should self-quarantine, and social distancing.
But the best serendipity: Trump is unmasked, for everyone to see. His days are numbered, we need to survive DESPITE the fact that HE is in Charge. It won’t be easy, but November will come. VOTE them all Out, send them Home in disgrace.
1
The moral disease you talk about has been spawned by Trump and the Republicans especially Mitch McConnell. Their commitment to hyper individualism and crony capitalism with its attendant greed, envy and wrath has seeded the moral crisis over the last three years.
1
And how do you propose that we fight the moral disease? Surely the Republican Party, which you sometimes, regrettably, support, is at least partly responsible. The cynical disrespect for government, and for science, that it has sowed for years, contributes significantly to the attitudes that you describe, that prevail during pandemics. It also is complicating and slowing appropriate public health responses. In the quest for public health, can we ban Republicanism as a menace to society? Yet more, we can lock Donald Trump into a soundproof booth, and throw away the key?
4
I think we all need to do what we can. I am proud of my city of Seattle, where there are successful companies like Amazon and Microsoft that are providing relief to small companies in Seattle that need help to survive.
I am really proud of my city right now.
I have been helping serve delicious free vegan food to the homeless on Sundays. The food is generously prepared and paid for by a lovely Buddist. She is living her spiritual philosopy of kindness.
The vegan restraunt is called ChuMinh Tofu and Vegan Deli in the Capitol Hill part of Seattle. I hope when Seattle returns to the vibrant city again, when you visit Seattle you will eat there.
3
In this instance, I’m finding it easier to refrain from compassion, especially for anyone who believes handwashing and social distancing is a liberal plot.
40 years of eroding the American health system, social safety net, and science capacity. 40 years of eroding the public trust in government, education, and any professional that doesn’t primarily work with a power tool or a corporate card.
After brainwashing the undereducated or elderly into believing that handwashing is a liberal media plot, who is more likely to suffer and die? Hardcore GOP voters. This virus will undermine the conservative electorate. The chickens are coming home to roost.
Since the planet is burning, creation is vanishing, and meekest among us are suffering, the sooner the American conservative voting block self-destructs on the way to a Darwin Award nomination, the sooner the compassionate realists can stay solving problems.
1
We are agreed that there is moral disease nimbly afoot in today's world.
How exactly do you suggest we fight it, David? Because like most problems, this one is far easier identified than solved.
Do not worry so much about treating our moral issues- worry about treating sick people and having a proper response to do so. If there is a sense of fatalism it is being made more powerful by the truly incompetent response of our government with a President that lies and worries only about the stock market, Pence in charge, and a horrid surgeon general who is a toady praising Trump. The moral decay in this country starts in Washington.
The fear for one's life doesn't change them to a worst version of themselves, it simply allows them to display to all who they really are. People didn't become racists after the election of Donald Trump, they were racists all along, Trump's election just allowed them to be out in the open. We should just accept that, and may God have mercy on the souls of those who are displaying their worst. And may God bless those who are showing their best qualities.
When you say "moral disease", does that include the moral disease infecting the Republican Party as they aid and abet the worst, most corrupt, and callous President in history in destroying the institutions and agencies that might've help slow this plague, or at least position us to deal with it effectively?
Asking for a friend.
The current corona-virus pandemic has not been the cause of this administration's lack of compassion.
Our president and his cabinet, many of the supreme court justices, almost every elected member of the GOP, conservative pundits, the religious right and many Make America Great Again Trump supporters have compassion only for themselves, the rich and the powerful.
There is a simple reason for this self-centeredness; everyone else deserves what they have or don't have because they are losers, moochers or takers.
Corona is an equal opportunity virus and those in government who are not willing to spend and do what is needed to slow down the pandemic are putting at high risk, not just those they would deny but also themselves.
It would be kind if Mr Brooks could remind us that not many could read and write and how isolated from the pestilence those who could read and write were. Daniel Defoe did not have the luxury of a novel form to explain the realities. Samuel Pepys had his diary and Defoe used the diary format to give us Robinson Crusoe.Chaucer used poetry to give us the interaction of a pilgrimage to Canterbury to inform us of the importance of laughter and humour during pandemics.
During the Spanish flu Woodrow Wilson commissioned the Committee on Public Information to examine how to maintain proper patriotism in Hard Times and when the government makes mistakes.
George Creel left us the records of the Committee on Public Information and how Governments sell us the histories they want us to hear.
https://archive.org/details/howweadvertameri00creerich/mode/2up
There is nothing new in this Pandemic except the technology. The quill pen and epic poetry did not reach the numbers that twitter can reach in an instant. It is funny where one finds history in a culture. My father's Jewish middle class roots and Jesuit education brought him to America with his strongest negative epithet being cholera.
The Spanish flu sickened about one third of the world's population and killed 50 million people, WW1 was a picnic.
1
Coronavirus?
Probably the paradigm of the virus period will come to dominate the 21st century. Major aspects of our lives are viral in nature. We wage information and education wars, trying to prevent people from becoming infected by lies, but truth also seems viral and hurts people. We relentlessly pursue money like trying to build up something in our blood system and prevent others from sucking our blood unless they've earned it. And of course with the coronavirus we try to prevent it from infecting us but no doubt it will spread among the poor like so many other viruses of false information, bad food, low entertainment.
It's strange: The more humans crawl across the earth, overpopulate, master and devastate nature, the more we seem caught in a system of diseases, or rather subject to a reception/transmission system of life in every aspect, which computer scientists simply call information, that the universe is information and how much we have of it and of what type and to what extent we can manage and control this system the more or less we have of life.
I'm just glad that throughout my life I managed to tune into some truth, avoid some bad food, bad entertainment, and political propaganda, and to avoid becoming sick with diseases. I'm also glad to have not become obsessed about money. But I can't help dreaming about some saving virus, same saving "disease", which brings humanity up into some higher intelligence, emotional understanding and angelic grace.
If the 1918 flu created a "spiritual torpor" in America, how long did it last? I seem to remember there was something called the Roaring Twenties soon afterward.
What we don't seem to know is what kind of care at the start of the disease might prevent the need for hospitalization and intubation (ventilator). I was given strickt instructions from my MD -- fever, chills, coughing bed rrest; stay home; difficulty breathing, pain while breathing = ER. It is unclear to me as to how much the Corona virus in its advanced stage resembles pneumonia or is what kills the patient pneumonia. Compassion -- funny word.. Sure doesn't seem to be there when we declare "We can't afford Medicare 4 all.. or free college for those who make the grade." At age75, and diabetic (2) -- it's a matter of time (prob. not more than 15 years) for my expiration date. if I were gravely ill and died, well I have a had an interesting life... so be it. My 103 yr. old very frail cousin would probably succumb... and while, sad, at 103 it really is a matter of days, weeks, months, not really years. So triage would not be terrible but totally necessary. Sentimentality gets one no where. The Alzheimer patient in the 100K per year nursing home paid for by selling the family home. the millionaire on Medicare paid 100K /year dialysis -- may they pass peacefully. Sad, but not tragic as not saving a previously healthy 55 year old would be.
1
It was in the late 1970s that a brave wise and decent President Jimmy Carter warned us of a malaise that was settling in on the American Psyche. He told the truth and that was the last time America was United. Republican and Democrat alike joined in destroying Carter's Presidency.
The Presidency requires the ability to make difficult decisions and with a country united in making every Carter decision a mistake America like a lemming stampede got ready to go over the edge.
It does not matter that a Navy Engineer named Carter led a team of technicians into a foreign reactor experiencing meltdown and it does not matter I have been taught that Ronald Wilson Reagan was the ultimate example of the banality of evil; government of the people by the people and for the people is what the Enlightenment was all about and it is good.
Reagan made your government the enemy. The blacklists weren't about plots it was about a social contract and Reagan violated his sacred trust and betrayed his guild members for thirty pieces of silver.
I will never understand why "conservatives" made your government the enemy but when times are good we need less government but during interesting times a government you know belongs to you is a life saver.
What is it worth to know that your welfare is your government's number one priority?
Might I add Chaucer to the list of those who told us what to do during pandemics; you tell each other funny flatulence stories to make life interesting?
2
Our country lost all compassion when Trump was elected. It was a license for all kinds of cruetly and it has not stopped.
In my lifetime I have learned that, after Ike, Republicans spell compassion with dollar signs. Nothing has changed in their character since Nixon. If anything the GOP has gotten worse, whole heartedly endorsing locking up kids and separating them permanently from their parents.
Conservative and compassion are a crock, and has been for 20 years
and everything you said will actually help society evolve: those that are ashamed of how they acted will act better in the future. it's kind of like everyone having to resort to cannibalism. I welcome the challenge and change, just as I welcomed the change that was Trump. I probably won't survive the infection, having many other health issues, but I will do my best to avoid the infection; and that will be a challenge if/when it hits my dialysis clinic. Am I afraid? Of course not. I don't do drama: I clear headedly just do the right thing. Others don't have that ability and will panic. it will get ugly.
1
I work at a University, where virtue signaling is everywhere, and smug finger-pointing at often non-existent offenses de rigeur. But I wonder if all those who love to see themselves as victims (with very cushy jobs...or with parents who can afford the exorbitant tuition) will—should this pandemic turn even worse—step up to the plate and actually turn into the compassionate and ultra-virtuous people they believe they are. I include myself among them.
1
As soon as a someone even dares to suggest medicare for all David's compassion goes out the door.
2
I don't know. I see the House trying to pass a bill to help the people who lost their jobs and the Conservatives are the same as they always are, you are on your own.
1
"It also wouldn’t be a bad idea to take steps to fight the moral disease that accompanies the physical one." At present in this nation the moral disease among some of us is so severe as to make half the population paralyzed for any decency. Every attempt to fight that disease has been ignored, led by the tweets of the most diseased of us all!
Martin Luther, facing similar circumstances in 1527 when a plague struck his then home, Wittenberg, offered counsel to Christians in his famous -- and now circulating more more on the internet -- essay, "Whether one may flee from a Deadly Plague." His advice makes for interesting reading on several counts, not least his firm conviction that above all, people not view the illness as God's judgment on anyone (or everyone) -- in effect, the late medieval equivalent of "It's science, not magic or condemnation." Yet this underlying anxiety, that somehow, someone is to blame, may underlie our individual irrational responses, either to avoid helping, in case we too fall ill and thus 'prove' our own guilt, or to dive in recklessly to expiate it. In the end, as my pastor told us on the last Sunday we may meet for a while, what with isolation measures going into effect, Luther's advice was eminently sensible: "Have faith in God no matter what you do, practice charity & compassion as the Bible demands, but don't be an idiot about it."
A torpor following the 1918-1919 flu? Didn’t the 20s roar?
What a grim vision! According to David Brooks, I am about to become a Republican, and view society is nothing more than a Social Darwinist nightmare.
1
We will be tested on this contagion for years to come. No reason to think we will not get more of the same from our rural heartland — an incantation of the name of Jesus, and actions that are antithetical to his life and eords.
Add in:
The people who are out & about knowing they are sick. Cases started here in NH for example with a doctor (for shame!) who had been told to self quarantine but decided to go to a PARTY instead. Now he’s put everyone else at risk.
We are not just a “me first” society, we’re an “only me” society.
1
Last week I made my bimonthly blood donation with Red Cross and learned there is now a serious shortage of donors. Today a pediatric hospital is blasting my phone with requests. Before you batten down the hatches, roll up your sleeve. Give this weekend, or on one of your days off in the week ahead. Don't let trauma victims or kids with cancer become casualties of corona.
1
Excellent essay -- and warning.
If worst comes to worst, or just worse comes to worse, remember: whatever happens, you can only do this once. There are no do-overs.
Keep your dignity, keep your head, keep your empathy. No matter what.
To stem panic, just settle on this: If I go down, I will go down fighting, and in the right way. If you’ve seen The Lion in Winter, there’s a scene at the end in which the royal children, including Richard the Lionhearted, played by Anthony Hopkins, are in prison and expecting to be executed by their father, Henry II, played by Peter O’Toole. Richard says his father will get no satisfaction from him; he’ll die with dignity. His cynical brother Geoffrey says, “Why you chivalric fool. As if the way one falls matters.” Richard answers, correctly: “When the fall is all there is, it matters.”
I don’t know if the fall is all there is, but we’re teetering on the precipice. Act accordingly. Whatever the injustices of the situation, you still have a choice.
Myself, I’ve lived, despite the bad stuff, a charmed life thus far that 99.9% of the species in its history couldn’t even dream of. I have loved and lived with a woman whose value is literally equal to that of all the other things in life that make life good. All of them, from puppies to books to music to anything you might think of. There’s all that, and then there’s her. 50-50.
Love yourselves and others, and do the right thing, in all possible senses. No matter what.
1
The Chinese will write ballads and epics. They will dramatize their response in TV series.
"Perhaps it’s because people didn’t like who they had become."
It didn't take this pandemic to show what we have become. It just took the 2016 Presidential election.
2
Yes we might become like David Brooks and the NYT who has long declared war on Medicare for All - where everyone is covered as part of their taxes. A new Yale Study shows Medicare for All will prevent 68,000 unnecessary deaths and will save $450 billion - each and every year. We are only as heathy as the least covered amongst us with this virus. 530,000 bankruptcies in 2019 from healthcare debt - and Brooks and his friends did not care.
I notice there are only 173 comments; thought ti'd make it a semi-respectable 174.
Mr. Brooks, people are increasingly tuning out your laments about declining social cohesion, whether you're targeting Sanders's anti-billionaire, anti-1% adversarial politics, or blaming the coronavirus for the same thing.
Like all hyper-capitalists, you want to pooh-pooh the greed, mendacity and social Darwinist factors tearing society apart, and lecture those on the short end to just be good sports about it and remember that you, me, Jeff Bezos, and the guy scrounging for minimum wage temp jobs where he licks his dispatcher's boots to get his measly assignments-- that we're all in it together, one great American capitalist tapestry, wherein each plays his role. You resent Sanders because he tells people they're getting shafted and the establishment systematically distorts how inequality works-- how it's created & sustained.
So now instead of Sanders, you're blaming coronavirus for undermining "we're all in it together" social solidarity.
It's not Sanders and it's not coronavirus that tear society apart and makes people cynical about a frayed social compact and solidarity. It's the greed and corruption enacted by financial "elites" and condoned and coddled by neoconservative pundits that tears society apart by destroying trust and breeding cynicism.
2
Unsettling. Mr. Brooks, you have omitted an even more recent (and ongoing) example - AIDS. Families have been split apart by the spread of AIDS. There has been abandonment, shame, and inhumanity. Shame on you for overlooking it.
1
I can imagine a much different message from you if this was a Democratic President in charge of this lying mess.
Compassion died the day Trump was elected. Our national dis-ease started then, with that insane, carnage-dripping inaugural address from Donald J. Trump, which the entire Republican thereafter carved into their flesh.
2
Hmmm, is it possible that all the conservative, right wing policies that David Brooks has ardently supported over the past 30 years - almost all cruel, heartless, and guaranteed to hurt the less fortunate - has contributed to this lack of compassion? Let’s see....
But David, I already for a long time have not liked the kind of people that Republicans have become.
