Sometimes A Pandemic Is Just A Pandemic

I’m suspicious of motivational speaking and power of positivity preaching.

On the other hand, I am convinced there’s good evidence that we get the outcomes we set our mind to. “Dispositional optimism”  has scientifically established positive outcomes.

So along comes pandemic, and turns the world upside down, and of course pundits on “all sides” will work hard to interpret pandemic, give assignments, make meaning. To wit:

These are the early social media forays into pandemic literature. More on the way. Lots more. I see N.T. Wright already has a book out, God and the Coronavirus.

I took a class with N.T. Wright and like the guy, but wow I don’t plan to read it.

Just call me a Gen Xer.

Of course there is going to be much social analysis of the pandemic. We will want to analyze it, and its effects.

Some will also want to instrumentalize the pandemic. Like any crisis, the capitalists will seek to take advantage of it for their own purposes, using crisis as cover and opportunity.

And though I’m more sympathetic to the socialist side of things, I recognize the temptation to instrumentalize the pandemic for socialist purposes also.

But, if I think more carefully, I do not think it is wise for people to instrumentalize the social effects of a pandemic.

Things will be revealed in a pandemic. Don’t get me wrong. We are learning a lot through this change, more so in some ways because the whole world is going through the change, and for such a long time.

But pandemic is not a call to repentance. It does not ‘mean’ something in that way.

Nor is it an opportunity to bring about sweeping social change, or line the pockets of the rich at the expense of the essential workers.

So what is pandemic, then?

It is pandemic.

Some people will use it to learn Klingon. Others will nap all the way through. Others will work seven days a week and get paid a couple more dollars per hour. Some will use it to get filthy rich. Others will use it to get people out of jail.

All of this is pandemic.

I will confess, I cannot remain agnostic in face of pandemic, even if (maybe especially because) I am arguing that we should not “use” the pandemic.

I do like it that our jail is emptying out right now, and the whole country is proclaiming #blacklivesmatter and #DefundthePolic.

But then I also appreciate when people encourage gentleness and grace with each other–it’s okay if you’re wearing your pajamas all day and struggle to be productive.

I like it we’re all gardening more.

I like it that some of us are doing nothing at all.

But I also appreciate the obverse, the wisdom of positivity–you have some extra time, so use it to write that next novel!

Here’s the irony of the image above, which I love… The guy who made this was very productive.

And that’s a lot of mylar balloons (speaking of pandemic and mylar, perhaps this pandemic is our first test run of how to head off climate change).

Anyway, we’re still living the pandemic. The New Zealanders may have gotten beyond it for now, and I’m really jealous they’re all out watching rugby right now, but our nation, our culture, our state, was totally not prepared to handle a pandemic well.

We’ve royally botched it, and we’re going to be in this for a while now.

So I’m investing some of my time reading the stuff that I should read so that after this is over (if we ever get there), I can “build back better.”

Like the book linked above, which argues from a psychoanalytic perspective that the evangelicals aren’t really hypocrites. Instead, theirs is faith in white supremacy, misogyny, and heteronormativity masquerading as faith in Christ.

Phil Snider says, “What is commonly confused for white evangelical hypocrisy is actually perfectly consistent with the white evangelical desire for domination and destruction. This book is a must read for all those who wish to better understand the hidden motivations of contemporary white evangelicals, as well as those who recognize the urgent responsibility of resisting what white evangelicalism has become in this day and age.”

As another reviewer writes, “DeLay’s book illustrates the immense enjoyment many evangelicals get from denial of common sense–including, most importantly, the burning up of the planet. It is an urgent plea for recognition of a problem that threatens everyone’s survival and is simply a must-read for anyone concerned about where things are headed.”

Sometimes a pandemic is just a pandemic, and what you need to pay attention to its psychoanalysis of the Christian movement that might just bring about the end of the world.

I don’t know any other way to spend this time. A pandemic is nothing more than a pandemic, and we have no real option other than to live together now as best we can while also inasmuch as possible, building back better.

We will be more free to do so when we demythologize the pandemic and look what was already there right in front of us stark in the face.

One place to start: the president of the United States wants to host a rally this weekend in Tulsa, ignoring Juneteenth and Black Wall Street, to show he’s got momentum for all the things that brought us to this point to begin with.

The signs have been there all along. Sometimes the truth is right in front of you, rallying without masks like a virus bomb just waiting to explode.

That’s also pandemic. Hard to even know what to do with it.