What Are Our Strengths?

The most recent editorial from the editors of the Washington Post is, I think, well-intentioned. In it they declaim that our response to the COVID-19 outbreak illustates “America at its best”:

AMID DREAD and uncertainty, the American people are displaying extraordinary purpose and motivation to meet the coronavirus threat head-on. From darkening Broadway to silencing professional and amateur sports leagues, from closing Disneyland to shuttering cathedrals, we are witnessing the response of an open democratic society, with unfettered news and social media, and civic and political institutions and leadership ready to make hard decisions. This is America at its best.

Ever since experts began calling for social distancing to reduce transmission of the respiratory virus, people in the United States have demonstrated they were listening. Their actions have ranged from small acts of kindness, such as a young woman buying groceries for an elderly couple, to disruptive decisions that until recently would have seemed unthinkable, such as emptying sports stadiums and turning out the lights at universities. Costly, emotionally fraught choices have engendered remarkably little complaining or bitterness.

but I think the editorial is a confused jumble. Broadway wasn’t “darkened” by the American people or even by the public-spiritedness of the theater operators. The governor of the state declared a state of emergency and a ban on assemblies of 500 people or more. That’s what closed the theater and “silenced” professional and amateur sports leagues. “Shuttering cathedrals” was an act of the bishop, another authoritarian. There was nothing democratic or particularly American about it. The Soviet Union might have done the same.

And have they never read The Pursuit of Loneliness? It’s now in its 50^th year. Americans hardly need to be told to isolate themselves. It has become a national malady. It’s like telling one of Garrison Keillor’s “Norwegian bachelor farmers” the virtues of remaining silent. We are now actively promoting a pre-existing trend.

The act of individual, personal philanthropy to which they point is, indeed, “America at its best” much as it was first described 195 years ago by Alexis de Tocqueville. I would say that our strengths as a country include

• Our ability to self-organize
• Personal responsibility and kindness
• Initiative
• Entrepeneurship

all of which are embattled these days. I would also say that so far our response to the outbreak has shown us both at our best and our worst. Consider, for example, the case of the two enterprising brothers in Tennessee reported on by the New York Times who, as soon as the first fatality due to COVID-19 occurred, industriously went around buying all of the hand sanitizer and sanitary wipes they could put their hands on and started selling them on Amazon. Until Amazon shut them down. You may recall that earlier I claimed that many of the shelves empty of bleach, wipes, sanitizer, etc. were due to profiteers. That’s at least a little evidence of my claim. Or this article from the Toronto Star about the couple who’ve made $100,000 reselling Lysol wipes. A few hundred or thousand people like that can create a panic which I think is what we’re already seeing.