1
Another example of the extreme moral and physical effects of a plague on a city and it's citizens, not mentioned in this article is the book The Peloponnesian War by Thucydidies, specifically the chapter devoted to the plague in 430 Athens which killed a third of the population.
The account is so vivid, even years after I first read it, it remains clear in my mind.
So the key to viral resistance / is appropriate social distance; /
that shouldn’t be too hard / in a country so scarred / by cantankerous coexistence.
No government can possibly about individuals as much as the people the individuals know, so this is the time when your social circles and collective institutions are hugely helpful. Those who have big extended families in close proximity, churches, synagogues, mosques, granges, Elks lodges, and other voluntary collectives for mutual support will fare better than those who can only look to City Hall, the state capitol, or Washington DC for succor. T
Interesting but Trump has lied, cheated and stepped on people his entire adult life, through good times and bad times. So what’s his excuse?
The dramatic and well informed column you wrote today made us think in the advice you gave us, some time ago, about the need to create gatherings, meetings and friends in our communities. What a wonderful advice you gave us. The following suggestion was created by a group we have in Miami. Land of the hurricanes:
At this point in time we remember "Willow Run" the successful combination of efforts between the U.S. government, the military, civilian personnel, and the industry to produce thousands of airplanes needed to defeat Hitler, who created a system to kill millions of innocents. Like a plague.
China built a hospital very fast, according to their propaganda machine. But America has thousands of hotels that will become empty as a result of the virus.We could use thousands of rooms already available to isolate sick people, reducing the number of people at the hospitals. People using clothes similar to the already existing to protect health care personnel, could be used to protect those in charge of transporting patients to the hotel-hospitals. And Walmart type trucks could be used to supply medicines and food to the isolated at the hotel-hospitals.
With thousands of rooms available, we could control the virus faster. We need to speed up the availability of tests, and protective cloths. Amazon and Walmart would help with supplies. It's time to use our current infrastructure.
There is much more that 1918 flu historian John Barry says about why people didn't step in and help, which is terrifyingly relevant today.
The Wilson government downplayed and lied about the flu so as not to hurt nationalism during the war. But people could see with their eyes what was unfolding around them, so into that vacuum of information rushed fear. Not knowing the facts about the flu, or what to be afraid of, people came to fear everything, and looked out only for themselves.
Patient starved to death because no one would go near to bring them food.
John Berry has said that the most important lesson of the Spanish flu is: tell the truth.
By the way, do you know why it was called the Spanish Flu? The flu started in the US, but Spain was one of the few countries reporting honestly about it.
Civics and citizenship, ethics and decency. Let’s see how we do. I’m betting on us. Is this the real MAGA?
Lets be honest here. The working class and poor will do most of the dying as they do most of the working.
2
compassion: sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.
empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
Apocalyptic visions become more affecting the more felt an alien invasion becomes.
Thomas Paine came up with 'these are the times that try men's souls'. In a way easy peasy times don't. Lost on folk who haven't considered that they have one.
It's encouraging that the corona virus has not ended spiritual
condescension and moralizing glee: the first shall be the last.
1
The inhumanity in most plagues is actually caused by uncertainty. When you don't understand how a disease is transmitted, you tend to mistrust everything in society. Doctors and nurses aren't so much heroic as educated.
Towns would vigorously wash streets and buildings after a Yellow Fever outbreak not realizing the disease is transmitted by mosquito. If you know anything about mosquitoes, you know the last thing you want is more standing water. Walter Reed helped figure out the connection. That's why we have Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
We can suggest a similar story for any number of typhus outbreaks. People would buy, sell, or trade clothing and effects of infected individuals not realizing lice were spreading the disease. You'd rent an apartment with the same mattress as the person who died. Your entire family ends up with typhus.
At least with this virus, we understand. We just don't have any plausible way to stop transmission outside avoiding other people. Unfortunately, avoiding other people is problematic for numerous reasons. Food is the most obvious one. No one can survive a quarantine indefinitely without resupply. We call it a "long emergency." You're living on borrowed time.
At least in our society, the idea is the National Guard will mobilize a response before you run out of food and water. In a truly national emergency though, there are only so many resources. Triage is the name of the game right now.
I think it will vary among countries. Selfishness is a prominent attitude in the US. Other countries value community over self. It will be interesting to see how this pans out form border to border. I think we may be most vulnerable to ugliness. And of course, the orange in the room will escalate this attitude.
The coronavirus is not bubonic plague, which no one at the time understood. Mortality rates for plague were much higher than the current outbreak. Of course they practiced social distancing. To suggest this was some kind of moral failing, as David Brooks does here, is off the point.
1
This piece fits a reliable pattern from GOP "think piece" apologists.
If a Democrat causes harm through wrong choices or inaction, they dissect contemporary details and chains of events with great specificity, assessing blame.
However, when a Republican commits a grievous unforced error jeopardizing the safety and economy of a nation, let's parse it through a historic lens: What would Epictetus have to say about our quandary; likewise Pliny the Elder. Hildegard of Bingen, dost thou have anything to add?
Just as "hopes and prayers" after a mass shooting can be well-intended, those intentions would be better focused on practical means of preventing bloodshed. Where was this plague historian when Trump de-prioritized pandemic prevention in 2018?
This may be seen as overly critical of a column about empathy, but the GOP (and affiliated intellectuals) have willed us into a kakistocracy that is wasting the lives and futures of its citizens. Compassion is more than a plea for mercy after disaster, it should be pro-actively embedded in policy.
4
"Maybe this time we’ll learn from their example. It also wouldn’t be a bad idea to take steps to fight the moral disease that accompanies the physical one."
******
Wouldn't it be wonderful if our president and his supporters in Congress and the voters did not see the moral disease as being political opposition and the physical attention to the coronovirus is all economic problems.
1
As Springsteen observed America is the home of “no mercy”.
It’s promotes a “me first, screw everyone else” culture .
This culture reflects Capitalism and Militarism. Those with compassion are vilified as “bleeding heart Liberals”.
America was never great.
6
Let's give some thought to mid-level responses we can make: government will do (or not do) what it does, and we can weigh in via communication with our elected officials. A few minutes a day, max. Personal hygiene is a matter of focusing our awareness (think of not touching your face) and stepping up hand-washing, etc. Not a huge drain on personal resources.
But what about reaching out to our neighbors, employees, coworkers and customers? If we take steps to know who among our closest associates is most vulnerable, and how, each of us could do something. And the reaching out is itself something. A gesture of concern, of solidarity. Kids out of school while parents have to work? We could be an adult neighbor to check in with. A source of, maybe, a meal. Someone to talk to. An elderly person with a chronic health condition? Could we fetch groceries, prescriptions, if we're out and about anyway? Walk a dog or pick up pet food; touch base with the self-isolating neighbor who may just have a cold but is trying to do the right thing. Breach that envelope of loneliness.
And maybe, with so many of our daily activities we've been locked into now shutting us out, we might turn to having real conversations. We can have them by phone, email, Skype... but take up the challenge of learning from this emergency. Talk with each other about how, when it passes, we can make things better because of our new experiences with solidarity and compassion.
1
Mr. Brooks writes that it "wouldn’t be a bad idea to take steps to fight the moral disease that accompanies the physical one". What steps would he - or readers - suggest?
1
As I see it he is trying to speak on behalf of the health providers and caregivers for their courage and compassion. We honor our firefighters when they put themselves in harms way, let’s honor our caregivers in the same way.
1
Re-stating Mr. Brooks' insights: Fight or flight OR as they have been operationalized in human societies: engagement or hiding. We are experiencing primordial emotions during these times of high social stress and some are engaging, some are hiding. Our emotions (fear, helplessness) that are driving us are difficult to control when external situations cannot be predicted or controlled to any great degree. Yes. We are there. Thank you for providing historical clues about what to do, Mr. Brooks. So. Helpful. I suggest we need to work with our own minds during such times of stress. All religions and philosophies contain spiritual and mental guidance for such moments. Let's reconnect with that guidance. We can do it. https://medium.com/@teresadlonghawkes/acts-of-reverence-161889999011
This pandemic will be different. This one is playing out in a connected world. People at every socio-economic level can see first hand the impacts of virus and do something about it. My fiend in Italy sends me updates couple times a week of all the acts of human kindness she see's taking place there. Her 102 year old neighbor made a delicious soup yesterday feeding everyone in her building who wanted/needed some. My son in Seattle talks about how noticeably kinder/nicer people in his community are. In the connected world human kindness and goodness matters.
1
When I heard that family and friends were being asked not to visit residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities, I became worried. In my position as a health care professional, I have advised families making choices of nursing homes and other care facilities for elder relatives. My position has almost always been that the best facilities are those that family and friends can get to often and visit their loved ones. Now that is being taken away. I hope that these facilities can find a way to screen visitors and allow them in. Those visitors are the eyes and ears, and advocates for the resident. Further isolation for these residents needs to be prevented wherever possible.
1
The flu of 1918 may have not been spoken about much but the decade that followed was one of the wildest and most law-breaking the US had seen, the Roaring Twenties. Was not the Jazz Age a live for today age? Look at the literature of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway. Somber. Existential. After the carnage of WWI and the flu who could blame them?
1
I am an Italian living in the States. My family is in Northern Italy, I am terrified for my parents and I can't sleep at night anymore. Not one of my work colleagues, except my Italian colleague, found the time to send me an email, to spare a kind word, or to stop me in the corridors to ask about my family. I think compassion and empathy have already been killed, social distancing does not make any difference.
3
@FS FS. These are surely hard times. I can understand your anguish. But please be sure: besides in the hospitals, a great number of volunteers are offering help for the older and the more fragile ones, if only to buy food and medicines. Dai che ce la facciamo!
1
Curious that Mr. Brooks failed to cite Albert Camus's "The Plague" for a very different take on compassion, courage, duty. But that would have messed with his thesis and selective literary sources about pandemics bringing out the worst in human beings.
Like all crises, this one, too, brings out the worst—and the best as well. This morning in my town, in this neighborhood, the ListServ features young people offering to go on shopping excursions for the elderly, the infirm, or the simply fearful. Not that unusual, really.
Sure, tough choices are always in front of us. We can't save and help everyone. But we can help save and help THIS person, can reach out to THAT person, here, now. People do that all the time, quietly, expecting no hero's reception. It's just what they do. Too bad they don't appear to be on Mr. Brooks's radar.
1
It is rich for Brooks to write about hypothetical compassion in the coming weeks rather than the lack thereof amongst his political allies, which is aggravating this crisis.
Collecting taxes from the populace to fund public health spending, research, and government response make a difference. Mr. Brooks belongs to a political movement that opposes such compassion.
5
David, thank you for this. You’ve evoked visions of the film Titanic, of bad dudes dressing up as a ladies to sneak onto the lifeboats. Or perhaps of Jefferson Davis, also in women’s attire, escaping in the night to keep from facing the music of his bad decisions. Which men will be cowards? Which men will be heroes? Which men will be so disconnected from what’s happening that they simply won’t care?
I have a feeling that many people will be in that third category. They’re either disconnected, or they’ve been fed disinformation on Fox Entertainment Television.
My own brother, for example, who will no doubt show up with his wild kid at my parents house, expecting a babysitter so he can go turkey hunting, not caring that my father is in a high risk category for COVID-19, not caring that kids who don’t wash their hands and don’t show symptoms of the virus are possibly carrying it. No, he just wants to go hunting. So now I feel like it falls on me to babysit. Because you know, people who work from home, putting in 10-12 hours, we don’t actually have “real jobs” didn’t you know? We should just drop whatever we’re doing to babysit so our spoiled brat Trump-loving brother can go shoot turkeys. Because all women are good for is watching kids and cooking supper. Right. So anyway, I’m feeling angry because I’m worried about my parents and I’m sure that my brother doesn’t even think this pandemic is real. The Civil War never truly ended. We’re just fighting it within our families now.
10
It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good; the silver linings of this situation may be many, though the price for them is likely to be high.
This pandemic may not only be Trump's Katrina and wind up exposing just how incompetent and cruel he and his are and get him thrown out of office, it may also wind up confirming the need for universal sick leave and for a much more universal health care system.
And it may even give impetus to the good side of internet connectivity and social media--in our physical isolation we don't have to be mentally and emotionally isolated these days.
It's just sad that it takes something like this to set things in motion. One would have hoped that the human race would have evolved by this time so that it doesn't do the right things only when all other possibilities have been exhausted.
And I do fear that once the pandemic subsides too many greedheads will just go back to same old same old.
It's our responsibility to see that they don't.
6
It is not goodness or badness in people. It is simply fear. I was on a bus into the city last week and began to choke on a cough drop. I couldn't get my breath, and my attempts to do so created a lot of noise. Impossible not to be heard by anyone near me. Not only did no one offer help, but no one even looked at me during this. Even the bus driver heard and did not show any reaction. It was like time stopped for them. I recovered after a minute and it was like nothing had happened. One minute of time just erased.
I bear no ill will. It's just really sad and scary. I know these people are not bad. And I think they will probably bury the memory of it as people did after the Spanish flu. Thanks for weighing in on this Mr. Brooks. It is much too easy to be self-righteous when one is comfortable and safe -- much too easy to recognize and condemn the flaws in others.
1
@Barbara P
I am glad you were able to recover. Those people on the bus should of been filled with shame for turning their backs. Just like people who see someone fall in the street and they keep walking. Shame on us for being so indifferent to our fellow human beings
Fear should not be ruling the day. We all need to grow up and be adults.
Either you have character or you do not. Very simple
Camus notes that, if there is anything good about pandemics, it is that they allow people to rise above themselves. Right now it appears that many Americans are willing to make sacrifices for the common good-- through acts of social distancing, those at low risk are sacrificing convenience and profit for the sake of those at high risk. We'll see how long it lasts. But the result of this event need not be spiritual torpor; it could be spiritual renewal.
2
We will be faced with very personal decisions about supporting our families and friends. This is not just about sending employees home without pay knowing they will probably be unable to make their house payment or pay for medical care. This is more personal than medical professionals having to close the doors of a clinic or hospital because there is not enough well folks to care for the sick ones.
You may well need to decide how close you’ll get to your sister who is alone, contagious, vomiting, and needs someone to lift her and drive to the hospital. You may be in your 70s and have a contagious adult child require personal care with no one but you available. Contagious yourself, it may be critical that you get help yet the only one around is your neighbor who is in the high risk category.
The thing about a pandemic is that it will probably not be that group over there that you must consider, but those right here beside you.
2
There is a difference between this pandemic and 1347, 1665, or 1884. As of now at least, Covid-19 is almost never fatal in healthy adults (except the very old) and children. People are hoarding wipes and toilet paper, but real panic and fear are so far absent. Should the virus mutate into something more lethal, then the worst in almost everyone will come out.
1
Being humane and civilized is just a veneer. A veteran of the Vietnam War once wrote in these pages: “Basic training doesn’t transform men into beasts. It’s just a finishing school.” I taught in a humanities department for thirty years. We were always talking about ethics and the things we as enlightened intellectuals would never do. But when the chips were down, almost everyone would do anything to save his skin. And it seems that those who talked and wrote most eloquently about ethics and altruism were the worst offenders. Those who really were altruistic didn’t talk about it. They just acted that way.
