The so-called "learning to live with it" phase of the pandemic is the most brutal so far.

It is showing precisely who and how many our society is willing to sacrifice in the name of supposedly "returning to normal." That is not to say earlier stages of the pandemic (and before) were without cruelty. But now there is no longer even the pretense of decency.

People openly express who they think should be excluded or made disposable so they can "get on with things" and "live their lives."

The optimal subjectivity for the "learning to live with it" phase of the pandemic is not the rabid anti-masker or conspiracy theorist, but the compliant "moderate" who goes along to get along.

The greatest harm is not the bad actions of a few. It is the complacency of many. Both of these subjectivities can be understood as forms of nihilism, and indeed nihilism has been the major social force of the pandemic.

It arises as taken-for-granted ways of understanding the world break down and uncertainty and meaningless take hold.

Great article by @ArboretumNeon on the experience of "learning to live with it" for disabled and immunocompromised people. Original artwork, too.
covidaidcharity.org/advice-and-inf… A few quotations from the article:

"'Learning to live with COVID' has become a sugar-coated euphemism for the fact that the further illness and deaths of vulnerable people has become acceptable."

The failed response to the COVID-19 pandemic is a source of enormous disappointment and understandably leads to cynicism and despondency.

Yet the appropriate way to react to such failure is not cynicism, but a renewed commitment to principled ethical action. It is enormously disappointing to have witnessed failure on so many levels.

Political systems and institutions failed, even those institutions whose mandate was public health. Those who presume to be leaders failed. And it must be said that everyday people have failed, as well.

The concerted pushback against any form of public health measures in the so-called "learning to live with it" phase of the pandemic is a reactionary movement.

Actually managing COVID-19 requires social solidarity and collective values, which pose a challenge to the status quo. Reactionary movements typically oppose some social or political shift. They fight against change and call for a return to a previous system.

As @CoreyRobin points out in The Reactionary Mind, the change does not have to be revolutionary, simply any hint of a change in power.

The failure to adequately respond to the COVID-19 pandemic is an ethical failure and not a scientific or technical one.

An inconsistent ethical framework to guide action and policy inevitably makes things worse, which further erodes the capacity to act ethically. One example of this ethical failure is with respect to the vaccine rollout. An ethical vaccine rollout would have prioritized those most at risk for infection and onward transmission of the virus, which in many cases are working-class and racialized communities.

The "return to normal" in the context of COVID-19 means there are no more "restrictions," but the current approach to learning to live with it restricts everyone more.

An approach based on accessibility and inclusion would be better for everyone, not just "the vulnerable." The current mass infection approach is an act of exclusion, first of all for what are called vulnerable people - disabled people, older adults, or anyone with compromised immune systems. It also excludes anyone who is unwilling to participate in the culture of mass infection.

The "learning to live with it" phase of the pandemic is premised on the idea that it is an individual responsibility to assess and manage risks.

But what is happening in practice is that individuals are falling prey to groupthink and conformity bias. Highly individualistic societies have all along had a difficult time dealing with COVID-19, a public health crisis that by definition requires a collective response. Societies with collective values and strong community bonds have been more successful.

Among the most destructive social aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic is the inability to acknowledge the legitimate concerns of those who resist the culture of mass infection.

Even well-meaning and caring people are unable to imagine why anyone refuses to "learn to live with it." The inability to acknowledge legitimate concerns is rooted in a breakdown of empathy. The pandemic has been a challenging situation for everyone, and many are so motivated to believe it is over they have surrendered to magical thinking and denial.

As wave upon wave of COVID-19 infection and reinfection sweep through the population, it is astonishing how complacent many people seem about having themselves and their loved ones sacrificed in the name of so-called “learning to live with it.” As if complacency at their own victimization was not enough, the only anger many seem able to muster is directed at those continuing to mask or exercise caution.

The stark choice is to participate in the culture of mass infection or be ostracized and isolated.

Actually "learning to live with" COVID-19 would involve having a set of policies and practices based on clearly defined thresholds.

