Post-COVID-19: How do we want society to be? How do we want the planet to be?
We’re in the middle of a situation is the stuff of apocalyptic literature; a novel virus that is invisible and highly contagious and threatens the global human population; and a lockdown which is stress testing the fabric of local and global society and could potentially threaten political and economic collapse to different degrees. But what we’re living through isn’t imaginary; it’s all too real. There is no going back to pre-COVID-19 and we are not yet anywhere near to post-COVID-19. Hence my questions, ‘How do we want society to be? How do we want the planet to be?’ Because my questions, which are really our questions, can perhaps help us to think about how we, as individuals and as a society, want to live post-COVID-19 and then begin to live in that way as our answers to those questions help to shape political and economic policy through renewed democratic structures. That is the hope.
In order for that hope to be realised, we have to start to think about those questions now, even though in the middle of the situation there are so many unknown facts and impacts that will affect how we will be able to be post-COVID-19. We have to start to think about those questions now so that as the situation evolves and we, and our representatives, have to make choices, we have that vision for society and for the planet to help us to navigate the ethical implications of those choices. The choices that we do face, and will face, are not value-free. The best, and the least, that we can do in respect of our own humanity, and of that of other people, is to understand, as far and as fully as we are able to, the ethical implications of those choices for ourselves and others and for the planet.
Pre-COVID-19 were living through the sixth mass extinction of species in a time that geologists call the Anthropocene because the strata of the planet bear witness to the destructive impact of human beings’ extractive relationship to the planet; to the earth from which we come and to which we will return. In the middle of COVID-19, we are still living through that extinction and post-COVID-19 we will still be living through that extinction. Polar ice caps are melting. Glaciers are melting in the world’s highest mountain ranges. Sea levels are rising. Low lying coastal ground is flooding. Fires, of wild and human origin, are burning in the Amazon. Oceans are acidifying. The driest places on the planet are becoming deserts. School children are striking to draw attention to the climate emergency.
In a speech that she gave in the UK Houses of Parliament on 23 April 2019, the teenage Climate Activist Greta Thunberg spoke words that carry import for the climate emergency and for the wider social and economic emergency that COVID-19: ‘Sometimes we just simply have to find a way. The moment we decide to fulfil something, we can do anything. And I’m sure that the moment we start behaving as if we were in an emergency, we can avoid climate and ecological catastrophe. Humans are very adaptable: we can still fix this. But the opportunity to do so will not last for long. We must start today. We have no more excuses.’
In the middle of COVID-19 there is a critical shortage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and frontline NHS staff face intolerable choices as they have to balance the risk to themselves and to others of treating COVID-19 patients without sufficient protection for themselves, on the one hand, with the humanity of the particular patient who needs their help and who has a chance of recovering with their help, on the other. They are experiencing too much suffering. They are experiencing too much death. And too many of their healthcare colleagues have already died as a result of contracting the virus. Care staff face the same intolerable choices as they work in social care settings in the community. And too many families and circles of friends are grieving the loss of loved ones who have died of COVID-19 in hospital, in a care home or alone in the community.
New words, and associated concepts, entered our vocabulary and experience as we went into COVID-19. Social distancing. Self-isolation. Lockdown. Furlough. Key Worker. To name but a few of those words.
Before COVID-19, I hadn’t really thought about the distance represented by two metres. Now it is a long snaking queue of people anxiously waiting to buy food and medicine. It is the aching gap across which my arms cannot reach to hug my parents and other loved ones.
Before COVID-19, isolation was experienced by many people in our society, especially those who are older and those who are vulnerable for a whole host of reasons. Now we all know how contagious we can be to others, in our physical presence as well as in our physical absence.
Before COVID-19, lockdown was the stuff of apocalyptic literature, other countries and other, earlier, periods in time. Now it is the way that we are living. And we do not yet know when and how it will be safe to leave lockdown. Or how society and the planet will be when we do eventually leave lockdown.
Before COVID-19, furlough referred to temporary leave that a soldier could be granted during which he, or she, would return home. Now it refers to an employee who has been placed on leave by her or his employer, because her or his employer that cannot afford to pay her or him through lockdown, but who remains, temporarily at least, in employment. Now it refers to economic anguish.
Before COVID-19, key workers were not high profile, and many of them were not even considered to be key workers, just as the majority of them were not, and are not, highly paid. Now key workers show us through their care, their skill, and their service, the values on which the resilience of the fabric of our society depends for life itself. Now we applaud them.
In many conversations that I have had in recent days, people have reflected on how we live now and how we might live post-COVID-19. In one of those conversations, the woman with whom I was talking said that she was trying to live one day at a time and to live each day as fully as possible; she had the food, medicine and shelter that she needed and that was enough for each day as she absorbed herself in her garden and in the glorious spring days that are filling her garden with new life of all kinds. In another of those conversations, the woman with whom I was talking spoke about the way that police are using state power during lockdown in the Southern American country from which she comes and in which she is locked down. The first conversation reminded me of what we truly need to live. The second reminded of the importance of the freedom that those of us who live in a Western democracy perhaps take for granted – and should not take for granted.
Post-COVID-19. How do we want society to be? How do we want the planet to be? how do you want society to be? How do you want the planet to be? I want society to be more caring, more equal and more sustainable. Because if it is more caring, equal and sustainable, there is, and there will be, enough for each of us to live in the global village that is twenty first century society. I hope that Thursday evening applause for NHS staff and key workers will translate into the procurement of sufficient PPE for them now and into better recognition of their contribution to the fabric of our society in the values and policies that will shape society post-COVID-19. I hope that economic anguish will translate into a new social contract across all parts of society, locally and globally. I want the planet to be respected by human beings as the one and only source of life that it is. I want human beings to live sustainably in relation to the material life on which we depend and of which we are a part. I want to enjoy the air becoming clearer and healthier as traffic and pollution are reduced. I hope that we start today. Because, while ‘we have no more excuses’ as Thunberg says, we do still have choices and in those choices lies our hope.
© 2020 Julia Bebbington Babb