Individual Choice, Collective Tyranny

Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. 

That progression of emotions pretty much describes our collective experience since March 2020. Surely, on the threshold of Year Three of the pandemic, it’s time for Acceptance.

But if by acceptance we mean resigning ourselves to ongoing viral vulnerability, I’m worried we are nowhere near it. From what I can see, at least half the nation believes all threat of contagion must be eliminated before large-scale social interaction can resume. To respect every life equally, we’ve determined it necessary to limit everyone’s lives. Why? How did individual freedom of choice devolve into collective tyranny?

I suspect it has to do with our increasing dissociation from all collectives. Including our species.  

Think about it: a lot of us resist, or simply don’t feel, association with or affinity toward any large group. Identities that my parents and grandparents wholly embraced—their nationality, their generation, even their gender—hold no appeal for my kids. I don’t find them useful, either. I don’t relate to the traits and behaviors that labels like American, Baby Boomer, or female call to mind. I don’t believe I’m unique. But I certainly delight in constructing an identity that defies categorization.

And therein lies the seed of dissolution. For too many of us, identity is so rooted in how we’re different from everybody else that we can’t see, or refuse to see, how much we have in common. Hence on some level, we believe that whatever’s good for the collective probably isn’t good for us, because none of us sees ourselves as “most people.” We can tsk-tsk about Novak Djokovic’s insistence that he should be excepted from Australia’s vaccination rule, but he is merely the embodiment of what each of us non-elite-athletes quietly believes: we’re special. We’re the exception. Rules for the collective that we find objectionable shouldn’t apply to us.

What’s good for human beings worldwide, I think we can agree, is to override exceptionalism. I’m not saying governments should mandate vaccines; I’m saying that, irrespective of individuals who choose not to be vaccinated, governments should actively foster face-to-face gatherings in homes, schools, offices, and arenas despite the contagion risk. Because the cost of saving the lives of those who opt to remain Covid-vulnerable is the dissolution of what gives our species meaning and purpose: community. A sense of belonging, which every single one of us lives in pursuit of, derives not from insisting on our uniqueness but, rather, from embracing the profound commonality of the human experience.

 I’ll leave you with an image that simply won’t leave me. Near the end of Don’t Look Up, the motley crew of characters who’ve tried, in vain, to ward off apocalypse gather around a family dinner table to eat what will be their very last supper. Even as we watch the 10-kilometer meteorite home in on Earth, we see our heroes holding hands to say Grace. Even as the extinction event unfolds and the dessert plates quake, we hear them remark on how good the coffee tastes (“I grind my own beans,” explains their host, Dr. Mindy). The camera lingers on each face, as each contemplates the End. 'Thing of it is,” Mindy says, “we really did have everything, didn't we? I mean, when you think about it.”

So. Whatever your politics, whether or not you are vaccinated, however you choose to identify, let me say this: you are welcome at my table. I am wholly confident that, when we think about it, we will remember how much we have—and how much we have to lose, should we forget that our fates are tied.