The complete absence of thresholds is more proof the current approach is simply hand waving and magical thinking. Such thresholds could be along the lines of "if this, then that." For example, if infection rates hit some threshold, then this public health measure is enacted. It could be any metric, just so long as some threshold triggers some action.

The "learning to live with it" phase of the pandemic functions through widespread denial of the reality of ongoing harm.

That denial is paradoxically enabled by a basic tendency toward optimism, which although a positive trait gets in the way of effective action. Lauren Berlant calls this "cruel optimism," in the sense that the desire to always look on the bright side stops people from recognizing the harms being done to them, or doing anything to address those harms. The tendency is to believe "everything will work out for the best."

The failed response to the COVID-19 pandemic is caused in part by a lack of social solidarity, a concept that is almost inconceivable to many in our society.

Here is a social solidarity thought experiment: Why would anyone wear a mask when driving in a car alone? Thinking back to earlier stages of the pandemic when masking was actually a widespread practice, it was not uncommon to see a person alone in a car, wearing a mask.

It became a subject of speculation, and there are thousands of hits online referring to this.

The failure to adequately respond to the COVID-19 pandemic is in large part caused by a lack of social solidarity.

Those who have never experienced social solidarity are ill-equipped to enact it, and since our society discourages social solidarity, we are set up to fail. At the outset of the pandemic, there was at first a great flourishing of social solidarity. Communities came together to form mutual aid networks. People figured out ways to support one another. They were literally singing from the rooftops, cheering for frontline workers.

The failed response to the COVID-19 pandemic is best understood as an ethical failure, not a scientific or technical one.

It is rooted in the abdication of responsibility on the part of those in authority, but of everyday people as well. It is a failure of common decency. On the one hand, leaders gave up on the duty of care they owe the public. Some leaders capitulated to economic interests. Some to political pressure. Some to simple weakness and expediency.

In the worst cases, they actively undermined basic notions of moral responsibility.

The failed pandemic response is not about bad people doing bad things. If there was a nefarious group acting to harm our communities it would be easier to do something about it.

The pandemic failure is banal, perpetrated mostly by people who see themselves as essentially good. That is not to say no one is responsible. Some people have done great damage, and everyone is responsible for the predictable consequences of their actions.

But many of those who have done the most harm truly believe they are acting with the best interests of the public in mind.

The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour, and so the failure to adequately respond to the COVID-19 pandemic foreshadows an inability to deal with other significant issues. It could be other infectious diseases, worsening consequences of ecological collapse and climate change, issues of social and political injustice, and any ongoing COVID-related concerns.

Realistically, none of this can be addressed or even correctly understood at present.

The absurdity of the "learning to live with it" phase of the pandemic is not just the denial of the reality of the situation, but that denial hinges on the pretense that everyone is "happy-busy-good." They must be happy about being back to in-person work, school, and public life.

They must be busy with events, holidays, and socializing of all kinds.

They must be good with how things are going and with the removal of public health measures.

The insistence that the pandemic is over, even in the face of overwhelming evidence it is not, is born of a desire shared by just about everyone.

Everyone just wants this to end.

There is an enormous incentive for those with the most influence to say it is over. And there is an enormous incentive for the public to believe what they are being told.

The magical thinking that punctuates this "learning to live with it" phase of the pandemic is mutually reinforcing between those with influence and the public.

The subtitle of my recent book on COVID-19 and ethics calls out a "failure of common decency."

In this "learning to live with it" stage of the pandemic, perhaps more than at any point in the past two years, decency just doesn't seem so common, and that's a huge concern.

🧵 The notion of common decency is from a quotation in Albert Camus' novel The Plague:

"There's no question of heroism in all this. It's a matter of common decency. That's an idea which may make some people smile, but the only means of fighting a plague is common decency."

Public attitudes in the current phase of the pandemic have taken on elements of magical thinking, often encouraged by those with the most influence.

Four components of this magical thinking are 1) changing the meaning of words, 2) scapegoating, 3) ritual, and 4) prophecy. 1) Changing the meaning of words, which could be called spells or magic words, involves mobilizing language to mystify, but also making acceptable what should be unacceptable. Here are a few examples:

"Learning to live with it" means accepting high levels of death and suffering.