There’s too much a feeling of resignation in “I told you so” at this point. All the major actors who facilitated the greatest public health disaster in the history of our species are issuing their mea culpas, although most ring insincere. This is a drama that has played out over and over since the dawn of humankind. This mix of ignorant hubris at the moment of crisis and later an accounting of what went wrong is a template, a track that we run on and will never escape from. “How were we supposed to know” that lockdowns would kill millions, devastate economic development, and shatter the lives of the most vulnerable. “How were we supposed to know” that shuttering schools would devastate the lives of children. Well, I knew. Others knew. We knew beforehand, when the seeds weren’t yet planted. How did we know? How did some know instinctively that disaster was at hand, while most didn’t? Why did the vast majority swallow the bait, indulge the hysteria, transmitting the psychological virus to those around them? The answer lies in the meaning that so many people derived from the pandemic. The cultural wastes where most people today reside do not provide the spiritual or intellectual nourishment necessary for us to thrive. The anemic masses therefore attached themselves to the possibility of an apocalyptic crisis. The possibility of meaning and brotherhood, a common cause, was enough to pull them in. Over two years later, the remaining mask-wearers appear to be the surviving acolytes of a dead cult, clinging to hope that their belief system will return to power. They remind me of the Vietnamese soldiers who remain in the jungle, refusing to believe the war to be over. There are many lessons to be learned, but the most important is the nature of the human animal. How it behaves during crisis, what it is capable of believing, and most importantly, what it is capable of doing in service to those beliefs.