2
Local governments could help by providing volunteer opportunities to community members. Areas hit hard will need people do help deliver food to the elderly, for example. But will we see the worst of human nature? Not when young men - and parents of young children - seem to have little to fear from the virus. If the disease were more democratic, yes, more people might, in retrospect, want to bury a few memories.
@Aaron
"The most horrible words any American could ever hear, 'I'm from the government, and I am here to help'."
Sorry Dave, we don't need the doom and gloom scenario right now. The world has changed considerable since the old days. We got the internet and Facebook to ease the people's pain, educate and support them. We also got the nytimes to take us to school every day. There is plenty of hope and faith left in our brother's and sister's around the world.
2
Well they might kill compassion in right wing America - and really, no surprise there since compassion is always in short supply with these people - but in Europe it’s already clear that bonds of solidarity and fraternity are being strengthened all the time. People are stepping up to help each other and Pharmacies are going out of their way... cafe owners are offering wipes to clients.. in Siena and Rome communities are singing together from open windows. It is striking that a silver lining of sorts emerging from this crisis is a palpable increase in social cohesion. A huge part of this is the deep implicit realisation that the virus shows no favors and makes no social or class distinctions. In moneyed America that penny has yet to drop.
8
there’s a difference between social distancing and social isolation. one will protect our species while the other will lead to our extinction. we need to look after one another and check on those who are isolated from society. we need to touch and embrace friends and loved ones. that boosts our immune system and prevents social isolation which is different from social distancing meaning having large groups together especially indoors where virus can spread from host to host and prey upon those with weakened immune systems and underlying illnesses. social distancing is not social isolation. if we choose to not look after one another we will choose to extinguish the best of what makes us humans to begin with
Yes, self-preservation can look... selfish, but for instance, I have young kids and elderly parents, all of whom I take care of to some degree. People preserve themselves because their families depend on them. We worry about the distress of others only in the best of circumstances, for instance, even when everything was good and the Dow Jones was about to hit 30,000, Republicans wouldn’t consider making healthcare available in this country for any less than retail plus 20%. The lack of compassion for “others” Brooks warns us about is not a new discovery.
2
I encourage all the readers to read Geraldine Brooks' wonderful book, The Year of Wonders. A novel about the plague in England in the 1600's. A male dressmaker comes to the village and makes lovely dresses and becomes the lover of many of the town's women. He also brings the plague. The women are told to burn the dresses, but they can't do it. "'He' made the dress for me", they say. And the village has to be quarantined. And one woman, who does burn the dress, and a pastor have to step up and save the village. Isn't it funny how as much as things change and we become more 'civilized' and more technologically savvy, one celled organisms just go about their business and do what they do and our arrogance continues to be our undoing. People like Dr. Fauci scream "BURN THE DRESS" while Trump says "No, it's a lovely dress. No need to do that". And David talks about people in the villages turning on each other, just like the Republicans are doing now. There never seems to be, from their perspective, a time for the haves to help the have nots. And you thought it was Obamacare that was going to bring on 'death panels".
3
In our family, I knew about the 1918 epidemic because my mother told us.
She was 14 at the time and my grandfather helped nurse the sick. I always wondered why because he was not a medical professional. He never contracted it, evidently due to a natural immunity. Your article tells me that he may have answered the need for volunteers. He died of “natural” causes when I was an adult. Go papa!
2
Speaking of lack of empathy or sympathy....
"Donald Trump told Republican senators on Tuesday that he wants a payroll tax holiday through the November election so that taxes don’t go back up before voters decide whether to return him to office, according to three people familiar with the president’s remarks."
4
Just what we need. Mr. Brooks is trying to take political advantage while people are legitimately concerned.
Using past examples is tenuous. There was no TV or other media to promote good practices. No scientific knowledge existed to assemble a plan to deal with a pandemic.
It is absurd to reach for the straws when past epidemics authorities did have the capability to bring this virus under control.
Mr. Brooks, this makes you part of the problem, not its solution. Expressing an unsubstantiated model based on past approaches does not hold water.
Supposedly Mr. Brooks is a moderate Republican. However the political needle still lands him in the danger zone.
4
One of the ironic things about American individualism is that we have the "choice" to be rather selfish about protecting our own well-being. A few of us act altruistically, and will sacrifice for others. But for the most part, our baser biology urges the body to protect itself.
Obviously, there's nothing American about that -- it's our genes protecting our genes and the genes closest by. But let's hope that there are some of us who do rise above evolution to help our neighbors, to risk infection, to donate, to not buy up all the supplies on the shelf, to offer whatever works against our self-serving nature. We are social beings, after all. Without each other, we're left with lonely company.
1
Oh, I doubt Conservatives will be any less compassionate during this time. Conservatives are remarkably consistent in this. I have observed this about the GOP over my 69 years:
Good times: Tax cuts for the rich, corporate welfare, everyone else is on their own.
Bad times: Tax cuts for the rich, corporate welfare, everyone else is on their own.
Now times: Tax cuts for the rich, corporate welfare, everyone else is on their own.
10
"This explains one of the puzzling features of the 1918 pandemic. When it was over, people didn’t talk about it." This has always puzzled me about my own family. My grandmother, born at the turn of the 20th Century, grew up in New York City in a tenement with her parents and 8 siblings. Incredibly, all survived the 1918 pandemic. She had to have seen horrible things and life must have been severely disrupted. Yet she never spoke of the pandemic. It was as if it had never happened. I only found out about it in history class years later.
2
I know there are a lot of selfless, giving people out there but I see a lot of selfish, hoarding behavior already and we're not even at Italy's level of confirmed cases. The rugged individualism brainwashing is well entrenched in the citizens of this country and it's already on display and modeled from the highest branch of our government.
2
Nice research about pandemics.
There are other emergencies that happen, and other reactions. Like hurricanes and megachurches locking their doors.
Real world, and recently, too.
3
Compassion is especially possible in this case because, while it's not "just the flu," it's not a death sentence for the very large majority of people. It also seems largely to spare children. It makes sense not to spread the contagion more quickly; it also makes sense to confront the risk if stakes are large enough.
3
Trump is looking at the major bailout of the industries effected by the virus. Trillions will be spent. Biden help the last bailout of Wall Street and the car industry. Bernie is looking to bail out the working class. See the difference?
1
It would probably also make sense to evaluate the totally incompetent response of our current "leadership" in government and make changes going forward.
3
Mr. Brooks,
Your column misses the mark.
Ignorance and fear are the enemies of human beings.
What we don't know can hurt us.
Science and public health measures protect and save lives.
Infectious diseases don't respect race, class,or human boundaries.
"Theming" others doesn't work.
Prevention of diseases and prompt and effective treatment of those affected by communicable diseases is imperative.
Smallpox, measles, diphtheria, pertussis, cholera, polio, E. Coli food poisoning, plague, influenza, Ebola, pneumococcal pneumonia, human papilloma virus, streptococcal disease, Herpes simplex, syphilis, gonorrhea, dengue fever, yellow fever, and other diseases on a long list all require prevention, diagnosis, and treatment for everyone's sake.
Enforced regulations gave us safer food, water, air, and environment and longer healthier lives.
Trump's attempt to undermine science and defund and politicize government agencies responsible for the health and safety of Americans are a great threat to all the progress made in the 20th century.
And disease will affect Republicans and Democrats and Independents alike.
7
The 1918 flu pandemic struck a United States that differs markedly from today. Most people lived on farms and in small towns and villages. People attended smaller churches. Public events were held in smaller venues and fewer people attended. People shopped less frequently and at smaller stores. Most children attended one-room schools. In cities, people relied on street railways for transportation. Automobiles were only becoming common and the road network was primitive. When people traveled long distances, they took a train. Homes outside the center of the city typically did not have sewer service and relied on outhouses. City sewers often flowed directly into rivers. City water systems were primitive. Most homes got water from a their own shallow wells. Few homes had hot, running water for bathing. In large cities, people relied on public baths for bathing. All of those differences affected the speed of virus transmission.
Many died from the 1918 flu because there were no antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections. There were no ventilators or ICUs to treat the most serious cases.
My parents, and my wife's parents, were born between 1907 and 1918. They kept and displayed pictures of siblings who died during the 1918 epidemic. When they spoke of the 1918 flu, they talked about how the loss of a brother or sister had affected their parents. Both of my wife's parents spoke of memories of their lost brother and sister.
4
It does not good to generalize about highly specific events. We live in the 21st century with far more developed medical infrastructure, as well as the possibility of communicating and living pretty normally in spite of maintaining significant physical distance from each other. That was not possible even in 1918. This disease does not strike people with equal ferocity. Those under 60, and certainly under 50, can expect to have a milder case so long as they have no significant underlying health problem. This is vastly different from the 1918 flu, which struck young adults the hardest.
And I believe that David is objectively wrong about what we have been seeing over the last week, with people taking action to protect others. Indeed, the willingness of those at low risk to protect those at higher risk from COVID-19 seems unprecedented to me. The moral shame we are living with is that this willingness stops at the door of the president, who is far more interested in how the pandemic affects his reelection chances, the stock market and his family fortune than he is about the American people. And his specific actions have amounted to blaming others and intentionally preventing people from being tested in order to pretend that we have fewer cases than we do. It is shameful and morally corrupt and it is being enabled by a Senate that will not even try to help ordinary people whose lives are being upended.
4
I confess to feeling a bit torn between altruism and self-preservation. In this case they are nearly the same thing, since staying sequestered at home is one of the very best things one can do to serve the greater good.
2
Watch this space. You will find that those of us who believe we are all in this together and every life has value, will come to the aid of the sick. We are the ones who believe in a country whose government takes care of its citizens rather than ignoring and mocking them.
We vote Democrat.
11
@Lisa
No, you vote Joe Biden, who would veto Medicare For All, because it costs too much for his cronies.
A sober, if depressing, article about how self-survival snuffs out generosity. It's understandable--as is the reluctance to talk about it later--that when self-survival during pandemic is the driving force, nothing else can co-exist.
A few minutes ago, I read a most curious article about how one's politics are affecting their thoughts about Covid-19.
I would have thought--crazy I know--that when it comes to illness, the spread of a potentially fatal disease, that at least politics would be put aside in the joint effort to get the public thorugh it.
But no. In the case of this new "plague", it's become the dominant force, unfortunately the one guiding the government's response.
As for the rest of us, like age, potentially lethal disease may be making us more like ourselves than we want to admit.
4
David Brooks gives an even more powerful argument for Medicare For All than does Bernie Sanders.
He also shows us that today's Republicans have been around since the Dark Ages.
12
In the past, when confronted with a pandemic situation, I would regularly make judgments based on recent events or information that I could recall. I would substitute one question for another: I wished to estimate... the frequency of an event, but I’d pick the impression that was recent & easiest to recall. Unawareness of this bias can lead to poor decisions. I believe in the wake of the tragic events of 9/11, with images of burning buildings & broken rubble fresh in their minds, politicians quickly voted to implement invasive policies to make us safer at the expense of our civil liberties. Were they truly justified? Openness & awareness begins with the ability to self-critique & reflect upon things central to one’s own beliefs, thoughts, actions, behavior, & results. Openness can inform private, personal or group discussions. Ideally, all capable people should look for reasons to start/continue the work of self improvement. Nobody is equal to anybody. Even the same person is not equal to him/herself on different days. Hence, some of us meditate on the negative without concern for the harm we can cause others or ourselves. Our emotional side is the metaphysical Elephant and our rational side is the rider. Perched atop the Elephant, the rider holds the reins & seems to be the leader. But the rider's control is precarious because the rider is so small relative to the Elephant since it is not reason who guides life, but customs & emotions. We are the stories we tell ourselves.
1
I had corona virus for the past two weeks, peaking last Tuesday and Wednesday. Mine was a mild case, a slight fever, achy, and what my Irish grandmother used to describe as feeling logy (very low energy). It did involve several bouts of scary, choking pneumonia-like fits when I thought I needed to go to the emergency room. Except I couldn't drive and my wife was in Mexico. Really scary. I thought it was asthma, which is really bad in Austin right now, though I have never had asthma.
Then I remembered that on March 9th, we saw a group of Asian folks trying to change a flat tire. Actually, it was a half dozen women surrounding a single skinny man, poking at him and offering suggestions. I took pity on the guy -- he was never going to get that tire off the car -- and we helped. I asked where they were from and they said "China." They had just gotten off the plane.
We really did not think much of it because it was early in the outbreak. But two weeks later -- after we both forgot about the flat tire -- my wife noticed I was not feeling well. Thus began the Festival of Coughing, and I got worse over the course of a week. With the help of an albuterol inhaler, herbal "gordo lobo" tea and yoga breathing exercises, I managed to get through it.
My real point here is that there is much more corona virus out there in the US. The lack of tests, like keeping that ship offshore, is really a flimsy attempt by the government to keep the count down. And that is immoral.
13
Thank you for describing your symptoms and the trajectory of your illness. I have had similar symptoms and am recovering slowly, but have been told I don’t qualify for testing because I haven’t traveled outside the US or come in contact with someone who has a confirmed case of COVID-19. I wish I could be tested so that I could know how to manage my recovery. Am staying at home and conducting meetings over the internet. Not sure how to handle visits from family or buying groceries, because I am not certain whether I am, in fact, carrying Coronavirus. It would also be important to know because if I do have it, once I recover, I believe I will be immune and can then help others and visit my elderly parents. The lack of testing impairs our collective ability to manage this outbreak in a number of ways.
2
@Brian Prioleau Ooops. I meant February 9th.
@K Quinn I completely agree. My trajectory was clear -- everything got worse and then went away overnight. You might give it a couple of days after you feel better to ensure you don't spread it.
In the end, it was like having a mild flu with nasty pneumonia spells.
An excruciating look back at what has been, what humankind has been capable of doing, to its' own. May it be read by all who feel there is now an "over reaction" to the pandemic threat facing all, as well as by the anti-vaccine lobby, who endanger all of us as well as themselves. And may we not repeat these critical errors in our own behavior.
1
We do need to fight the moral disease accompanying this physical one. This is not our grandfather's epidemic, before the invention of molecular testing, spaceships and the internet. Our nation has willingly chosen to be unprepared. This is criminal neglect. We defy nature, pretending that global warming cannot promote the growth of novel pathogens. This truth won't come from Fox News. We must be humble before nature, our greatest gift. Yes, there are small, selfless acts of kindness from nurses and others devoted to man over money. But the real kindness comes from risk reduction and prevention. We know that petroleum production fouls the earth, causing disease, like cancer. Burning the Amazon kills the planet. Eating food from "wet markets" kills the body. So will meat from animals grown on factory farms. It is ironic that the same wealthy leaders behind climate change now suffer the same disease as everyone else. We are equal before nature. What a great religious message for those who believe they are gods! We must end the epidemic of legislated criminal neglect. China can end wet markets, a simple step. Italy can make the trains run on time. The US can build high speed trains. We can regulate social media. Medicine can become more about prevention than money after disease. This can be done.
