Coronavirus Reminds Us of the Need for an Empathetic Society

The politics of cruelty are proving ineffective against a global pandemic.

Flyers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport wearing facemasks on March 6th, 2020 as the COVID-19 coronavirus spreads throughout the United States. Courtesy of Flickr by Chad David. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Dire circumstances call for extreme measures, and it seems like under the threat of COVID-19, our society has collectively agreed upon the necessity to express forth an unusually kind view of the other, that even though we might harbor disdain for them, we’ll have to stomach it for the survival of all. Coronavirus, if its effect on people depends largely on the quality of care they can get, is going to hurt the most vulnerable in our society. But more egregious than the reticence of some governments to enact policy alleviating the plight of the needy under what seems like an economy heading towards recession, is the sustenance of a system that ensures only the privileged will be able to come out of this unscathed.

So much of what has ailed Western society since the dawn of modernity has been an embrace of individual triumph over collective prosperity. Italy’s response to the recent outbreak is emblematic of this–fueled by hubris, the government chose to scapegoat its issues onto immigrants by lacing so much of their response with xenophobia, just as Italians were transmitting the disease to each other from within, until costly repercussions forced authorities’ hands into a compulsory nationwide…