I Can’t Make You Care
Covid-19 has taught us a lot. It’s taught us about how fragile our comfortable system is. It’s taught us about leadership and gaps therein. It’s taught us about division and community. And it’s taught us about spin.
But one thing that can’t be spun is the human toll, in death and illness and financial ruin and anxiety and depression and suicide. In Anderson Cooper’s tear-worthy interview with a young widow who unexpectedly lost her husband, you can easily throw the graphs and data to the side for a moment and be human. But that’s too much to ask for so many.
On the fringe of the political spectrum, but center stage in the media are the ones who would scoff at the concept: the Covid-19 protesters. It’s difficult to say what America they believe they are fighting for when you take into account the juxtaposition of their calls for “freedom” while in hand they have Confederate Flags and cardboard signs citing broad, often inapplicable constitutional rights; in voice, alarmist warnings of “socialism” and “communism” takeovers; and in spirit much more unrelated nonsense that all but sends the message that this is not about Covid-19 — it’s about keeping a dying movement alive.
In the process, these individuals have broken innumerable social contracts, spoken and unspoken. Among them, we can count the dehumanization of victims and their families, an unforgivable offense that breeches all traditional American politics and redefines it under the new brand of politics of America, that of scorched Earth. For it being a country they supposedly hold so near and dear to their hearts, we find that in truth they only hold onto a primal self-aggrandizing notion of what it is to be a human, let alone an American.
This scene has played out around the country, of protesters making a mockery of those who aim to help them. Even I was told to “go to hell” by a flag-waving hyper-patriot as he clutched a cardboard sign, upon it scrawled “I will die for this”, simply because I chose to wear a mask. I’m sure the irony went over his head since I was wearing the mask, in essence, to protect him. And even if he doesn’t believe I am protecting him from anything, couldn’t the notion that my intentions were good be enough to assuage his aimless anger? Wouldn’t that common humanity among strangers be enough to unite us under his flag, however ironically?
No. And that’s what we’re losing. What united vision is left within us, as Americans? If such an individualistic bloc of people can coalesce against coalescence, what hope do we have to ever temper the embers that burn under this political hellscape we used to call American democracy?
The protests are part of a growing movement fueled by ignorance and anecdotal experience. From freezing WHO funding to ignoring the pandemic playbook left for them, our government no longer embodies any notion of American world leadership. But what do we expect from these people who are gullible enough to believe conspiracy theories ranging from 5G’s ability to spread viruses to a “deep state” whose aim is to squash and control any individual liberty imaginable. Out with logic, in with hysteria, they say.
Make no mistake: I can empathize with anger and a feeling of despair. I know all these people: People who have lost their jobs. People who have cancelled unrefundable dream vacations. People who’ve accumulated debt. People who’ve been hospitalized during this stressful time. But I can’t empathize with the self-righteous, entitled people who simultaneously manage to block ambulance traffic and fail to make any sensible progress against this crisis. We’re seeing states opening up in a rational manner, and it had nothing to do with these political rallies disguised as protests. It had everything to do with patience, intelligence, and most of all cooperation. And that last part did not come from the top. It happened in spite of the top.
We will not succeed in this crisis as individuals in groups, which is exactly what these people are. They aren’t teams. They don’t cooperate. They have some outlandish ideals of what they think life is like, but they’re all rooted in ignorance and a complete abandonment of the facts and the values their country should have instilled in them. Instead, they’ve retreated to some perverted and selfish version of America that has never existed.
In the end, though, I can’t make you care. I can’t make anyone care. I understand the very human inability to care much for something until it’s you personally. It can be hard to see beyond the bridge of one’s own nose. But I have to borrow from an article from the Daily Stoic I read just yesterday, and I realize it could be my biggest fear: I believe we’re approaching the end when mankind can no longer plant trees under whose shade they’ll never sit.