3
A series of historical references can point at two matters: ignorance and fear. About the former, I do not mean to disgrace people in the past, but in those days, that the world was not informed of and beneficial ready from medical sciences as well as today is a safe assumption. In 1348, for example as also, plague and God’s punishment might have been wrongly associated with each other at large and small scales. 1665, 1884, 1918 are more modern. Still, panic could be prevailed as fear. Brooks discusses importantly on the desire for preservation of life as human instinct. When remedies are assured and suffice to reach all people, there would not be panic. When the opposite becomes true today, dedicated people will emerge to help the sick by sacrificing their own lives for the commitment, which is not though a majority. As for the US politics, how to handle this unknown had been the core issue, I observed. Cautious, precautious, or overcautious? In my humble view, Dems tend to go on the last whereas Reps do on the first two. Above all, this is the presidential year for the electoral. Brooks states the fact unintentionally to underline Sanders, who raised a question in his recent speech. The quote from this column is pandemics hit [and will hit] ... the poor hardest[.] What’s your plan, Sanders asked. If the world finds itself globally unprepared for the pandemic of this kind, those who would be saved and speared are the same as those who hold fortunes in general.
1
The so called Greatest Generation was one that was marked by the experience and response to succeeding periods of massive suffering, the Great Depression and WW ll. Prior distinctions of class, ethnicity, religion and race while not eliminated were mitigated. The suffering cut across those lines. As we on the ground experience what lies ahead, perhaps there will be silver lining. The virus is neither Republican nor Democrats, neither rural or urban, neither Caucasian, African, Latino, nor Asian. Perhaps, it can enable us to bridge our terrible divides and judgements about those of other tribes.
1
Great piece Mr.Brooks. When things go sideways we all need to check ourselves first. We need to dust off our better angles show compassion for our neighbors even if we can’t get physically close. Especially the older folks. With no leadership we all need to step up.
3
It is definately an opportunity to "Make America great again". That's the irony of the situation.
3
So the Republicans who denied Obamacare to the citizens of their state are going to become less compassionate?
9
Really good column David both provocative and actionable. This is the time for heroism where each of us must think of and help others before ourselves. Ironically, for most, this will mean social separation and caring for our families.
Pandemics were very different before antibiotics and our modern understanding of diseases. We now can track and test so we know who to isolate or quarantine or treat. We are not doing this, because government is the problem.
Trump is ringing back the preantibiotic response to pandemics. We will be all right as soon as he figures out how to get money or popularity from the pandemic.
1
Emmanuel Macron gave an extraordinary speech last night about the measures being taken in France to counter and alleviate this health crisis. Besides the sound healthcare and economic measures he set out, (notably closing of schools and childcare to stop propagation) he asked for us to remember, stay in contact with and help the elderly who should be limiting going out, he banned all home evictions, and praised the selflessness of healthcare workers, volunteers and even final year medical students coming forward to lend assistance. The address was full of compassion for those directly affected. He did not try to lay blame on others for the crisis and appealed for solidarity not just in France and Europe, but around the world, and specifically mentioned hoping to work with the US as well.
The only thing he forgot to talk about (and praise) was himself - funny that.
30
"...Pandemics... are crises in which social distancing is a virtue. Dread overwhelms the normal bonds of human affection."
You may be right. It's too early to know, but judging by my community's response, I am seeing people signing up to be kind and helpful. My small neighborhood, in a larger San Francisco, has a vibrant Facebook page and many if not most of us are connected in person, as well. This very flawed platform, used correctly, can do wonderful things. I'm grateful to my neighbors and hope I won't need their kindness. This will test us to our core, for sure.
4
If you are living alone: write a will, and get it notarized, or whatever is required. And then start tossing stuff. Leave a prominent note saying what should be tossed (that you missed), what should be given to goodwill, and who your closest relatives are. Cut off non-utility expenses (health club, college donations, etc). I haven't decided what to do about dependent pets. (in my will: to my five cats …)
Somebody needs to set up house sitting, by covid-19 survivors, for pets of those hospitalized by covid-19.
5
Echoing what others have noted ~ I felt a soul change in the country at the time of the Kavanagh confirmation. The sentiment was, "we've got the upper hand; we're in control; we'll do as we please." Contempt for the other. Very difficult for the fractured nation to pull as one now.
12
Senator Mitch is the Man Behind The Curtain....pulling the levers of
government .
By not allowing Obama to choose/appoint a Supreme Court nominee ( as was his constitutional right),
the long slide down to the right was completed.
Mitchy is a pure political snake who slithers around, oiling the palms of Big Business
and putting together slick Bills to benefit them.
And the spineless democrats allowed him to deny Obama, going along to get along.
Same old story.
Don’t look to Repug. senators to do ANYTHING unless it BENEFITS those senators in blue leaning states.
I have been wondering what might happen regarding our sense of duty to our fellows if Covid-19 becomes a widespread threat. Most especially I’ve feared for the homeless, who are already so marginalized and stigmatized. Without insurance or a way to pay for treatment or even a room and bed to “self-isolate” if sick, will they be left to suffer this illness on the streets? And will those few who try to show them compassion in regular times be less likely to help? When so many homeless also have preexisting conditions, they are a population very susceptible to the worst cases of illness and to death. Will people be willing to touch them, administer first aid or CPR, even move their bodies? Will hospitals consider using beds for the homeless, or decide they are not worth the care when a bed can go to someone with more money?
While we may feel concern for our own health and our inconvenience, I hope we remember to care for those who have far less...
8
Well, America under Donald Trump surely encourages a "you're on your own" mentality and reinforces that by an utter lack of skill and effort in doing anything productive to stop this pandemic. And his supporters still believe this pandemic is much ado about nothing. I have spoken to several of them in the past couple of days and they are completely ignoring all advice given by the CDC, going about their regular routines, not taking any special measures and thereby endangering not only themselves but all of the rest of us who care about ourselves and our brothers and sisters. Trump and his supporters have a spiritual sickness for which there is no cure.
My Mother is in an assisted living facility which has been quarantined now for more than a week. I call her every single day and speak with her at length. I call my housebound 87 year old Father frequently as well. I gave some neighbors some badly needed toilet paper today. I had a friend call me today worrying about a potential shortage of a medicine she takes and I told her I have a surplus of the same medication and all she has to do is call me and I will provide her what she needs. I will do anything I possibly can to help anyone in need. I will share my last bit of food with them.
Yes, Mr. Brooks, crises like what we now face test who we are and reveal our true natures. But there are many, if not most of us, who will do whatever we can to help each other and we outnumber those of whom you speak in your column.
15
Compassion does not exist in a void; it needs a vehicle. Where are the volunteer positions? Why can't laypeople help with testing, for instance, so that people in need of treatment can receive it more speedily? Why are governments around the world not posting information on how we can help? Instead, we're told to keep a distance, wash our hands, watch for symptoms, and avoid travel. Surely we can do better than this.
8
@Diana Senechal I have thought about volunteering as well. At this point there is no call for volunteers, but wait. There may well be time when they are needed. I assume the medical facilities will be overwhelmed at some point.
I agree with the sentiment, but I think part of the reason “volunteers” are not being called for is to minimize potential spread of the virus. There are not enough appropriate masks, not a lot of spare gear to hand out to laypersons to ensure they are not infected. There is also a short supply of both the time and the personnel needed to train and monitor non-professionals. This is not a situation where more people from all walks of life helping out means a safer outcome, quite the opposite: the call is for those who have training. Having unskilled volunteers helping with testing and such simply makes it more likely that the volunteers themselves will get sick, further spreading the virus. I know we can feel frustrated and helpless by just “self-isolating” and avoiding getting sick or spreading disease, but in reality that’s the best way most of us can “help.” If we can keep from getting ill, we will not take up the resources needed for the sick, nor will we be infecting others.
10
There are no good people or bad people. We are all both good and bad. We do need to try to reach our good part as much as we possibly can.
A very good column. Thank you!
8
Thank you, David for the insight. There can be an instinctive visceral response to emergencies, to reach out and be close/help others. But in a pandemic where we need to distance, that is overridden.
Humans have evolved with two different programs. One, is to help and cooperate, especially in a crisis. This insured the survival of the tribe and those genes were passed along. The other is to pull away from those not of our own tribe or who might threaten survival.
Present day crises are so different to this. We need to move beyond the tribe, but in times of fear or threat, these inclinations may rise strongly.
And if we need to distance ourselves from others to cooperate, there is dissonance. My neighbor today yelled across the street that if I needed help or grocery shopping or a ride to the ER (!) she and her husband would help. She bridged that distance. I don't expect to need help, and would never risk her health with an ER ride, thinking the ER teams will be more protected. It certainly drew me closer to her as well as the whole neighborhood at a time of uncertainty.
Later I called two other family members expressing my concern for them. We ended up having a great conversation of record length. It was just so good to be talking together.
We are fortunate to have ways to receive and to express concern that will not make matters worse. These are small things that count a lot. "Building connection in the time of cholera" is my thought.
6
I'm an emergency physician in a trauma center in a poor state. We're about to be hit by a Tsunami, and don't have enough of anything.
It's frightening and eerie, like when the sea receded in Thailand, and people walked down toward the water's edge.
19
Thank you for your service as a healthcare provider. God bless you in the difficult moments.
6
I’m so sorry for what you’re hospital is facing. I’m trying to figure out how we can help. Donate to Red Cross ? I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve read anything about how people can help with donations of money or time. That’s strange, isn’t it? I will try to find out what people can do
I appreciate the picture you just planted in my mind.....
the people were clueless to the oncoming wave........
You don’t need a pandemic to reveal the character of a society; it always there for all to see and ignore. There are people who die because they cannot afford insulin. Etc.
17
@Morgan
And they call a man who is trying to change things every name in the book. Even good ol’ Hillary adds, “nobody likes him”. I think he has more wisdom than all of Congress. Go Bernie!
My wife remembers one continuous admonition from the nuns at St Patrick's Academy in Binghamton. -- "Consideration for others!" A life long memory that she has always practiced and inspiration us all. She took meals to our neighbor who was nursing here failing HIV son.
4
We will have to see what, if any effect social media have on our behavior during this pandemic. We have not previous example to draw from.
I think it is an open question whether they will encourage or discourage altruistic behavior, particularly among the young. If it holds true that young people are very unlikely to die from contracting COVID-19, I'm hopeful that we will see a rise in youthful altruism. That could be an inspiration in what is shaping up as a deeply dispiriting time, and it could spill over into our politics over time.
2
A sober and painful story to read.
What do people do to hold onto compassion and caring for others and for oneself?
2
Compassion is not a “thing” to hold onto to,
one either has it ....or doesn’t.
It’s not a situational choice, it’s an inner part of one’s character.
2
In Camus' novel The Plague (1947), we see something akin to the world under Trump. Camus' novel has been said to have been inspired by the fascist plague in Europe in that period or an by actual disease epidemic.
In the story we see the worst side of human nature come to the fore in nearly all the characters. Except for Dr. Rieux who continues to treat patients even to the point of exhaustion. He just keeps plodding away with no recognition, no ego gratification, and not even hope for the outcome. He's not in it to be a hero, but because that is his job.
It rings true in current circumstances, In both the coronavirus pandemic and in Trump's impeachment we have seen public servants with the CDC and some career diplomats who testified in the impeachment come forward. It was clear that they weren't grandstanding or looking for political gain. But they were people doing the job that was theirs to do.
When I first read this novel, it changed my definition of what being/doing good means. When things are psychologically hard there are two choices. One is reactive, to give in to our worst sides and/or to crave relief/pleasure. The other is to carry on and do the thing that needs to be done, that is ours to do. That is the good thing. I think those doctors and nurses are doing that.
13
I disagree with the premise of this essay. Pandemics--like all events humans cannot predict or control--show each individual their best self. This mirror does not distort. It shows each of us who we are as community and individual.
Every single human has the chance to rise to a "best self" in a crisis, facing down individual fear and loss each day with compassion for others--and themselves.
I am afraid.
But--I also am compassionate, and will donate to food shelves, offer my limited services to over-burdened public health agencies (I have a car--I can drop off food and supplies to the quarantined, or take time off to sit at a call center to screen phone calls), and, of course, follow any and all guidlines for my behavior.
4
It is useless to fight against human nature. In emergencies, we always look out for ourselves and our families first. We need governments with their monopoly on violence to restrain and direct people’s individual aggression for the benefit of the community. I don’t have much compassion at the best of times, and there is no way I would consciously endanger myself or my family to save other people. But intellectually I know very well that we all need to hang together and that social collapse wold be horrible for everybody, myself included. I would obey the authorities in the time of a pandemic, even if it involves some personal sacrifice, such as restraining my freedom of movement or paying higher taxes. But I would never go out of my way to tend the sick or deliver food to the hungry if it jeopardizes my own health. Most people are like me. This is why we have the police and IRS.
1
It's not a good sign that the most recommended Readers Picks see the current situation primarily through a lens of partisan politics.
An effective response can only come with coordinated and developed planning, and that should have been done years ago. That is the fault of all of us, not merely a succession of Republican and Democratic Administrations that failed to do so.
Evolution has essentially created us as beings more concerned with present and near-future threats and needs than with those that are long-term and abstract. Putting it simply, we never demanded that our leaders prepare for such a threat, even though, sooner or later, it was inevitable that the threat would materialize.
Nonetheless, sometimes a people has unusually good leadership that is both willing and able to organize society to meet severe threats, to take the political risk to actually lead. America has had that. Can we get it together to very quickly produce in mass quantities what is needed to cope with an emergency and what is needed to prevent an economic meltdown? Yes. All you have to do is check out how quickly we ramped up to provide the planes, tanks, and other armaments needed to fight World War II and how the suddenly very distorted economy was held together. The difference between then and now is the rare informed leadership by F.D.R. then, and the lack of leadership -- let alone informed leadership -- by Trump now. But Trump is merely the canary in the coal mine of unpreparedness.
5
If only we had a better and bigger testing regimen, we might discover who has had the virus and is therefore immune to it and not contagious to others. These people would not fear others and could help out at hospitals and other venues where the sick and infected resided.
2
Totally disagree.
Crises, including pandemics, reveal true character. Those who are truly compassionate will become even more so. Those who claim they are compassionate, but are truly selfish, will be revealed.
You want to see an utter lack of compassion, watch FoxNews - they are blaming the Chinese and the Dems. This is who they really are.
16
I share your viewpoint.
A crisis only reveals what IS ALREADY THERE.
Mr. Brooks, instead of yelling at people and calling them cold and callous, you could use your platform to encourage your Republican buddies to try to help. Because, besides private acts of heroism and kindness, a mass epidemic requires serious public action.
Paid sick leave, for instance. Testing for anybody who has the symptoms, regardless of income or ethnicity or immigration status. Payment for treatment so the sick who can't afford treatment don't languish and die, or if you want to be selfish, don't run around infecting you.
And working for universal healthcare, for which there are many models worldwide to emulate, as soon as one has agreed that every human being has the right to affordable healthcare.
11
@Howard
What you are suggesting is anathema to Brooks who is still fighting the Cold War and lambasting the public policies you suggest as socialism. He's spent decades as a right-wing troll working in concert with his Republican bros to privatize and monetize everything possible. He's spent the last year demonizing Bernie Sanders as the second coming of Josef Stalin, and now wants to privatize heroism through individual acts of compassion in a culture that encourages selfishness and glorifies "rugged individualism" as if that is the answer to dealing with the current crisis.
2
Pandemics may not bring out the best in human nature, but three years if having Donald Trump as president has also effected our ability to be compassionate.
