Thread by @KatecBowler

A pandemic is an exercise in communal thinking. Individualism fails because, suddenly, there is an unavoidable "we."

WE are in danger
WE need protection
WE need healthcare and a safety net when WE fall apart

Americans are famous for their opposition to a communal narrative.

One fun example of why Americans privilege a wildly confident and individualistic story about themselves comes from the difference between the American and Canadian constitution.

🇺🇸 American: life, liberty, pursuit of happiness
🇨🇦 Canadian: peace, order and good governance

There's a lovely example in a lecture by Robert Fulford by about how Americans assume everything must be CONQUERED and not, say, coped with. He writes about a Canadian book by Judylaine Fine called "Your Guide to Coping with Back Pain."

When the same book was acquired by an American publisher, it was re-titled: "Conquering Back Pain."

So Robert Fulford concludes: "there, in a grain of sand, to borrow from William Blake, we can see a world of differing attitudes."

"Our language reveals how we think, and what we are capable of thinking. Canadians cope. Americans conquer. Canadian readers of that book will assume that back pain will always be with them. Americans will assume that it can be destroyed, annihilated, abolished, conquered."

"Americans expect life, liberty, happiness, and total freedom from back pain. Canadians can only imagine peace, order, good government, and moderate back pain."

When things get really hard, we must calibrate our expectations to our reality.

Today we need beautiful, collective narratives, devoted to solving our shared pain to create even the remote possibility of a future filled with "the pursuit of happiness."