There are many who say that we reveal our true character in times of adversity.  If you listen even half-heartedly, you will here this refrain from corporate TV commercials, some political candidates, and most likely your place of employment.  And well, it’s true. Common sense dictates that to defeat Covid-19 we need to come together; we do need to work for the greater good.  And if we haven’t been challenged by adversity yet, we are likely to be before all is said and done.  Moreover, sitting out on the porch sipping lemonade while the sun is shining hardly constitutes the stuff of virtue when compared to working on the Covid -19 wing of the hospital.  I have the privilege of not being in such a place, so I can’t pretend to understand what those who are may be thinking at a time like this, but I can’t help but wonder if our true character is also revealed on those sunny days when it typically seems that nothing of any moment is happening.

Here’s what I’m pondering.  It seems to me that calls for unity and the common good sprout like dandelions in spring only when there has been a national disaster of some sort, which on the one hand is obvious, but on the other hand is simply another way of saying we only care about the common good when those who can typically keep the world at bay are finally feeling some pain.  That is, we only really care about public health when white middle and upper-class folks are starting to get sick in great numbers, and even then, we are still lackadaisical about it because we still really know that the brunt of this will fall on working class folks and people of color.  

In such a situation wouldn’t character have been shown in times of relative peace and prosperity by planning for such an event as this?  Wouldn’t we have shown our virtue over the last decade of economic growth if we had used that growth for the common good by creating a universal health care system that wasn’t tied to people’s jobs?  Wouldn’t a wise and virtuous community focused on the common good have taken advantage of our wealth to stockpile personal protective equipment (PPE) for a crisis like Covid-19, so that we all wouldn’t have to be virtuous mask-makers during the time of crisis, so that doctors and nurses wouldn’t have to prove their heroism by reusing make-shift PPE in compromised settings?

Our national character has already been tested, and we have been found wanting.  If we don’t take care of each other when times are good, the calls for unity and taking up the burden of the common good in times of crisis ring hollow and hypocritical, especially when coming from elites.  The poor and marginalized call time and again for the common good to be addressed by creating a strong social safety net including universal health care, robust unemployment benefits, a living wage, and affordable housing and education.  They are met time and time again with blame, with accusations of not working hard enough, and with calls to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.  They are met time and time again with assertions that sexism, racism, homophobia, and all the rest don’t really exist, that we ended all that years ago. 

If elites like me had been virtuous in the good, prosperous, and easy times, we would be better prepared to handle the crisis before us rather than forcing people to go it alone. Our calls for all pulling together would have conviction and meaning behind them.  A perfect image of our behavior is captured by Vice President Mike Pence going into the Mayo Clinic without wearing a mask. Rather than lead by example, Pence projects that masks are for the vulnerable, not for those above the toil and death.  Of course, he is healthy.  He tells us that as Vice President he is tested all the time, so of course he can walk around without a mask.  What an appalling reminder of his privilege at a time when people like Rana Zoe Mungin are dying after struggling to gain access to testing.  The juxtaposition of privilege and suffering should shock us but not surprise us.  It is hard not to feel alienated from all this when we read how public money intended for small businesses is given to large corporations, when hospital executives are given bonuses and nurses are laid off.  When we read of such events, it is hard to feel the common good is being served.    

Thomas Merton writes that alienation begins when society “puts a mask on me, gives me a role I may or may not want to play.”  He goes on to add, the one “who sweats under their mask, whose role makes them itch with discomfort . . . is already beginning to be free.” I don’t know about you, but I’m sweating under my mask, and it itches.  There are those who tell me that if I take off my mask, I’ll be free, but in today’s circumstances that’s not freedom, that’s license.  Freedom exists in communities that serve the common good.  Some may even say serving the common good is freedom.   

Jacopo Bassano (1510-1591) – Construction of Noah’s Ark, Musée des Beaux-Arts Marseille, photo by The Yorck Project (2002) from Wikimedia Commons

So let’s use our freedom to build an ark to get all of us through this.  Arks are built in the sun for the time of crisis by people who are considered crazy for not frolicking in the warm weather.  Arks are not yachts or cruise ships.  Yet arks save lives; they save civilizations.  Arks are built by people who know they will not be returning to the world they left, who do not want to return to the world they left, because the world they left was brutish, selfish, and cruel.  We may very well be too late this time.  We are certainly too late for over 70,000 (and counting) Americans, but it might not be too late for others.  So build an ark as big as you can wherever you are, even if it is just for you and those around you.  We’ll look for you on the other side of the virus.

Resources

For a very thoughtful article on the question of character during the coronavirus pandemic, see Nancy Gibbs, “Forget swabs. We all need to take a character test.”  The Washington Post May 3, 2020.

Thomas Merton, “Alienation Is for Everybody,” in The Literary Essays of Thomas Merton, edited by Patrick Hart.  New York: New Directions, 1981.

For an example of how a country can work for the common good, see Nicholas Kristof’s piece on Denmark: “McDonald’s Workers in Denmark Pity Us: Danes haven’t built a “socialist” country. Just one that works,” The New York Times May 8, 2020.

Jacopo Bassano (1510-1591) – Construction of Noah’s Ark, Musée des Beaux-Arts Marseille, from Wikimedia Commons.  The work of art depicted in this image and the reproduction thereof are in the public domain worldwide. The reproduction is part of a collection of reproductions compiled by The Yorck Project. The compilation copyright is held by Zenodot Verlagsgesellschaft mbH and licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License