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So, I am not a philosopher. But I can't help feeling like we're going to have national reckoning soon. Tens of thousands dead. Absolutely preventable, at least in large part. Not prevented, by policy, by decisions made by men and women. 1/
Cheered on by politicians, party spokeswomen, members of the media, actions were purposefully taken not to stem the tide of the pandemic. It's not as if no one knew what to do, other countries were doing the right thing for all to see. 2/
We don't live in a dictatorship, no one has to obey, but thousands of officials, many members of the business community, members of Congress have chosen to support what is happening. 3/
Some of it is active support, some of it is just acquiescence. But what is personal moral responsibility here? 4/
All of it consenting to the carnage. 5/
Why do people yield in the face of what surely will lead to the deaths of tens of thousands? 6/
Do officials, party members feel like they have no choice? No ability to resist? 7/
So there is an essay by Hannah Arendt where she quotes Mary McCarthy: If somebody points a gun at you and says, ‘Kill your friend or I will kill you,’ he is tempting you, that is all.” Well, no one is under threat of death here, so why are they so easily tempted to collude? 8/
Here is the link to the Arendt essay. What is startling is that the stakes are so low for resistance here, yet so many are rushing to support, to consent, with a sort of repulsive gusto. 10/ https://grattoncourses.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/responsibility-under-a-dictatorship-arendt.pdf
I am an epidemiologist, an activist, so don't have the language of moral philosophy, of history to try to understand what is going on, but it seems like truth, perhaps not reconciliation, is coming for us here in the US. 11/
