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Humanity lies at the heart of a relational matrix. Most people understand this at some level but few understand the true complexity and importance of this truth.
Many (most?) either deny the existence of this matrix or refuse to accept that as relational creatures there are limits to our licence to do as we please, consequences to our actions that can neither be set by us nor swerved around for ever.
This relational matrix is what we encounter in every aspect of our lives, our relationships with each other, our psyche, material forms, the rest of nature and conceptual truth – every relationship is a conduit of information, delivering us the truth of the reality of existence – however much we might want to ignore and deny it.
Covid19 is the perfect riposte to the contemporary fashion for living in a deluded ‘wonderland’ of individualistic licence – free from any awareness of or concern for the matrix as a whole. It is a gift (albeit a bitterly expensive one) if we only had the wit to realise it.
So we have individuals in government and business whose role and instinct is to keep the wheels of profit in service of ecocide whirring ever faster. Mass deaths and overwhelmed hospitals are bad for business (and potentially meddlesome with what passes for modern democracy), so we have ‘circuit breaker’ lockdowns, mass testing and vaccinations. All sensible stuff… but their heart isn’t in it and their impulse to make money from disaster is too strong. Lock downs are hurried out of too quickly, vaccinations are limited to the countries that develop them and then sold for profit leaving whole swathes of the world unvaccinated. Throwing poorer people and nations under the bus is standard procedure for our contemporary morality, but a global pandemic demands a higher standard. The unvaccinated nations become the breeding grounds for new variants and the whole cycle begins again – welcome to dystopia – Covid19 forever.
We have other individuals who splice together a bespoke ‘reality’ in which Covid19 isn’t real, or if is real it isn’t dangerous, or if it is dangerous you can get cured by drinking bleach, or if you can’t afford bleach you can become immune by simply being macho. Such people whine about vaccinations, moan about masks, march in enraged mobs demanding that they be allowed back into Starbucks and nightclubs without delay. The underlying beef here is against reality itself – a toddlers tantrum against the idea that anyone or anything can tell us what to do. This is basically the same individualistic selfishness of the people they rage against – but any awareness of this irony would make the placards sag somewhat.
Covid19 demands a globally coordinated response that uses the truth of the situation as its guide and places the good of all humanity above the short term thinking of capitalism and the factional bickering of nations – which is why it won’t happen. What a dangerous precedent a proper response to Covid19 would set for the status quo – providing a clear and successful model of how to deal with other crises like climate change, biodiversity loss and nuclear weapons.
As a species we would rather tolerate any number of over-lapping dystopias before placing limits on our licence – particularly if the consequences of our collective immaturity can be can kicked down the road or just happen to someone else.
The people I feel particularly sorry for at the moment (and there are many) work in the hospitals that are obliged to try to clear up this mess – they see no end in sight to brutally exhausting cycles of partial redemption and dispiriting relapse and indeed there isn’t one. Why should these genuinely dedicated and caring professionals have to risk their lives in punishing shifts to bail out the childish denialism of the unvaccinated, the reckless immoral incompetence of entire governments and the profiteering of big pharma?
(and NO I don’t give a flying F**K who that offends. How DARE we take them for granted – much less abuse them as is increasingly the case)
Our collective addiction to the fantasy of human omnipotence will mean that Covid19 will never leave us. Not for nothing were the usual suspects talking smoothly about ‘living with Covid’ quite early on, since actually dealing with it was unthinkable. Protecting this fantasy will ensure that no meaningful action will be taken about this or any of other crisis which demands an alignment with the relational matrix. Instead the defence (and the relentless expansion) of human swagger will be prioritised.
A hopeful uplift to this article? Well maybe Covid19 has been sent as a dress rehearsal for dealing with the onrushing collapse of our ecosphere. Maybe a majority will finally see the need for a grounded united response and force governments / corporations out of their short term thinking and grubby self-interest? Maybe the arrival of consequences for all the nations of the earth at the same time might in some ways be a very good thing.
If Covid19 is the great leveler – perhaps in time it might help us to level up our morality.
Since 2013 I have worked on this Ad-Free site: trying to give a voice to those without the power or agency to speak out for themselves and speaking simple truths that well paid journalists in the corporate media dare not utter.
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Thank you in solidarity with all our readers. John Lynch, Editor.
With the phrase “childish denialism of the unvaccinated”, Sodium Haze has revealed its arrogant ignorance of the unpropagandized – which include a good many “genuinely dedicated and caring [health] professionals”, who are mostly also aware that COVID can indeed be successfully treated by orally administered disinfectants – otherwise known as antivirals. Denialism of this fact is pharmaceutical industry-promulgated propaganda.
This is so stupid, I genuinely don’t know if its satire or not.