What the Coronavirus Teaches Us

This is hard.

We are being asked to do the things we have never done before.

Don’t touch.

Stay away from family members.

Avoid hospitals or nursing homes – no matter how sick or lonely your loved ones are.

Don’t visit friends.

Stay home.

Don’t work.

Avoid strangers. 

These things are difficult because these things do not come naturally to us.  They are contrary to human nature. 

It’s like the world has been turned upside down.  How do we make sense of it?

I’m not sure we can; but if there is an answer other than what history will provide it probably comes in an observation made by my friend, Tim Love.

Tim is the former Vice Chairman of Omnicom Group, a leading global advertising and marketing company.  He retired in 2013 as CEO of the Asia Pacific, India, Middle East and Africa regions.  These positions gave him a rare worldview.

When facing a difficult problem, Tim has always advised me to – “Think like the sun.”  It takes a long lens to see beyond the moment.

If you look at what’s happened that way, you can’t help wondering why the virus arrived when it did.  You can’t help wondering why it arrived the way it did and why we have responded the way we have.

Is it an accident that it comes at a time when the world is becoming increasingly polarized? 

Is it an accident that it comes when our country is so divided?

Is it an accident that it comes at a time when our political system seems so dysfunctional? 

Is it an accident it comes when the media has been so discredited half the population doesn’t know who to believe?

Is it an accident that it comes when confidence in our institutions has been eroded and the fundamental role of government is in question?

The most obvious lesson is how small the world really is.  In four months, the Coronavirus has infected nearly every nation in the world. 

The virus doesn’t see the lines we have drawn on the map.  It doesn’t care about our racial distinctions or religious divisions.  All humanity is at equal risk.

The second great lesson is a reminder of how interdependent we are.  The level of our attachment and degree of our mutual dependence is more evident every day.

Third, what we are being asked to do is to help ourselves by helping others.  This is the “enlightened self-interest” Alexander de Tocqueville first noted as so essential to democracy.   It is part of our social compact.

The social compact is the fabric that binds us.  We see it most clearly on the highways.  The only way we can get from here to there safely is if everyone stays in their lanes.  Sure there is the occasional self-centered cretin who blows through traffic at great speed or drives on the shoulder to avoid a traffic jam, but almost unconsciously most people consider others, obey speed limits and follow the rules. 

So it is now.  We stay away from people not for ourselves but because of our concern for others.  The further apart we are, the more we realize how important it is to be together.

“No Man Is An Island,” John Donne said.  COVID-19 is a hard way to learn that lesson.

Donne’s poem expressed his belief that human beings do badly when isolated from others and need to be part of a community in order to thrive.  His poem was written in 1624, but it could not be more relevant to this moment.  It reads as follows:

No man is an island entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were,
As well as any manor of thy friend’s,
Or of thine own were.

Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.