Coronavirus: What Did You Do In The War, Daddy?
Coronavirus: What Did You Do In The War, Daddy?
During World War II, the last truly global conflagration, and the most comparable to this one, many fought in the front lines. No expertise was needed to be a fighting soldier, and tens of millions were thrown in the front lines.
I’ve come late to the realization that the fight against the coronavirus is truly a war. It has a well-defined enemy; it has invaded our home front; it requires total mobilization.
A year or two from now, your child (or friend or relative or colleague) is going to ask: what did you do in the war? Your answer better be a good one.
***
Let’s state one very obvious difference: we can’t (and shouldn’t try to) get in the front lines in this war. This war requires medical expertise. Doctors, nurses, healthcare workers of all sorts — they are the soldiers in this war. The most exposed, the hardest working, the most deserving of praise.
But for the rest of us: we can do one of two things:
We can help fight the fight; or
We can sit around and engage in “self care”
“I learned how to meditate and got my push up count to 20” is not the optimal response when you get asked the question a year or two from now. Nor is “I reconnected with my family in all these wonderful ways”. Sure, do those things. But don’t expect a medal for it (and don’t tell me about it on social media — please).
In other words: I recommend fighting the fight.
***
But what the heck does that mean? It obviously means radically different things for each person. What I can do here is provide my own framework for thinking about it, which I am using to make decisions. I will update this framework based on feedback — this is what I have right now.
Here are my principles:
Fulfill your obligations
Help your local community first
Don’t be complacent — but don’t panic either
Do no evil
Let me briefly unpack each of these, with examples.
***
Fulfill your obligations
If you have a contractual obligation — keep it. You will be greatly tempted to unwind these. Don’t. The domino effect will be significant — and the signal you are sending is “it is okay to renege”. At this time, even more than others, keep your promises.
The examples are large and small. If you owe a buddy twenty bucks — pay your buddy twenty bucks. If you have a contractual commitment to a charity — pay it. If you had a large purchase planned, and can still afford it — make the purchase.
***
Help your local community first
People in your community are suffering, and in some cases dying. This is a situation where help begins first in the local community.
Keep your service providers going — pay your cleaning person, for example, even if he/she/they cannot show up. Order food delivery even if you’re stocked up on food. Go to that Starbucks for drive-thru, even if you just got a coffee machine for the apocalypse. Spend the money.
That is the basic level. The extra credit level is endless, and is situation-specific. In my case, I’m looking to do more to help the township that I work in.
I realize that all of us have other affiliations and commitments. As an example, I am also trying to find out how I can help students on financial aid at Penn, my alma mater. Helping local in no way means not doing these other things; what I am saying is “think local first”, because if we all do so, the effect of the misery is going to be reduced.
***
Don’t be complacent — but don’t panic either
The nature of market-driven capitalism is that significant disruptive moments occur on a regular basis. Each of these feels like a cataclysmic, once-in-a-century event that will destroy the world as we knew it. In each of these that was, of course, not the case. As it was not going back hundreds of years and through multiple crises. And it will not be so now.
Having said that: the biological nature of the crisis, combined with the unstructured and dispersed response capability that is a strength and a weakness of Western democracies, ensures that this crisis will not only last a while, it will have repeat effects.
In short: it is a total war. So don’t be complacent. But there have been other wars. Humanity survives, moves on, and thrives again. So don’t panic.
***
Do no evil
In every war, some have thought only of themselves and theirs. They found reasons to avoid the front line; and then there are tales of unimaginable evil — hoarding, profiteering, in the face of incredible misery.
In this war, all those examples will occur. And as is often the case, the most affluent will survive with the least personal effect, and will also have the greatest scope to benefit in evil ways. You can actually help by calling these people out. Shame is a powerful force in these moments.
There is also “doing nothing”. Don’t be the person who did nothing and spent the days sharing bogus news items on Facebook or WhatsApp. Make no mistake: this is evil. It is the evil of omission, which can be just as bad as the evil of commission in a war like this.
***
You’re not going to get a medal for doing any of the above. Nobody is going to write long soulful Facebook posts about your bravery in this war.
But when you get asked the question, a few years from now, you’ll have a good answer. And that will be the reward.
***
PS:
If you are reading this, and you are a person of affluence and influence — the bar is higher for you. Don’t clutch your pearls and think about which stocks to short. Help fight the war.