And seeing as he's out of his depth when it comes to dealing with this outbreak, there's no doubt things are going to get much worse before they get better.
6
I get what Mr. Brooks is saying, but now isn’t really the time for philosophizing about human nature. Instead, we need cold hard facts, a well designed plan coordinated between governments, hospitals, and medical experts, and resources to execute the plan. Not surprisingly, Trump is misleading the public through his sheer ignorance, the government agencies at the highest levels don’t seem to have a plan to stop this pandemic, and experts are screaming that hospitals are woefully unprepared to handle an epidemic of this magnitude.
6
I disagree JP. While we badly need everything you mentioned, we also need to be reminded of our humanity - it will give hope in the worst of times.
Brooks writes:
"This explains one of the puzzling features of [the 1918 pandemic]. [The pandemic] contributed to a kind of spiritual torpor afterward. People emerged from it physically and spiritually fatigued. [The flu] had a sobering and disillusioning effect on the national spirit. Perhaps it’s because people didn’t like who they had become. It was a shameful memory and therefore suppressed."
If you substitute "the 10-year rise of Trumpism within the Republican Party" into that paragraph for every reference to the 1918 flu, you get a truer explanation of why we're in the mess that we're in.
It also explains Brooks' inability to admit that he and his fellow (putatively) "reasonable conservatives" are partially responsible for this mess, because they sat in silent complicity during all of those years that they should have been speaking out as their own republican Party was fomenting lies, divisiveness, and hatred against half of Americans.
10
It's after midnight here along the shoreline in New Jersey. I spent the day helping an elderly neighbor who was deeply frightened by the news of COVID-19. His health is precarious and and he felt deeply ashamed about how upset he was with the prospect of dying from this pernicious virus. I was deeply humbled by his honesty in confronting the possibility of his own mortality. After a few hours we were able to enjoy a glass of wine and I watched as he fell asleep in the comfort of his bed. He was breathing easily and there was a serenity that enveloped his face. In the face of this virus and the real possibility of it taking so many of the elderly among us, I can only hope that many of you can share a moment like I did today with my elderly neighbor. His humility and naked humanity was deeply touching.
16
I’m not sure that’s entirely true about the workers in Kirkland. My sister lives a few miles from there, and as an infusion RN who normally travels to people’s homes, was offered $85 an hour to take some 12 hr shifts.
I am surprised Brooks did not mention Thucydides’ timeless description of the consequences of plague in Athens.
2
During one of the primary debates in the 2008 Republican Presidential Primary, Representative Ron Paul related an anecdote about a 31-year old young man who needed a life-saving procedure but he flaunted the value of health insurance and died. The audience cheered. Ron Paul's point was health solutions are available; personal responsibility is required.
Philantrophy, volunteerism, faith communities can solve the problems. Denying the expansion of medicaid rountinely kills thousands in red states every year. Cruelty and valuing markets and money over people has been a core value in the Republican ethos since 1980. Perhaps, the trio of Republican columnists at the Times, in time, will discover what is obvious to half the country.
3
Fear makes people more right-wing. This is well established.
That is basically what David Brooks is describing here; people becoming heartless right-wingers with no concept of the common good.
Thanks for the warning David Brooks, but I've been worried about that since well before this pandemic broke out.
12
The good news here in Denmark (we're gone into lockdown mode) is that literally thousands of people are reaching out with offers to help with childcare, shopping and even making meals. Schools are close. People are working from home. Public sector employees have been asked to take a leave from work for 2 weeks, with full time pay. Families are being asked to not visit loved ones in elderly care facilities (a big ask). We've been asked to avoid public transportation, and reports say people are complying. We're all covered by universal healthcare and paid sick leave. Big challenges. Heartfelt solidarity, with the exception of people in Copenhagen who seem to be hording toilet paper, of all things. Not so much in the countryside where I live. Here, the shelves are full in supermarkets. One gets the sense that when things go bad, Danes pull together. As an American, I hope the same thing happens in the USA.
6
@Valerie Navarro
If course it does. I'm older and many neighbors have already checked in. They do it with some trepidation, knowing I fancy myself to be independent, but they are brave nonetheless. (smile) I have the best neighbors in the world.
2
My great grandfather’s 20-something sister fainted and fell face first into the fireplace in 1918 flu epidemic. She died some three weeks later.
My great grandfather and his sister were orphaned by typhoid fever when they were infants so they grew up with a special bond. He didn’t talk about his sister’s death much and yet his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren all knew it was the abiding sadness of his life.
This time around it is older people at risk and I worry about my mother who is in her 80s (his first granddaughter). But also I worry about our capacity for compassion. We (and me) do need to take our personal compassion now and extend it outward to everyone in our immediate community and beyond. I hope we (and me) all rise to meet that test.
7
Pedantry is unnecessary to illustrate a point when you have the facts and means to sanely, morally and ethically communicate to the entire country at once. Botching the crisis was / is unnecessary, except the Trump Administration can’t help itself . Jared Kushner is reportedly working on strategy to combat the political “crisis” after the market crashed following Trump’s speech to the nation.
What neither Boccaccio nor Defoe could say was that their communities were teeming with brilliant meritocrats who had looted their economies making it even more difficult to address the plagues, because that distinction goes to today’s USA. During Boccaccio’s time, epileptics were also stoned to death because they were thought to be possessed by the “evil” spirit. We now know better.
Leadership is important in calming anxieties and guiding people to be as safe as possible and protect themselves, their families, communities and ultimately the country. We also need much better factual journalistic reporting, not musings.
2
Yes, I wish there will be more compassion in America during this crisis that is about to become worse. It will test us. From what I read about Trump's address, all treatment for this disease will be covered by insurance companies. Not so much as was instantly fact checked. The insurance companies will waive the test fees or the co-pays for the test fees. Not for hospitalization for the unlucky.
Americans, at least a significant amount of Democrats, so far, have rejected, Warren's candidacy and are on the verge of rejecting Sander's candidacy. These are the other only two who have unequivocally proposed universal coverage while others have danced and shimmied around the edges including Biden who keeps pointing to the ACA as one of his accomplishments.
Never mind Trump and Co, they would take away healthcare even during this crisis and blame Obama, God, Europeans, China or some other entity but themselves.
Where do we go from here? Are we going to demand universal healthcare AND get it or try to forget this episode like Americans did after the 1918 epidemic and go shopping?
4
@Gary Valan
If the Sandy Hook shooting of 25 little kids didn't get you gun control, this pandemic isn't going to get you healthcare.
Remember what Mitt Romney said, and learn from him. "Corporations are people, too."
America loves corporations. They get preferential tax treatments and bailout bills at the drop of a hat. No cutting down on avocado toast and lattes for the!
So to get anywhere, just declare yourself a corporation. If corporations are people, then people can be corporations. You are no longer a person, but a corporate entity with employees and shareholders (your family and children.) Politicians will listen to you because you are now a "job creator". You will get bailouts, tax dodging schemes and all sorts of other government pork you never could as just a human.
I’ll never forget Bush’s comments while at Ground Zero on 9/11..
“everyone go shopping!”
There’s a crucial difference between the public health crises Brooks writes about, and the present pandemic: here, vulnerability increases with age. Youth has almost everywhere meant immunity to Covid-19. And age, vulnerability. What this will mean — and in some quarters, has meant — is that young people will lead, serve, and show compassion and grace to the elderly, even as the elderly immolate the planet in a fog of carbon.
In third world countries like the one where I was raised, youth perforce care for their elders. Perhaps Covid-19 will spur the same turn in the US, where youth already quarantine even their healthy elders in distant homes. Perhaps the present crisis will give the young yet another occasion to be heroic, adding to a list that includes the climate crisis, gun control, Black mortality, and mass deportation. We may very well like what we see. Brooks may be wrong.
6
We may look back on Trump's last State of the Union address as a kind of comic American version of Pericles's great oration to the Athenians as told in Thucydides, where it marks the turning point in the fortunes of Athens. Just after this peak of glory, the plague struck. Within a year Pericles himself, along with his two sons, fell victim.
5
@John
Meanwhile, in modern day American, centrist Democrats believe their most "electable" and "decent" candidate is a guy who just said last week - on national tv - that he would veto a Medicare For All Bill even if the Senate passed it. Why? Because it would "cost too much".
Those corporate bailout to combat profit losses from a pandemic don't cost too much, eh Joe?
5
@John
Pericles promoted the arts and literature; it is largely through Pericles' efforts that Athens acquired the reputation of being the educational and cultural center of the ancient Greek world.
Trump promotes lies, bankruptcy and fakery.
10
The death of compassion in the pandemic is not inevitable. Many people are capable of compassion in a crisis if they have the opportunity to show it. But it must be modeled and encouraged.
What much of our national leaders lack, even more than clarity or competence, is decency. In this time decency is manifested by solidarity, the recognition that we are in this together. Instead, we get the usual flood of invective, vainglorious bluster, and self-promotion. A shining city on the hill?
3
My father as a five-year-old living in a Chicago tenement vowed to become a doctor after seeing horse-drawn hearses pass by day after day taking Spanish flu victims to the morgue. He trained both in public health and internal medicine, understanding their symbiotic relationship. Were he alive today, he would be dismayed at how a similar pattern may be taking place a century later despite all the advances made in the interim.
324
@Jon Yes, I think of my parents also, born toward the beginning of the 20th Century. As much as I miss them, I am glad they are not here to witness the political and health-related paradigms of today. Under Trump, these entities have become adversely knotted together.
20
@Jon Alas, the ability of cruel people to manipulate the unenlightened persists, and absolute power always corrupts. No one was thinking about Katrina when they voted for the unproven and soulless trump.
8
@Jon People felt responsible for their lives as adults back then. Now it's what will government do and give to me. Be a child to power and you will remain a confused child without any power.
1
We are about to see how thick the ice is that the working class , middle class and poor have been walking on since 2009. They are up to their ears in dept as it is now they will be asked to stay home for 2 or 3 weeks without pay. Told they will have to pay copay's on hospital stays or intensive care if needed?This could truly be the straw that breaks the camels back. The Fed gave 1.5 trillion to Wall Street on the notion that it would halt the market free fall. It worked or less than a hour. We could have forgiven all the student dept for one hour market stability. Mitch McConnell went home for a three day weekend without a vote on Covid-19 relief funding. It may not just be Trump the people break out the pitchforks and torches for. It maybe the entire corrupt government.
71
The Republicans. It’s them.
3
"What's our responsibility to one another?" Conservatives have trampled on, bloodied, buried compassion since Reagan. Maybe the pandemic will awaken you to the reality and value of our responsibility to one another. Why not support Pelosi's compassionate package of responsible governance in the face of this crisis?
504
I am afraid that Republicans will want to help the billionaires and discard the rest of us.
31
@teach
Why? Because it is a temporary measure designed to help compensate business losses than to help people get healthcare.
5
@teach
Rush Limbaugh, a fellow traveler with Brooks in the GOP, has long openly mocked what he derisively calls "the compassion crowd."
The hilarious thing is that the vast majority of these people fancy themselves Christians.
7
I am a firm believer that there are more good people in this world then there are bad. Little acts of kindness and compassion exist every hour of the day, unfortunately it’s not put forth front and center. Instead we seem to exist on the worse. With this pandemic occurring I for one will always be compassionate towards others and especially to be kind. Dr. Li Wenliang did not sacrifice his life for nothing. He was showing his compassion by treating those who were sick and he died for this. Please let’s remember this person and all of our first responders doing the best with what little they have o work with for now.
308
@Martha White I am with you on daily acts of compassion, including moments of cognitive and active empathy (doorways to compassion). I remember the tsunami hitting Japan and the rather instant response in individual fundraising - there are many moments like that. Not highlights for media so much.
I think the delusion that we are always in control of things causes great confusion and additional suffering. Life has a lot of suffering (and causes) and we do have some control over how to respond. Perhaps the "me-first" or "we are no.1" clouds our most basic instinct that is "caring."
Naturally, guilt and shame follow our disappointing action or non-action moments. It takes courage, and sometimes, in our lives, there just aren't great outcomes. But if we offer our best, which includes compassion and kindness, we might feel better about ourselves.
Compassion can be hard-nosed also - wrathful too. It requires a large view of our experiences. All the lies and coverups are part of a pathology of really insecure person (in my opinion). Truth and transparency require courage and standing in the trauma - showing up to it - and caring.
19
@Tom Beautifully written. No matter what, compassion and kindness is what makes us all human.
10
@Martha White I think there are only actions: all people are capable of good and bad actions and I think this distribution is largely normal across all people. When you say "good people" you mean those who do more good actions than bad (perhaps some who do almost all good). Here I am using good and bad to mean what is good/bad for the world/universe, not for the individual.
However, I think there are a few people who are selfish, self-centred, ego-driven who do a lot more bad actions than good and these actions tend to dominate. These are the people with power. Even a previously "good person" tends to become corrupted due to power (Jimmy Carter is the only exception I know of in recent decades in terms of political power).
I think humans are incapable of holding power in a good way consistently over others, and we need to flatten our democracy more and more for the goodness of the world to come through. It's the only way humans will make it as a civilisation.
10
Thank you for this thoughtful writing Mr. Brooks.
I don't feel personally threatened by this virus. Even though I'm 60+ years old, I'm healthy and pretty certain I would weather the infection. However, I have a beloved member of my household with compromised lungs whom I fear would not weather the infection. If I brought the virus home, it might be the end of my friend.
I'll do what I can to assist my neighbors, but I'm being as careful as I know how. This is not being selfish.
197
I feel this way. Family who are more at risk. I dearly wish I lived alone right now. I would be in a better position to function if things get bad.
16
@Kenneth Brady No, it's not selfish. it is being cautious. Just because you haven't shown up to volunteer at a hospital it doesn't mean you aren't compassionately caring for someone at home. At our age, there often is someone at home who needs extra care when sickness hits.
9
Thanks for the shout out to us physicians, nurses, resp therapists and all the others who are on the front line. Most of us will be OK, many of us will get COVID-19 (or SARS-CoV-2) and some of us will die caring for the nation. None of us will think twice about it either. Those of us who deliver direct care still have a strong code of ethics and belief in our mission that I hope never wanes.
135
@China doubter thank you! My sister, who was a nurse, felt she was always on call, any time, any place, for any one.
2
@China doubter
Dear China,
I live in Portland. I'm your neighbor. Thank you!
2
But now we have new and creative ways to socialize: yesterday one granddaughter phoned and today texted me; tonight I FaceTimed with my other granddaughter. I’m emailing regularly with friends of five decades. Maybe this one will kill me but previous plagues were much more isolating.
169
Perhaps it’s a good time to re-read Geraldine Brooks “Year of Wonders”, and Nobel Prize-winner Sigurd Undset’ s “Kristin Lavransdatter”, which deal exquisitely with the isolation during plagues, and the bravery and epiphanies required of individuals, and societies as a whole.
Although we can certainly be thankful for technology keeping us more connected than in eras past, the best leader on a fearsome trek into icy, rugged, or parched wilderness, is the one who can take care of the slowest hiker.
29
@Liz Webster
I live in Tucson, Arizona. I have never been to Tasmania, and I will likely never meet you.
Still, your words from afar resonate deeply.
