A Series of Observations on the Consequences of COVID-19
Author Michael N. Bergman,
Lawyer and Principal of Bergman & Associates
Through the course of several essays I will offer my observations and comments about the effects and potential impacts on society of the COVID-19 crisis. Many have said that COVID-19 will give rise to a new normalcy; that previous social and other interactions will be changed, maybe forever. If by a new normalcy it is meant that the social interactions of human beings that have existed since time immemorial will change, I disagree.
Once COVID-19 passes, either because the virus has exhausted its ability to infect humans through vaccination or the development of herd immunity or that it somehow peters out much like the SARS epidemic of 2003, we will resume social intimacy. Human beings are social animals. As a result, we feel compelled to shake hands, appropriately touch others and together gather whether it’s as family, friends or part of a crowd at some event.
The notion that under imposed restrictions we must remain two meters distant from one another, that virtually all social interaction is prohibited on a community wide and that we essentially hide in our homes for an extended period of time is antithetical to who we are and our humanity. There is no doubt that such limits are necessary to staunch the pandemic, but to say that we will not shake hands or greet each other warmly from one or two feet away after COVID-19 has subsided, is ridiculous.
If there is a new normal to be found, it will not be found in social interaction. Rather, it will be found in the post COVID-19 economic and financial consequences, political responses, the re-examination of legal concepts of obligations and duties and the application of morals and ethical behaviour to the post-modern world. This article and the series that follows will explore these topics.
To begin, the massive nearly worldwide lock down of society is a first in the history of humanity. The lockdown affects nearly 3 billion people across the planet. It is the most massive and instant social engineering of human organization and behaviour ever. Even if justified by good science and health and safety concerns the fact that nearly 3 billion people are more-or-less observing social isolation and distancing, without any significant protest for the moment, is stunning- although signs of unrest are beginning in the United States.
The extent of the lockdown demonstrates the authority of government and the ability of technology to compel a virtually spontaneous change by fiat in social behaviour which in a previous era would have caused great unrest and rebellion. Clearly we need to re-examine the causes and willingness of human beings to submit to the will of authority even if that will is exercised and imposed for a desirable social good. While everyone fears the disease, the willingness to halt society, pausing for an extended and unknown period, to the detriment of economic and psychological wellbeing, is a new phenomenon.
The nature of this conformity is not explained by some Orwellian notion of manipulation, newspeak, and the suppression of free will, although there are elements of them found in contemporary populist movements and culture. Rather, the desire for human conformity is a heightened effect of communications technology, social media and, counter-intuitively, the disdain for traditional social structures. It is both ironic and paradoxical that the seeming individuality offered by social media, where everybody can give an opinion about everything, is at the same time an algorithm for the unification of human behaviour into a set, predictable pattern of exponentially growing organization and behaviour. I say this not because the internet and social media operate by algorithms. I use the word “algorithm” as a metaphor for the series of internet and social media information and postings of hundreds of millions of random individuals expressing random thoughts. I contend that this very randomness produces a kind of self-organizing behaviour which leads to a general desire for conformity. This desire for conformity, which in many ways is part of human nature, is amplified by the internet and social media to the point that human beings are more receptive to obey orders from recognized authority. These observations need, of course, further investigation, development and social science testing and analysis. Furthermore, the traditional structures of democracy and organized religion are found wanting.
My point is not that the pandemic quarantine is unnecessary, in my opinion it is necessary. The point is to understand how the pandemic has produced a conformity of response amongst almost half of the planet’s population.