PANDEMICS, REVOLUTION, AND REFORM

In the Current Era, civilizations have received regular visit by Plagues. In almost all cases, Plagues were followed acute and serious social unrest, even outright revolution.

A factor in this might well be that inequalities tend to build up during eras, but do so slowly across generations so that the pain is incremental and tolerable. There may be occasional mobs protesting but with little effect. When mobs become overly rambunctious, authorities label them as lawless, security forces appear and put down the uprising. Since no society is perfect, over time imperfections, flaws, or (in the modern terminology) 'fault lines' appear. The news gets about that the 'one percent' have ninety percent of the total wealth. Tens of thousands invade the streets of large cities in protest. Nothing changes in our social structures and the people go home (if they have a home) to disappear from our sight.

Sometimes, however, a confluence of suffering happens; a coherent awareness that something dreadful is gathering form. Pandemic appears all around us. Soon the media reports that certain 'minorities' do not have equal access to treatment and more likely to die. In my country, the United States, racial differences suddenly receive a proper focus. We see a man (a descendant of the former slave class) who had peaceably agreed to arrest by police, apparently murdered by one of the arresting officers, his neck pinned to the pavement for minutes, protesting his treatment,'Help me, I can't breath...', until we witness his death. Unfair, even illegal, brutal actions by police joins the focus. Protest by crowds in the streets spread across hundreds of cities in this country and then internationally. The dark shadow that falls across us deepens, thickens... becoming darker, denser, palpable.

In societies less beleaguered by inequalities, a pandemic adeptly managed with sufficient understanding and resource, a plague might pass by with little disturbance, and fault-lines beneath the surface might remain unnoticed.

History does not encourage us when we consider plagues and their associated rebellions and revolutions. In the aftermath, more often than not, the downtrodden fare no better, while the well-off   emerge doing even better!

Are we, in the United States, really living within a looming revolution? Not a few columnists and opinion writers in respected publications appear to think so. Good revolutions occur over years and not months. The pandemic provides a moment awaiting proper birth, to look more perceptively at the economic and political structures that, over the last two generations have ceased to serve all equally well. If this vaunted 'greatest democracy' cannot seize such a moment, then perhaps woe betide the rest of the world.

The tectonic metaphor, 'fault-lines' developing in our social structures seems useful, evoking the distinction between cracks developing in the surface and deeper fissures causing the cracks, while raising the possibility that myriad tremors portent a disastrous 'quake'.

Sociologically, the body politic, humans in aggregate, resembles our own selves. We want so to be well and healthy that discovering signs of serious disease has us aghast. In the next postings, I will have a look at a few underlying problems that may underlie that cracks appearing in the fabric of our current order.

Mind you, I only speak of where I happen to live. I welcome your comments.