I know we will survive this crisis. And I sustain hope that we will emerge much stronger than we were before.
18
@Adele James
I am 87 and not too worried about the virus.
For people such as myself who has the internet, use a cell phone with good reception, reads books from a Nook, (no need for library visits), and can Skype all my family members everywhere, we are the fortunate ones even in our isolation.
However, we have many in rural sections of the country that have no internet or spotty service, and they will find isolation far more constricting.
16
This piece by David Brooks helped me better see why the coronavirus crisis feels so different compared to the way another calamitous event in New York City (9/11) felt 19 years ago. During most crises and tragedies people need and benefit from being with others. With a pandemic, that therapeutic togetherness is replaced by social distancing.
202
@Jeffrey Freedman perhaps we find other ways of "togetherness" sitting on our front porch and chatting with a neighbor or calling up an Aunt you haven't spoken to in some time. Perhaps we find ways to knit together via social media.
David has written a moving essay about the reality of epidemics, and, indeed, many crises that affect too many, too personally. This made me think of a word we use frequently but often do not heed. The word is "empathy." As a young student nurse, I first was taught about that above attribute and along with it, its other half, compassion. Being immature, sheltered - and spoiled - I went through the motions as a young, inexperienced hospital nurse. I didn't fully understand it until as a young mother, my first born was born with physical problems that could have been lethal if not for excellent care. ( She is very healthy now!) I was useless in my panic. It was then that I began to look at people so differently not only in my job but also in my personal life. David is giving us a heads-up on what really counts during this tough odyssey called life. We must work ourselves into other people's minds and hearts. We do not see this in this present Trump administration. But we, all of us, are up to the task to reach out and help others with love.
251
@Kathy Lollock
Exceptional comment Kathy.
Someone will always find themselves in a worse situation than the one I may be experiencing.
Empathy and humility seem to be in such short supply in the current administration. But also, I would hope people would take pause, look around and extend a helping hand to someone who is struggling. Sometimes even a kind word or a soft smile could make a world of difference to someone who suddenly does not feel so alone or abandoned or frightened.
39
@Kathy Lollock
Thank you, Kathy. My students often tell me that they read so many messages that they should focus on themselves and worry about getting ahead. They know there's something rotten about that message but they see it enough and some start to believe it.
Many of them want to do good things but when larger culture influences them to do otherwise, they begin to move in the wrong direction. As Marge Keller points out, we need to be other-directed. And hopefully, that will win out over the behavior of the selfish and self-centered.
I like Brooks for pointing out that good health-care people still exist. And they work tirelessly in difficult times. I salute them.
32
@Marge Keller Thank you, Marge. I also have been thinking about Nicholas K's recent column re the steps to take during this coronavirus. He had one suggestion that I found valuable for me. That is for all of us retired nurses and doctors to volunteer our services in the case of hospitals becoming overwhelmed and understaffed. That can happen easily with this disease. We saw it not too long ago with our 2017 Tubb's Fire where only one of our major hospitals was able to stay open.
16
One advantage we have over medieval populations ravaged by pandemics is that we have ways of staying "close" to people emotionally without getting close to them physically. Now is the time for social media to show its positive side, keeping us connected and caring even if we're physically alone.
264
@Alison Case
That would be ideal if it was indeed used that way.
I fear, however, it will continue to be used as wedge and a propoganda tool.
For those reasons, I don't use Social Platforms.
4
This is where leadership comes in. When everyone can trust the guidance and information they are receiving from the top, they won’t turn on each other in fear. Unfortunately, we have a failure of a president.
385
@NM And hopefully we'll be around to see him "unelected" in November.
5
@NM
Even those who loathed Winston Churchill's politics during WW2 recognized that he then had the invaluable gift of inspiring confidence in the British people during a very dark time in their nation's history. We don't realize how important confidence is until we either lack it, or are threatened with the prospect of possibly losing it. Confidence frames our quite limited attention so that that our expectations appear reliable. We can exert greater control over our lives when we have confidence that is anchored in hopeful, yet realistic expectations. Kenneth Clarke in his masterly BBC miniseries "Civilization" said that "lack of confidence can destroy a civilization, and once almost did." So despite the complexity and solidity of our own civilization, like all empires in the past it is quite fragile.
4
@NM Yes, leadership sets the tone as well as the public's attitude. I keep on thinking of two things. The first is that if this were President Obama there would not be so much fear, anxiety, and panic, and that he would cede infectious disease protocols to the experts like Dr. Fauci et al. He would also be our ever-present Consoler-in-Chief. The second is more of a question: Why now, why with the worst president in recent history do we have such a dreadful disease spreading in our nation and the world?
10
I am actually at peace. I am high risk (71), and my wife has a chronic condition, too. We are both retired physicians. We are home and there is now nothing on our schedule other than to survive, not be a burden to the medical system, and if we can safely, help. Today, I worked in the woods on a trail for the Forest Service. I drove myself to the work site, worked with good people my age who also drove themselves in some instances, and we were well outside close contact.
The medical care system in the US is going to change after this. I am not sure how it will change, but this will be transformative.
I just wish we would have been more like South Korea and less like Italy. When I heard today that Bill Gates was going to help, I knew for a fact we are a now third world country when it comes to medicine.
I am at peace knowing that my unsuccessful work 20 years ago trying to improve medical systems was on the right track. To my detractors, just a "I told you so."
745
@Mike S. I wouldn't call it unsuccessful. Those efforts that are happening now and that will happen in the future are building from what you've done. I appreciate your service, now as well as then.
67
@Mike S. I hope you had a nice day to be outside. Here in Vermont, the sap is flowing and people seem to be coming out of hibernation after a long winter! Peace to you.
26
@Mike S. For a long time health care in the US has become a money making profession. We know many friends who pushed their kids to become physicians and dentists because they could make money. It wasn’t about altruism as much as about the prestige of the profession. Many of these physician kids married other physicians and build mega mansions to raise their families. We happened to attend a wedding of two physician kids of two pairs of physician parents and the whole deal was over the top extravaganza. Hospitals are for profit machines, big insurers and big Pharma make money off them. Medical college tuitions keep soaring. Who pays for all this? We the consumers, the patients. The costs are passed on to us, our employers buy into this whole scheme.
35
There was already no compassion. For the incarcerated, for example.
Try an image search for "US prison overcrowding."
It should always have been blood chilling to look at prisoners jammed together so cruelly. But today?
Last month SCOTUS ruled against an inmate's suit. He was routinely made to walk in raw sewage barefoot, something, like the presence of rats, which is not extraordinary.
Search for images of immigrant detention, including those of children.
No compassion for the homeless, the addicted, the mentally ill. The local shelter sleeps 300 in one room.
Outside the grocery today, a toothless old drunk man touched my arm and leaned his well lubricated face to breath into mine, as I reared back in fear for my health.
He's there because we do not house the needy or treat the addicted and mentally ill.
It will be too late for some of these.
Not because the virus causes us, but because our society already was cruel.
7
The only leader that have the courage to do what has to be done to save democracy is Bernie Sanders. Biden and Trump will op to save Wall Street and the 1%.
7
A fine piece, Mr. Brooks.
Your pointing out that the "one exception to this sad litany" is the health care workers, reminds me of what Fred Rogers ("Mr. Rogers") had said to reassure children (and adults, for that matter) when bad things happen: Look to the helpers. They are and will be the locus of compassion and determination in the coming days. Let's keep our eyes on them.
6
Huge difference between "health care" and "medical treatment." When the stakes are high, the latter is the norm and it can be pretty brutal.
The irony of the coronavirus panic that has seized the U.S. is that the present crisis has highlighted the incompetent political leadership and bankrupt policies of the Republican party. Repeated cuts to federal and state public health services and rejection of universal health insurance are now exacting a high cost. If coronavirus tests aren't available, even the 1% can't find out if they have been infected. If the uninsured (and particularly the undocumented) can't afford tests or are reluctant to be
tested, the rate of community spread of the coronavirus will increase more rapidly and will even reach (God forbid) Republicans! This pandemic won't bring about any moral failings that didn't already exist and, similar to Trump's character, weren't already in plain view.
15
I have zero compassion for the states that fought against the Medicaid expansion and the folks who don’t want to pay a medical premium but expect care when they need it. We Americans need to grow up, pay our fair share and stop worrying about what other people are getting and demand we all participate
We should begin by taxing all income as ordinary income. Employers of part time and contract workers must subsidize healthcare and living wages must be paid. The rich need to share the wealth.
76
Your points get to the agonies of rationing that might face our physicians and other health care workers: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/opinion/coronavirus-hospital-shortage.html .
Maybe we'll get lucky, but it will take some luck--in addition to much better responses from the federal government than we have seen so far. Many of the potential decisions could be quite uncomfortable.
1
@JSK
As an extension to these remarks and to some of Mr. Brooks' points, the germ theory did not take hold until the late 19th century and penicillin was not discovered until almost 1930. So there is reason to think that stronger public health measures would help some, in spite of hypothetical shortages and rationing that might need to occur.
Mr. Brooks, that was then -- this is now. Outside of the useless Trump administration and the Republicans in Congress, the American people are together in fighting this pandemic. I just wish we had the federal government on board in this fight.
11
@RRM This is now. People are more self centered, greedy and selfish.
Bernie is about to win the argument even as he's losing the nomination.
Paid time off, and universal health care would mean that workers who provide the services we depend upon would be in decent shape to not have to go to work despite being sick and spread infection, to wealthy democrats and nasty selfish republicans.
What does Bernie do? He amazingly, graciously proceeds to tell Biden how he can unify the nation behind him - but that means Biden will have to lean towards Bernie and away from his 60 billionaire doners.
It will be interesting to see how all of this unfolds.
Sander may not become president, but his face should be chiseled onto Mt Rushmore when this is all over.
17
@Tim Kane
"Sanders may not become president, but his face should be chiseled onto Mt Rushmore when this is all over."
I think Bernie Sanders will be remembered for something far more important than a place on Mt. Rushmore. I predict he will enter our history texts as the prophet who raised essential questions about the failure of the American system to come close to meeting important needs of the American people in such a way as to shift all future political discussion leftward into areas that previously we thought we could avoid: extreme inequality, mediocre public education, a dismal healthcare system, lack of affordable housing, global warming, ever-reducing living standards, money ownership of politics, etc. Sanders has brought these issues to the fore, and they will never be off the table again. The young will guarantee it.
9
This comment correctly reflects, I believe, the way Sanders will be remembered by historians. Those same historians will also point out that "intellectuals" like David Brooks published essays entitled "Not Bernie, Not Now, Not Ever" when his message was needed the most.
6
@Tim Kane Sanders and his cult like followers are the main reason we have Trump.
Compassion's been dead in this country since the Republican Party figured out a way to get cruel Christians to prop up millionaires and billionaires in exchange for a waving flag, a white cross and a wink and a knowing nod to 'states rights' back in 1980.
In what other rich country are so many tens of millions economically abandoned to Grand Old Poverty with slave wages, limited healthcare, underfunded education systems, collapsed infrastructure, record income inequality, high infant mortality, opioid despair epidemics and an alternate 'news' universe that systematically disinforms them to keep voting against progress ?
The fact that this country's healthcare remains an ongoing economic crime against American humanity is prima facie evidence of Americans' cruelty to one another.
No one would design such a cruel sticker shock medical system that keeps tens of millions away from routine doctor visits, but America's 'cruel Christian' culture, which is owned and operated by the Republican party, ensures that this incredibly sickening for-profit healthcare system remains cruelly in place.
One good thing about this coronavirus crisis is that it will show how cruel and compassionless America's public policies are: shoddy unaffordable healthcare, unaffordable childcare, slave wages, a tax system that favors the rich, a campaign finance owned and operated by the rich and a right-wing political party that is directly responsible for all of this cruel public policy.
Nice GOPeople.
289
@Socrates
Spot on. Every word.
6
@Socrates sadly democrat physicians buy into this whole health care sham. They have no problem with private insurance becoming rich Pharma companies becoming super wealthy. They get to party in conferences, have free lunch so they too can prescribe nasty addictive medicines to gullible patients.
2
@Socrates don't forget that the Trump Administration Fired the US Pandemic Response Team. OOPs.
www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/
Remember 80% of the white evangelicals helped to elect dump Donald. I guess they rationalized it by thinking 'the end justifies the means'. Unfortunately the Bible does not support that thinking. In fact there must be a dozen passages that do NOT support that way of thinking. OOPS again.
8
We've already seen social distancing as Republicans and Democrats have learned to talk past one another. Remember, Republicans had a time in December to remove this clearly corrupt president during impeachment hearings, but the Senate did exactly what Mitch McConnell told them to. They assumed the stock market would keep going up. Trump doesn't want to admit how many people have the virus, so we have wasted precious time. Who knew that a narcissistic, megalomaniac would drive this country into bankruptcy, just as he has done repeatedly in his own life? Well, everyone who wasn't watching Fox News. The founding fathers built in checks and balances for a reason, but they never could have imagined a Trump. The Republicans have blood on their hands, I don't know if recovery is possible.
20
Most of us realize that here's a very thin veneer to civilization. We're about to find out the thickness (or thinness) of the veneer to American Evangelical Christianity.
5
Mr. Brooks, you could be correct on a general basis that many people will lose empathy.
Nevertheless, there may be another side to human behavior. Every few decades, I would visit a cemetery in Austin with my father. He would show me where my grandmother and his father [a man I never met] were buried. Despite not having met my grandfather, my father told me many a story about him.
And my father would always show me the section of the cemetery where many died of the Spanish flu, many of whom were our ancestors. My father never met them, but he had been told stories about their lives by his mother, father and grandfather.
When my father raised my sisters and me, he was always a fighter for the little guy. For him, principles mattered more than money.
He became a pharmacist and later a hospital administrator.
I always wondered if his career choices were influenced by the suffering of our ancestors, that is, he had compassion and empathy for those who were helpless.
17
A rare sane word these days, thanks!
3
I just watched our governor listlessly reading some prepared remarks on tv about the current crisis, occasionally lifting his expressionless eyes from the lectern. It reminded me of Trump’s performance yesterday, minus the teleprompter. These guys are just are not equipped to deal with a crisis. Their body language and monotone manner of speech fairly scream, “Somebody please get me out of here! I’m hopelessly clueless and out of my depth.” I’ll never slight Bill Clinton again for feeling our pain. At least he tried.
17
As a hardcore conservative-turned-liberal, I get it. But let's stop the hate and just come together for a bit and end this.
9
Better late than never (re: political affiliation)!
I recognize this is not the “forum” in which to clarify,
but I am SOOOO curious as to why you made this turn.....
congrats
Trump is right to suspend travel to the United States. Under his guidance, the US has utterly failed at containment of the virus. The US has inadequately engaged in the quarantine and testing of its own people. So now it is our responsibility to protect international travelers. From us. That's one form of compassionate response, isn't it?
9
Blue Moon, you make a great point. And Mexico may end up paying for a wall! Canada too!
“In all pandemics people are forced to make the decisions that doctors in Italy are now forced to make — withholding care from some of those who are suffering and leaving them to their fate.”
