Does Covid-19 Change Everything? i.e. OMG We’re All Gonna die!!!

Dear Cary,

What do you think about Covid and Black Lives Matter in terms of historical perspective? I think that the Black Death in the Middle Ages paved the way for the Renaissance. 

Is what we are going through (radical changes to social protocol) likely to result in a similar revolutionary change, and if so would future historians regard this change as a good or bad thing?

Just Wondering

Dear Just Wondering,

Pardon me while I hyperventilate into a paper bag. Seriously, you overestimate my abilities. In a nice way, I mean. But really. It hurts my brain. I mean, did the 1918 flu epidemic permanently alter human civilization? Did Joe Strummer and Mick Jones ever find their way out of the supermarket?

I’m really not equipped to answer. I have to defer to others. Like Jared Diamond.  Here is what he says in his May 2020 piece in the Financial Times: “Strange as it may seem, the successful resolution of the pandemic crisis may motivate us to deal with those bigger issues that we have until now balked at confronting.”

He also says this: “Until the unprecedented danger posed by Covid-19, there has never been a struggle that united all peoples of the world against a widely acknowledged common enemy.” So maybe we’ll get it together eventually.

But enough about Jared Diamond. Let’s talk about Boccaccio! This is his approach to unspeakable calamity: The Black Death of 1348 visits Florence, people are dying all around, everybody is miserable, so let’s go up in the hills and tell each other bawdy stories. “All human wisdom and precautions were ineffectual against it,” he writes, “even though much refuse was cleared out of the city by officials appointed for that purpose, all sick people were denied entry, and instructions were distributed for the preservation of health. … No medical advice or medicines seemed to be effective against this disease. Either there simply was no cure, or those ministering to the sick … did not know the cause and for that reason could not provide a remedy.” (Thank you, J.G. Nichols for the wonderful translation.)

“Almost all tended to arrive at the same callous decision, which was to keep the sick and their belongings at a distance, believing that in this way they could save themselves. Then some there were who thought that a sober way of life was a good method of avoiding infection. So they gathered into groups and kept clear of everyone else, shutting themselves up in houses where no one was sick and where they could live comfortably, consuming choice food and wine in moderation, avoiding all excess, not speaking to anyone outside or hearing any news of the dead or sick, but enjoying music and what other pleasures they could muster.

“Others, drawn into a contrary opinion, declared that heavy drinking, pleasure-seeking, and going round singing and enjoying themselves, gratifying every urge and making mock of what was going on was the best medicine for such a serious disease. And as far as possible they took their own advice, drinking day and night to excess, going from inn to inn, or more often into people’s houses, though only those where they heard what they wanted to hear.” We call ’em covidiots.

Boccaccio does mention one change which grew out of necessity but which he claims did endure, and maybe this is what Jared Diamond is talking about.

“Then, not only were the sick abandoned by their neighbours, relatives, and friends, not only were servants scarce, but there also grew up a custom hardly ever heard of previously: no lady, when she fell ill, however graceful, beautiful, or noble she was, minded being cared for by a man, even a young man, and shamelessly letting him see any part of her body, just as she might have done with a woman, simply because her illness demanded it. This may be the reason why those who survived were in future less chaste than they had been. And many also died who, had they been cared for, might well have survived. This lack of assistance for the sick, and the sheer virulence of the plague, meant that so many died in the city both by day and night that it was staggering just to hear of it, never mind see it. So it was bound to happen that, among the survivors, habits grew up which were contrary to their previous usage.”

You ask if because of the the pandemic habits may grow up which are “contrary to their previous usage,” and I would say, darned right. I’ll bet Jared Diamond would sort of agree.

So, what sorts of habits in our age might grow up which are contrary to their previous usage? What habits might endure, for better or worse? We Americans may finally learn to wear surgical masks to dampen the spread of less fatal  but still troublesome diseases such as the common cold, not to mention such killers as the flu. If we maintain it, the habit of frequent handwashing might cut down on the transmission of food-borne diseases as well.

But what about authority versus individualism? It turns out there are times when we all ought to act like we’re in the military. Precision and 100-percent adherence to the plan turn out to be virtues in response to a highly contagious virus.

Bottom line: I’m always wrong about the future because I barely understand what’s going on around me right now. So listen to people who actually study and think about world events. All I know is what I read in Boccaccio.

I will only say this: I do have a feeling that things are never going to be the same.

p.s. Buy Boccaccio’s Decameron in the wonderful J.G. Nichols translation from any of the fine booksellers listed on the book’s Penguin-Random House site.