Is there reason to hope? I believe so. And I’d argue that is due to, rather than in spite of, 2020. An audacious claim, but I ask that you indulge my argument, as the calendar marks mine and the planet’s new revolution.
In exchange, I promise as straightforward an explanation as I can manage: no art, no allusions, no obscure references - just plain language on why I dare to believe that despair is unwarranted. Consider it my belated Christmas gift to all of our readers.
There have been a few moments in my short life where I ignored the signs that a course correction was in order. Thankfully, none of those instances breached catastrophic failure, but I would be lying if I said there was no collateral damage. Learning from these mistakes has made for better choices in the future, as any maturing adult can attest. My thesis is simple - 2020 has given us a foretaste of how bad things can get; our hope lies in taking these lessons to heart.
Let’s make something perfectly clear: there is no excuse for any of us to shrug off or drop what life has been throwing at us over these last few months, even if the pandemic ends tomorrow. Not a soul has been left unaffected by the virus, the countermeasures, and ensuing fallout; the tenuousness of our world has been made plain. It is a delusion that things were any better before COVID-19; they were just better hidden, or a few degrees shy of their boiling point.
Such fatuity is best observed in our leadership class. Centralized authority did not stop the virus; mandates did not arrest cases; put blunty, technocracy did not save us. Yet they have the gall to declare that upon our glorious dead still not properly mourned, we will build anew - the “great reset” as they call it. “Virus gonna virus,” ought to have been their watchword, with a few recommendations and stoic steadfastness. Instead, they’re doubling down on their own failures.
The managerial, administrative, regulatory, and therapeutic apparatuses did not save us, and the economic system they govern left us totally unprepared for this disaster. Medicine and masks had to arrive from elsewhere; big box stores thrived while family owned businesses died; constitutional rights that predate our nation were trampled; people were divided into new classes - essential vs. non-essential workers, working from home vs. forbidden from earning an income.
Combine all this with those pre-pandemic problems - stagnant wages, high amounts of personal/public/student debt, housing costs, political polarization, abdication of leadership, gross negligence and atrophy within every institution, etc. - and it is little wonder that the costs of our chosen cure will almost certainly be far worse than the disease. As the year that witnessed all this passes away and a new annum dawns, where then lies our path towards a better future?
If there were any heroes in this bleak time, they were those who continued to serve and help one another while others abandoned their posts. As every crisis in human history proves, it is the indomitable nature of our spirit that is the true mark of our species. Our hope lies in finally admitting experts cannot save us - we can only save each other. Thus it is imperative we make more room for personal, NGO, and non-corporate initiatives in our socio-econo-political system.
The impetus for such a change is finally here because enough of us are suffering. Those of us who sounded the alarm long before any viruses arrived on our shores are thankful to finally have swelling ranks of willing comrades in the fight for a more human existence. 2020 gave us what shouting from the rooftops could not: authorities proving their complete ineptitude in facing an existential threat, which finally flipped the bell curve from apathy to anger and deep concern.
There is no temporal salvation outside of the democratic political will to manifest a more perfect confederation of decentralized government. If this is ever to be achieved, it will occur due to, not in spite of, 2020. In that spirit of great hope, I sincerely wish everyone a Happy New Year.
