Stuck in this hole together
A couple of weeks ago, Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York, said this of coronavirus:
"It’s a silent killer that ripples through society with the same randomness, the same evil, we saw on 9/11."
Now, I'm well aware that Cuomo has a lot on his plate to deal with right now. I'm not really ripping into him. But that much-quoted soundbite annoyed me for two reasons.
1. Horrible as 9/11 was, it wasn't actually all that random. Yes, people who were unlucky enough to be on one of the planes, or in one of the buildings, died through absolutely no fault of their own. But it wasn't exactly something that swept at random through the US; it hit a very specific set of people.
2. The coronavirus isn't evil. It isn't good. It isn't anything. It's a virus, and thus isn't really prone to a moral outlook at all. (Admittedly there is ongoing research to find out why BAME communities in the UK are disproportionately affected, and whether that is a genetics issue or a socio-economic issue. So the jury is out on whether coronavirus might be racist. But even if it is, it's still a virus and has not made actual value judgements about the people it infects.)
There seems to be a prevalent affliction among politicians whereby they have to draw parallels between "these difficult times" (and can we just give in and write TDT for that now, please?) and some epic moment in their country's history. Hey, let's draw parallels between Covid-19 and some moment where we were massively united!
In the US, this appears to be 9/11, which shares exactly one characteristic with TDT: it was a Bad Thing. 9/11 was not a global emergency, it was not a medical crisis, it did not directly affect millions of people, it was not an ongoing crisis. It was an entirely man-made situation, for which individuals could theoretically be held responsible. It was, admittedly, a Bad Thing but not really relevant except as a political rallying point.
In the UK, the corresponding touchpoint appears to be the Blitz. Which was also a Bad Thing, and one in which the country was required to Pull Together, and (as a side effect of the general war effort) to suffer certain restrictions. However, again, it's not very similar - the whole "plucky Brits clambering across the rubble and then pausing for a brew" narrative does rather rely on the whole pulling together part. Britain was not daunted! They kept calm and carried on (as much as possibly) and still went to the pub, and somehow theatres stayed open, and a whole bunch of stuff that is very much not where we are now. However, it is a thing that we like to refer to as a cultural memory (despite it not actually being remembered by anyone under 80) and so we can rally under it.
I get that politicians have to spin stories, and weave rhetoric, and generally be inspiring and make us to buy into a lockdown that no one really wants. But could they do it... a bit better? Or at least without glib references to any old situation that seems like a big button in the national psyche?
[Originally posted at https://venta.dreamwidth.org/540988.html]
"It’s a silent killer that ripples through society with the same randomness, the same evil, we saw on 9/11."
Now, I'm well aware that Cuomo has a lot on his plate to deal with right now. I'm not really ripping into him. But that much-quoted soundbite annoyed me for two reasons.
1. Horrible as 9/11 was, it wasn't actually all that random. Yes, people who were unlucky enough to be on one of the planes, or in one of the buildings, died through absolutely no fault of their own. But it wasn't exactly something that swept at random through the US; it hit a very specific set of people.
2. The coronavirus isn't evil. It isn't good. It isn't anything. It's a virus, and thus isn't really prone to a moral outlook at all. (Admittedly there is ongoing research to find out why BAME communities in the UK are disproportionately affected, and whether that is a genetics issue or a socio-economic issue. So the jury is out on whether coronavirus might be racist. But even if it is, it's still a virus and has not made actual value judgements about the people it infects.)
There seems to be a prevalent affliction among politicians whereby they have to draw parallels between "these difficult times" (and can we just give in and write TDT for that now, please?) and some epic moment in their country's history. Hey, let's draw parallels between Covid-19 and some moment where we were massively united!
In the US, this appears to be 9/11, which shares exactly one characteristic with TDT: it was a Bad Thing. 9/11 was not a global emergency, it was not a medical crisis, it did not directly affect millions of people, it was not an ongoing crisis. It was an entirely man-made situation, for which individuals could theoretically be held responsible. It was, admittedly, a Bad Thing but not really relevant except as a political rallying point.
In the UK, the corresponding touchpoint appears to be the Blitz. Which was also a Bad Thing, and one in which the country was required to Pull Together, and (as a side effect of the general war effort) to suffer certain restrictions. However, again, it's not very similar - the whole "plucky Brits clambering across the rubble and then pausing for a brew" narrative does rather rely on the whole pulling together part. Britain was not daunted! They kept calm and carried on (as much as possibly) and still went to the pub, and somehow theatres stayed open, and a whole bunch of stuff that is very much not where we are now. However, it is a thing that we like to refer to as a cultural memory (despite it not actually being remembered by anyone under 80) and so we can rally under it.
I get that politicians have to spin stories, and weave rhetoric, and generally be inspiring and make us to buy into a lockdown that no one really wants. But could they do it... a bit better? Or at least without glib references to any old situation that seems like a big button in the national psyche?
[Originally posted at https://venta.dreamwidth.org/540988.html]