<— No physician is “withholding” care from anyone, in Italy or elsewhere! The point is that there is a shortage of supplies; there is simply nothing to offer. That’s extremely different from “withholding”, (which implies there is something available and that something is not being given. )
9
@GBR I totally agree. As a physician, I'm horrified at the articles (including one from the NYT today) that seek to create hysteria by implying that the day may come when physicians leave people to die in hallways while treating others. The medical community is ready to fight this as long as necessary.
3
All the attributes we need now..compassion, thoughtfulness, implementation---have all but left the Oval Office---not that they were ever there to begin with.
4
David points to a clear natural phenomena which occurs every time a society is confronted with a non human, unseen, and implacable threat. Americans will do what they can to help each other, despite little or no rational help from their venal self-centered 'leadership' who will hide in a resort and tweet random statements, some true, some false, if past behavior is any guide.
2
This is an important warning, but I have hope that we will take the opportunity to come together, rather than push each other apart.
Consider these large and small compassionate acts:
• Health workers, the world around, are volunteering to do extra shifts in dangerous circumstances.
• Kevin Love, a star of the Cleveland Cavalier NBA basketball team just donated $100,000 of his own money to help laid-off Arena workers, and NBA teams are following suit.
15
I can't help but recall the 1918 flu epidemic ravaging the U.S. Armu as it was expanding from a constabulary force of around 120,000 to a force of 4 million, 2 million of whom were shipped to France, and enough of those were kept well enough to defeat the German Army. And of course, that was with rudimentary health care compared to today. I don't have the words to express the difference a century makes.
2
@Don
WW1 was, for all intents and purposes, already over by the time the Spanish Flu in its 1918 form hit the home front. The US Army, in fact, made things worse by insisting on unnecessary mustering and conscription and billeting in camps, against the advice of their own medical corp and doctors. Cities like Philadelphia also made things worse by holding totally unnecessary parades to raise war bonds for a war that was already won (by the British starvation blockade), AGAIN against the advice of epidemiologists and the government's own medical experts (under the auspices of the army).
It was a shameful and foolish spectacle all around, and all basically for nothing. Nothing, except maybe pride.
5
Intrepid reporters I'm sure will find many examples of how the super rich will use their wealth and connections to circumvent the difficulties that the rest of us will face. If COVID19 does continue to spread, we will see at least a few politicians, sports figures, famous entertainers and other celebrities become critically ill and die. But wealth makes it easier to "socially distance": not having to go to work, many are probably already hunkering down in gated communities, large private homes, with every need still attended to.
10
@Peter Happened in the Middle Ages that way. The premise of the Decameron is a bunch of rich people holed up in a villa outside Florence to shelter from the plague.
Italy has gone in lockdown exactly not to have to ‘choose’ who can live and who should die. This kind of cynicism does not belong to Italian culture. Doctors, nurses, hospital staff, have been working till they drop to take care of, and save, every single life. But in the US, a country that does not have, nor has fought, for public healthcare, where money is the winner and the weak left behind, there may well be such a cynical scenario.
19
Daniel Defoe's 'A Journal of the Plague Year' was not history. It was a novel. A mistake I've made myself a couple of times. " Bring out your dead" is a common quote. It isn't fact. Upton SInclair's the 'The Jungle' might be a similar sort of tract. There was a purpose behind each that isn't apparent. Sinclair's novel was an indictment of Capitalism and support of Communism. Defoe's purpose was to warn Britain and the world of the sleeping devil (the plague) on the horizon. It was the movie 'Contagion' of it's day. Just to be clear.
10
@Jon
Yes, being an avid reader, I read "A Journal of the Plague Year". I also read (as a child) many stories about children of poverty in the rich-poor years that remind me of now. "The Poor Little Match Girl" comes to mind, along with "The Little Princess". Poor children, freezing to death outside - looking into windows where the rich are having a fine dinner. Or pressing their noses against bakery windows looking at warm rolls.
8
We become ugly & less compassionate beings during pandemics when confronted with the uncomfortable truth of how insignificant we really are. If we want to change how things are in desperate times, we need to change the way we use words. But can language games set us free despite talk being so cheap? Since language games are played by humans, we can notice what is going on when we see things as this, or as that. How we use language admits contestation and change, in virtue of what it is. Maybe it’s wrong of me to share my rebellious views since I live in a state of dissatisfaction with language. At times I feel alienated, cut off from others and myself within language. While the contented seem to me as untroubled or unfazed. Using language is an integral part of the human condition. We live within language, yet our way of life is something we find hard to see. One doesn’t usually have proper insight into ones own emotional makeup. Most of us spend our time trying to rationalize our behavior as a result of our lack of self awareness. To be continuously self aware involve a great deal of introspection and even then, it’s an extremely difficult job. Indeed, as long as there is language it will confuse us, we will face the temptation to misunderstand. And there is no vantage point outside it. There is no escape from language games then, but we can forge a kind of freedom from within them. We might first need to ‘be stupid’ or embrace our insignificance if we are to see this.
4
It is good when events show us who we are as a nation and as individuals. We can see our life, others and our affiliations more clearly. Today we may see anger, denial, blame yet tomorrow we will see acceptance and in some cases, compassion with open handed helping. These can be great and clarifying times. Truth and reality are always somehow refreshing regardless of how difficult.
2
Well, some of us have been fortunate enough to have handicapped siblings, who teach us “being there” all of our lives. And, sometimes it was pretty scary, too. So, ya, I guess some still have some learning to do.
6
Four decades of ascendancy of a socio-economic theory that advocated looking out for one's own interest first and foremost, I'd argue, has already done a pretty good job of preparing us for who Mr. Brooks thinks we're "about to become." It would seem that an unfortunate byproduct of allowing the market to determine the good and the consequent privatization of everything has been a loss of muscle memory about to how act to collectively in the face of a crisis like we now face. Hopefully the pandemic will not, as David foresees, "overwhelm the bonds of human affection" but rather remind us that we are all in this together, a perspective that has been atrophying for years under the neoliberalism for which he has been a leading spokesman.
36
In the past humanity was mostly ignorant about the causation of the epidemics they experienced. It's difficult to be morally judgmental in most cases.
Today, we are much more knowledgeable, but morally bankrupt. We knew how to prepare. But certain politicians didn't want to spend the money. Others did not understand the ramifications of our "just in time" economy. Supply lines were quickly slashed.
11
Altruism is a powerful force, but absent parent child or romantic love, it needs direction, training and discipline to apply it under threatening circumstances. Only with such preparation can human beings overcome the more basic survival need. Our medical teams have those prerequisites, volunteers don't. Catastrophe after catastrophe proves the point. Donner party?
3
Well we should have expected as much from a conservative,now it's every man for himself. This is the kind of leadership and compassion we don't need. VOTE your health and wallet in November.
6
The type of knowledge and medicine available in 1918 and 2020 bears no comparison. The advances that have taken place during the intervening years allow people to know how to protect themselves and their loved ones (hand washing/sanitizer/social-distancing etc.). In countries with universal health care, testing is free as well access to health care. Many countries, including Canada, have established COVID-19 Clinics to deal with this infectious disease. In the United States, however, where tests are not free and hourly wage workers have no sick days, guess what? 1918 is back again, at least for the poor, and then - for everyone else.
35
@A Glasier
You're absolutely right. The way the market has dominated the U.S., causing us to fend for ourselves, has made responding to this crisis all the more challenging.
The irony I see in Brooks' piece here is that he has been, and continues to be, a champion of the very system that has no compassion in the first place - unless you happen to be a person "on top" of the pecking order.
15
Maybe this is a time for compassion, not academia. Seems pandemics bring out the worse in leadership. The leaders failed us so often. Citizens are left with little understanding or direction. In 1918, local leaders, worrying about the new Sedition Act, and with little information were second guessing themselves. The biggest issue here are politics, the lack of clear information and incredibly poor leadership. Look there instead of accusing citizens of not having compassion. People step up if there's clear information, understanding and direction. In chaos, survival takes a higher importance than compassion.
6
Rising temperatures and melting sea ice will have a significant impact on all our lives, least of which may be the release of pathogens we have no immunity to. Consider the COVID-19 global pandemic a trial run. To Congress, end the political squabbling, take care of our fellow residents in this country and do everything possible to save our planet. For the rest of us, the time has come to grow up and stop looking for someone else to "make life right for me". America is a country not known for its generous societal safety net but the time is upon us when compassion dictates that every one of us start to care enough about "the other" to lend a hand to those in need. You don't think so now but next month or next year or the next decade it could be you knocking on a door hoping for a friendly face and a helping hand.
20
Speaking of Boccaccio, Italy was also hit hardest by the bubonic plague in the 14th century. They reemerged, in the following century to experience a rebirth, a renaissance, and the renewal of humanism.
12
Only from a toxic mind and sphere of influence would such wildly fraudulent adulation come of a healthcare system that can test fewer than 10 people per million when a far more densely populated nation can test in the thousands.
44
Compassion is dying, if not dead already, in some people who are frightened by the virus. Where I live there is no toilet paper to be found in the stores, no hand sanitizer or other personal cleaning products. Today my husband and I are nearly out of toilet paper and have only a little sanitizer left. But the store shelves are bare, stripped clean by the people who are looking out for themselves with no regard for the way others are affected.
I'm concerned that there will be other shortages if this crisis continues. We need effective leadership to steady our human tribal instincts, to keep us together when disaster strikes.
It seems to me that one essential role of government should be to have in place a strong committee in charge of disaster planning, one that can step in in the event of a pandemic such as this, and ensure measures are put in place to prevent shortages of goods and services. A pandemic response team is necessary, but Trump eliminated that two years ago, because, as I heard him say, "We don't know if we'll ever need that."
Duh.
58
Good point. The hoarding is a bit distasteful.
9
@Teri: Thanks for pointing this out. A friend in California was mentioning that household essentials were scarce in stores, and I disapprovingly called it "panic buying." She defended it by claiming that it was necessary to stock up if you were going to self-quarantine. But I'm curious as to what percentage of the products being hoarded will actually wind up in use. Another friend, who has cancer and is extremely vulnerable, said that by the time she got around to realizing that she was going to have to stay at home, it was impossible to buy hand sanitizer. How many healthy people with too much extra cash are now selfishly hoarding, making it impossible for sick people who really need supplies to get any?
3
Imagine. And that's when leadership is reasonably competent and the individual tasked with protecting the health and safety of a country's populace isn't a compulsive liar.
But for what it's worth, David, I've seen gestures of immense generosity ranging from individuals offering to shop for home-bound seniors, to a restaurant in Dublin, Ireland, reserving a lunch table every day for the next two weeks for local nurses/doctors to enjoy a free meal.
22
One can draw plenty of examples from China during Covid-19 crisis. Volunteers including dispatchers, doctors, and nurses drove or flew in to help patients and trapped citizens in Hubei province and city of Wuhan, the Covid-19 epicenter. Despite their own family consideration, they fought in the front line in a highly contagious and dangerous environment. People asked them why they did it. Many different answers emerge. For doctors & nurses, it is their obligation and duty. Some say that they can make a contribution to their country or make a difference to the society. Others say they like to help people. Even few say they want excitement and build up personal experience. Who knows. Life is unpredictable. That is for sure.
12
@Usok I'm sure the same authoritarian Communist party that hid the virus from the world for precious months, refused western involvement in study and containment, and silenced its physicians, had nothing to do with the draconian, if effective, Wuhan response.
@Usok Nothing admirable about China! They're the cause of all this.
Having more knowledge about disease then we did in 1918 or during the Black Plague I think will help. People are afraid of what they don’t understand. What we do understand about this pandemic is that around or more than 99% of healthy people under the age of 65 will live even if they get it. This knowledge alone will help to soften many peoples fear and hopefully lead to more reasonable approaches than in the past. This unfortunately may also contribute to its spread as people are less vigilante.
8
I have enjoyed a neighborhood that is home, whose kids can actually spend more of the day playing due to the epidemic. As for myself, I live in a family and would never abandon them to illness, even if I died as a result. Fortunately I have been spending some of my time shopping and preparing more family medications. There is a truth that humanly, we are on our own, particularly considering the pitifully few test kits available, and the hospitals have room for only so many people. It should not be required to test just on doctors' orders; we may catch more cases if this medical referral is not required. Close group contact is no longer an optimal style of relating, as well, and no one really knows what will happen. The virus could be starved out or it could also change to a milder virus, as well as continue as it is until we have an immunization. Not leaving our life to chance, I think people are accepting that our president has poorly managed this epidemic by supplying pitifully few kits for testing.
7
Compassion is hard to come by when anxiety, fear and panic reign. We have done little to manage the public health crisis and less to manage people.
When you tell the truth - we are focused on slowing this down, and these measures are to try to manage the resources and take care of all who seek help- people are willing to help. The more we feel helpless, the more helpless we are. You can’t calm panic by holding your head in the sand.
To get to a place of compassion, we need knowledge, understanding and judgement. None of those are filling the vacuum in our reaction to the crisis.
4
I don’t believe one “comes by” compassion.
One either has been born with this capacity ....or not.
If it’s “manufactured “ according to situations, then it’s not a part of one’s own character.
Despite their actions of compensating shoppers and drivers who can’t work being for self preservation, it is important to recognize companies like Instacart, but more importantly their people, who are providing an important lifeline to individuals who are quarantined, medically fragile or homebound.
15
Beautiful thoughtful piece David. I disagree with your politics but find about a third or a quarter of your essays to be absolutely compelling.
15
If Donald Trump is quarantined tonight, he may realize all the unhappiness he causes comes from his inability to happily sit alone in his room. This is not literally true, but the exaggeration of this idea helps to bring home a general insight, Trump regularly leaves his room and crave excitement that often turns out badly, he meddles in the life of others but fail to help them, he seeks fame and end up being misunderstood by a large number of people he's indifferent about. He avoids thinking before he acts. While quarantined, he has an opportunity to become a better, quieter friend to himself. Fortunately, Trump too will pass. We should plan beyond Trump and look at life under the aspect of eternity, as thou we were gazing down at the earth from far away, from a distant star. From this perspective, the incidents that trouble us don’t seem so shocking and so large. What is a pandemic, an impeachment, casino bankruptcies, numerous divorces, & noble sentiments that's underwhelmingly communicated - that most times create the biggest pitfalls and challenges to a more peaceful existence, when compared to the earth’s 4.5 billion year history? Trump's rhetoric likes to use passion to exaggerate our here and now, but our reasoned intelligence gives us access to a unique intelligent perspective, what I call external totality that we can use instead of railing against the status quo. Can we imagine a woke, compassionate Donald Trump opting for clear eyed serenity instead? Me neither!
11
When Mother Nature conflicts with human nature, the former always wins and the latter always loses. The main difference between then and now is technology which speeds the knowledge required to mitigate the worst while empowering the best.
Get a grip, folks. We've all been therefore and will all be back there again and again. The true disease and weakness in our culture is immorality. It's strongest antidote is morality. The former is plentiful, the latter is scarce.
6
This pandemic differs from those in one critical respect. The death rate from this one, controversial though it is, is clearly low as pandemics go. The Black Death killed two thirds of those it struck. The 1918 influenza also had very high mortality, particularly among people age 20-40. Both of those plagues, and many others throughout history, literally left some communities without enough living people to bury the dead. This isn’t that kind of event, and it won’t turn into that kind of event barring some change in the virus’s biology.
I fail to understand how anyone can lack compassion in this setting; and that’s not what I’m seeing. I feel like I’m seeing a lot of confusion (how far should we take this social distancing thing?), maybe a little panic (how are the bills are going to get paid when all jobs collapse?) but I have yet to encounter anyone in the REAL world who’s not thinking about others. That’s how face to face people function.
20
There are base instincts, yes. However, our understanding of the cause of disease is vastly improved. We should be able to understand that if we are not already exposed, we likely will be soon. Those with the virus are us, and we are them. I mourn for the loss of life. This is more severe than seasonal flu.
5
In most instances, Mr. Brooks's references to history are informative. In this case, I'm not so sure. There are important distinctions between the historical examples he cites and our current situation with COVID-19. For starters, and most critically, we already know that in the vast majority of cases, especially among younger patients, this disease is not fatal. Also, several of the historical examples he cites pre-date any human understanding of the science of infectious disease. Let's see how things play out. But I think there is at least a decent chance we will see everyone making reasonable sacrifices to mitigate the effect of the disease, and taking measures to protect those who appear to be most vulnerable to it while we look for a scientific solution. None of this is thanks to the Trump White House, which has shamefully denied and obfuscated since the outbreak began. But state authorities and ordinary people have so far acquitted themselves pretty well. Let's hope they keep it up.
17
Thank you, Mr. Brooks, for another excellent column. It was eye-opening to read that 675,000 Americans died during the 1918 pandemic - more than the number of Americans killed in World War I. Yet, shame prevents us from acknowledging the roles of human greed and selfishness in that great tragedy.
In this era of vast differentials in wealth and income distributions, I wonder if our selfishness is greater. During this crisis, some basic measures can be implemented to force the public to be more compassionate. For instance, the public is hoarding household products like hand sanitizers and paper towels. Shops should implement a 'one-per customer' rule for essential items until the crisis is over.
Covid-19 tests much more than our bodies' immunity. It also tests our souls. Winning the immunity battle while losing the battle for our soul is a hollow victory.
10
We live in a unique situation where we could hole-up and reduce contact with others to an extreme minimum.
After family discussion and prayer we decided we would keep up with the neighbors and help wherever.
We knew we would cop out on our spiritual destiny and our people if we retired.
So let's see what we can do. It's an adventure.
So, thanks for this view. Well put Mr. Brooks.
8
When the 1918 influenza pandemic was over, "people didn't talk about it. . . Roughly 675,000 Americans lost their lives to the flu."
I think fear has more to do with their silence than anything else. People would be going about their regular day and suddenly collapse and die. The suddenness and swiftness of that influenza was something never witnessed nor endured previously. At one point, undertakers were running out of coffins and woodmakers were asked to make them, around the clock.
I recall a wonderful program on public television about the 1918 influenza pandemic. I was speechless after watching it, wondering how such a thing could occur.
Back then even President Woodrow Wilson was silent during that horrific time in the Autumn of 1918,
Perhaps such deep fear and uncertainty paralyzed people's emotions. This situation was so extreme and frightening, perhaps the notion of ever mentioning it might make it happen again. Also, so many families lost not just one but multiple family members to that flu. How does anyone ever fully recover from that kind of pain and loss?
In so many ways, I fear a repeat of that health crisis may be seen in the current pandemic the world is fighting right now. I certainly hope I am wrong and way off base.
13
With the exception of doctors, nurses, aides and staff at the front end of fighting this epidemic, it is not certain that the hospital industry is still a beneficent one. Once upon a time they opened their doors and let patients slow pay their bills as they could afford them. These days hospital administrators say medical care is like any other kind of consumer good, charge as much as they want, and then collect medical debt like any other kind of consumer debt, up to and including suing the poor, and then imprisoning patients in some states like Kansas who fail to appear at debt collection hearings.
In Washington State, one epicenter of the epidemic, hospitals are required to provide charity care to the poor; but one study of people sued for medical debt revealed that 10,000 families in a county of 30,000 have been sent to collection by the local public hospital, the median wage of families sued for medical debt is less than $36,000 per year, and all pleas to refrain from suing patients has fallen on deaf ears.
Time will tell whether a recent report to the Washington AG makes any difference.
We are about to experience what it’s like to have an epidemic in a healthcare system focused on profit, not people; one that has shut down poorer performing rural hospitals for higher margins in the city; and one whose values have shifted from those of doctors, “First, do no harm”, to those of MBAs, “First, collect co-payments and deductibles.”
Good luck to all.
83
I have found these actions useful:
—visit your neighbors and offer your contact info in case they become quarantined and need something;
—ask those casual acquaintances where you exercise (for example) if they feel prepared and offer to help if the need arises, noting of course that we may all find ourselves in the same boat.
I am not a planner, but I feel fortunate to live in an area where we are constantly reminded to prepare for the “big one.” When I took no actions, I felt more anxious than when I started to follow the advice to have a plan, and gather 2-3 weeks of supplies over time. I hope that when our town is affected by the COVID-19 virus, I will remember the homeless and those in need and share.
10
Perhaps others find themselves in a similar situation: I am very willing to help, but I dare not reach out to nursing homes in my community in case I am contagious and don't know it. Perhaps that's where at least some of the visible compassion is hiding.
10
These tales of apathy and strife contrasts with China’s united effort to support Wuhan and defeat the coronavirus. Over 40,000 health workers poured into Wuhan, including medics from the military and volunteers from all over China. Thousands of construction workers labored overnight to build two hospitals in 10 days. Supplies and resources were diverted from the rest of China into Hubei in ways that Italy can never expect from the EU. Despite remarkable cynicism from American media, the Chinese proved that the virus can be defeated with coordination and solidarity.
37
@Jason
Didn't the government also quarantine people in a building that collapsed?
3
@Jason Yes, the US media seems to have a pathological need to criticize China at every turn. I was moved when their president visited Wuhan. I was moved by what their citizens accomplished. I felt hope for humanity. Sadly I am losing that sense of hope in light of what is happening here at home.
11
@Jason Not to minimize China's response, but China is a totalitarian state, and can make things happen in ways that we cannot. Solidarity and coordination are much simpler in that environment.
2
The examples given in this column occurred during times when there was little understanding of medical science.
Many of those ensnared in an epidemic or pandemic tended to view their plight in moral terms.
I look around me and (other than our President and his minions) and I see so many examples of kindness and compassion.
Of course, there are exceptions.
But, like during World War II and after 9-11, I think we will rise to these challenges as a nation and overcome the obstacles.
The only difference is that this time, our leaders won't occupy the White House.
They will occupy hospitals, doctors' offices, and other health care facilities.
They will occupy state and local governmental units, especially those involving public health and first responders.
They will occupy homes, schools, community centers, and places of worship.
They will be you and me and others doing the right thing, listening to the experts, and taking care of ourselves and one another.
140
@Didier
Another stellar and spot on comment!!
I find your words as comforting as encouraging. They continue to give me the hope so drastically missing from the current Administration.
Thank you Didier. You are awesome sir.
18
@Didier I have not seen you commenting recently and this is a truly heartfelt comment. I have Seth Myers on the TV right now and was wondering why there was an audience clapping and cheering when I just watched Jimmy Fallon performing just to the band? Myers is a rerun from 2.13.20. Of course, I was laughing at the monologue, but I was thinking that I need to get an appointment with my therapist who is helping me deal with the nightmare of the Trump administration before April 1. I just cannot get out of my mind that my wife's BFF and her younger brother both voted for Trump. I just can't and she at the same time is unable to understand why I want nothing to do with the BFF and will do little with the brother. She can't and that makes me very sad.
5
Thank you, Mr Brooks. I found your piece enlightening and a reminder of the need for compassion in these dire times. But tell me -- aside from awakening in me the compassion needed to help fend off the virus which is descending upon us all, which senior center or health care facility are you volunteering at to fight off the moral disease you speak about.
35
News reports today told of how FOX News viewers, a population that skews heavily elderly, are defying advice from scientists and doctors and going around shaking hands as a show of solidarity with Donald Trump's message that the idea that the virus was a serious threat was just a hoax by Democrats determined to bring his approval ratings down.
Trump of course has abandoned the attempt to call it a hoax and is now forced to admit that it's a serious threat, but his earlier message has done its damage, along with his devoted propagandists like Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs who even now continue to downplay the dangers. The NIH's Dr Fauci had to correct Hannity on the air last night when Hannity, determined to downplay the danger in order to buff Trump's image, was spinning that the virus was no more dangerous than the flu.
Yes, there is something ironic about the fact that significant numbers among older Americans, the very population that is most vulnerable to dying of the virus, have been brainwashed into being cavalier and putting themselves in more danger.
Convincing segments of the population to act against their own interest by lying to them however is exactly what demagogues, dictators and con men throughout history have done.
324
@Jeo
I mean, if that's true about shaking hands being a gesture of solidarity with Trump, it's going to change the math on election day. And not in their favor.
3
@Jeo, I wonder how long it will be before Dr.Fauci is fired?
4
@Jeo
Not to worry. The unforgiving power of natural selection will do its work on those Trumpists who are shaking everyone's hand.
2
I listened to Trump bumble through is speech last evening. Not one bit of emotion, just indescribable, incoherent, incomplete thoughts strung together with a twisted mind.
Then today I listened to Joe Biden. Elegant in a word, I recently learned about Joe's speech impediment that he has struggled with his entire life. It wasn't there today, just compassion for all Americans during this crisis.
November cannot come soon enough.
618
@cherrylog754
Should the House impeach the President for his deliberate lies about this health emergency. It might help for November since voters should want better health. The tragedy that is Trump cannot be rationalized.
14
@cherrylog754 Hard to keep in mind that the wrap on Joe Biden is he is losing is mind - forgetful, confused, etc. It's as if Republicans have not heard one word of Trumps rambling speech and utter incoherence. Too bizarre.
7
@cherrylog754 - Trump and his GOP supporters and enablers are incompetent and corrupt. Trump & his GOP collaborators believe they can lie and demagogue their way to fool the American people. It turns out that there are terrible consequences for the country when they continue to lie and demagogue their way through a pandemic, Covid-19 is not!
6
Mr Brooks,
At a very dark time, on this one point, I am hopeful.
Yes, there will likely be much suffering: maybe 100 million people in the United States will get infected; and maybe 250,000 to a million will die. (And multiply those by 20 for the whole world);
But with all we know now about the interconnectedness of life, and how much we must rely on each other to minimize loss of life and suffering - we have every reason to come together as a world in sharing vital knowledge, compassion and effort, rather than fly apart into factional selfishness.
I pray, and I believe that it will be so.
11
David, are you saying people are behaving badly in this current crisis? It doesn’t look that way to me, or at least not yet. Social distancing is not selfishness. It’s wise policy to slow the spread of this thing & keep our medical professionals, who you rightly praise, from getting overwhelmed. The practical fact is that the best thing each of us non-medical-professionals can do for the common good right now is to avoid proximity to strangers. Let’s all hope the medical system will be able to handle the crisis & we won’t see a scenario anything like the 1600’s.
14
Mr Brooks,
At a very dark time, on this one point, I am hopeful.
Yes, there will like be much suffering: maybe 100 million people in the United States will get infected; and maybe 250,000 to a million will die. (And multiply those by 20 for the whole world);
But with all we know now about the interconnectedness of life, and how much we must rely on each other to minimize loss of life and suffering - we have every reason to come together as a world in sharing vital knowledge, compassion and effort, rather than fly apart into factional selfishness.
I pray, and I believe that it will be so.
3
Medical workers self-select to do the job they do. Without these people our society could not continue. But they are a small sliver of the population, and few others have the same instincts. I certainly don't. I can imagine few things more dreadful than being a nurse or doctor even in normal times.
16
@GS which is why it is so important to appreciate and support healthcare workers. The outspoken, young doctor in China died because, as a first line responder, he was carrying a higher viral load. The fibrosis occurring in the lungs is irreversible. For the sake of these workers and so many more, we need to overrule President Trump. Everyday we wait, more people will die. Immediate testing, loading the CDC with adequate staffing, taking isolation seriously, social distancing. and generously budgeting for leave for workers who must stay home. And of course washing of hands! The time is now.
25
So why do you think health care workers are the exception to the selfishness rule? Because it's their job? Because they were born with compassion and chose that job as a result?
Personally I feel that when people believe that they have a moral obligation to be compassionate, they are much more likely to act that way. Some people naturally feel more empathy than others, but if an adult makes the decision to act morally, personal emotions somehow have less impact on their actions. On the other hand, people who are constantly rewarded for acting selfishly seem to continue to act that way, no matter the circumstances. (A certain President comes to mind.)
9
Not a lot of cheery news here. When death becomes a choice of you or me almost all of us would prefer to be the one that survives.
And though the corona virus took us by surprise, it is far from the only, or the greatest, crisis facing humanity.
Our Earth can only support a finite number of humans and population growth continues to escalate. Our oceans can only process so much waste, but as population expands exponentially, so does the waste we ask the oceans to dispel.
But wait, there is still more. Another by-product of uncontrolled population growth is also ever growing amounts of carbon in our atmosphere.
A day of reckoning is approaching and the speed with which it is travels is ever growing faster. It may well determine whether we survive or become extinct.
17
@Richard Phelps I like these analogies. And just as there was an inevitable "tipping point" to the Trump economy and the corona virus emerged as the pin that pricked the bubble, so will there be tipping points and unexpected triggers to these other crises.
When medical resources become scarce, then we will test our compassion particularly for the uninsured.
If businesses close or downsize in the economic downturn, how many will lose their coverage?
31
I am scared, not so much about getting the disease, but the lack of compassion David is talking about. People are already hoarding which means others will not have access to necessities. And people are taking hand santiizers from houses of worship and even funeral homes. I fear this is just the beginning
22
@Leah
Blame the PRESS. One can saturate a was hcloth or paper towel with a few drops of Clorox, rubbing alcohol and have an excellent hand sanitizer and surface cleaner. Of our there will be no plastic to throw away and it's cheap and corporate America will only get pennies.
Cling (Saran) wrap around the head will prevent droplets from falling on your face... (And people on the subway won't stare. Pairs of cloth glves-- so you want wash them daily are also not a bad idea... when touching handrails or subway poles.
The media needs to publish these simple, cheap solutions but it's much more fun to write about price-gouging. There IMO is the lack of compassion and common sense... sort of "I don't care do you!"
1
One need only to go to the toilet paper aisle at your local grocery store to see how quickly this pandemic has infected nearly everyone with a "scarcity mentality." If society went about business as usual, of course many would get infected and tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of Americans would die. But now that we are cancelling flights, vacations, concerts, sporting events, and even dinner plans, the service economy is going to take a massive hit and rampant layoffs will come soon. The consequences will be high unemployment, prolonged uncertainty, and a nasty recession. It's kind of odd being a 30-something yuppie and making almost no changes to by daily habits other than washing hands more often, and watching this panic set in. I personally think it's all overblown, and that the old vulnerable folks should be well supplied and sit this out at home, but of course as this keeps spreading, the negative feedback loop will continue, and panic/uncertainty will prevail..., until it doesn't and we all turn out just fine.
4
@JG
If you think it's overblown, read this.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/who-gets-hospital-bed/607807/