The Times Dispatch is not a place you go to for news. It’s one of one trillion opinion sites that is themed with a religious, political, philosophical bent. What you can count on is a thoughtful assessment of events, and a cool head. (I vent all my outrage elsewhere, this is a place for sober contemplation.)
This is a preliminary After Action Report since we are still not done.
Classification
The first task is to assess what the heck actually happened. There are a few factors that seem to conflict with each other. First: the panic factor was visible very early on. Panic requires a trigger, like a run on the banks. The trigger here was uncertainty, caused by the media because the panic began before the US had any confirmed cases. This caused a run on food, toilet paper, supplies, etc. Panic behavior, by design, runs out of steam and is short lived.
Next, there was the political reaction. I believe the reaction of our leadership was driven by two factors: Election year tom-foolery and the public panic. The political reaction was extreme: Lockdown, quarantine, etc. This fed into the public panic, rather than reassure them, and told them that this virus merited the extreme measures our public servants were taking.
The political reaction had immediate and extreme economic consequences. If the public are locked down, revenue flow stops and suddenly a “just-in-time” cash flow operation becomes strained. Many retailers stopped paying rent, many service industry workers stopped making money. And the political reaction had a long time horizon: Here in Virginia, at the time it was announced, was the longest lockdown by far: June 10th. Economies cannot function like this. It was rationalized by familiar political platitudes. A salve was attempted by a $2 Trillion injection of monopoly money into the economy.
Finally, the virus itself. The actual virus had been so over-hyped by the time it actually started manifesting in the US, that some had an incentive to maintain the hype. In a panic, none can think clearly so the early and sustained panic prevented clear messaging.
The way I see this was a failure-cascade feedback loop. It doesn’t fit the model for a Panic, because it was sustained for so long. It doesn’t fit the model for a recession, because the economic fundamentals didn’t break down, our government stopped the economy. It doesn’t fit the model for a social upheaval either because the public were very obedient to their authorities.
So I will classify this as Mass Hysteria.
Features of Mass Hysteria
There’s a famous example of Mass Hysteria in the Salem Witch Trials with which most everyone is probably familiar. This has the feature of people simulating physiological symptoms, so it’s not quite an analog for that reason. There’s another variety of Mass Hysteria which is exemplified by this example I learned about while researching just now: The Irish Fright.
The Glorious Revolution was the deposition of an English King in 1688 AD. At some point after that, a rumor spread that the Irish, in revenge for the deposition of the King they favored, had assembled an army and were burning and pillaging towns along the English countryside. It resulted in an immediate and massive mobilization of people to defend their homes.
The features of note here are: A plausible and personal danger, a swift rush to prepare for the danger, and a sustained panic (in this case, a matter of days.)
One interesting footnote here is that the Irish Fright was possibly a release of years of anti-Catholic propaganda that “imbued the English public with a deep fear of Irish bloodthirstiness”. In the case of COVID, I think this was a release of years of political tension; some fearing that their government is tyrannical, others fearing that the virus was a bioweapon (a rumor which coincided with first reports of the virus out of China). Another interesting note is that the Irish Fright was fueled and sustained by the news media, which has obvious parallels here.
Dilemma of Mass Hysteria
It is tempting to start here and write about the people and circumstances where the hysteria could have been stopped early, and cool heads could have prevailed. But instead, lets look at why cool heads were impossible to find.
First, there’s a phenomenon I like to call the “Bad Forecast Fallacy”. Every year, NOAA predicts that this hurricane season will be the worst on record. Inevitably, the hurricane season is relatively tame. This is because if NOAA predicts a light hurricane season, and they are wrong, they will be lambasted by the public. If they predict a terrible hurricane season, and are wrong, there is no public outrage. In the absence of concrete data (of which there was none for months after the first reports of COVID), political leaders must make the worst forecast possible in order to protect themselves from public opinion. You can see the effects playing out now as President Trump is criticized for being overly optimistic early on.
Second, there is the ill informed illusion of public good. Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York is famously quoted as saying “If our efforts save even one life, it will have been worth it.” Obviously such justification can be used for many misdeeds, but why did he say it? Why did he get a pass? Cuomo spoke out of an assumption that his duty is to maximize the public good; this is commonly abbreviated “The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number”. Many in government believe that’s what public service means, and in our classically liberal society, that’s what people believe they need. This is the whole premise of liberalism. The trolley problem comes to mind: If a trolley is hurtling down a track towards 5 people stuck in its path, and you are near a level which could divert the trolley to another track where there is only one person stuck, the greatest good for the greatest number is to pull the lever. Zippy Catholic untangled this dilemma by explaining that circumstances outside of your control would result in the death of 5, but circumstances you directly affected resulted in the death of one.
Finally, there’s what we might call the “Wag the Dog” phenomenon. The panic stricken public demanded action, and our leaders had to do something that looked like action. It didn’t have to do anything, and it certainly didn’t have to actually calm the public, but it had to be something. Politicians are, for a large part, great actors, and so they performed their drama beautifully but ineffectually.
A Few Specific Cases
The Church’s response has been bewildering to me, but we must remember that once they reach a certain level they become politicians, quite like Generals in the military. All the same circumstances that affected our politicians affected our Bishops: They were obliged to accept a prediction that was far worse than reality, they had a culturally-pervasive view of the public good, and the public wanted them to do something. Lo and behold, public Mass is cancelled.
There are many ways this could have been avoided, but I think the most urgent thing that needs to be addressed by the Church for the future is the second item, the culturally-pervasive view of the public good. Our Church leadership is charged with the caretaking of souls. Many Saints have been made by risking life and limb to help others; see St. Charles Borromeo. The Public Good should not factor so heavily with their decision making. Their first responsibility should be figuring out how to care for the souls in peril, what is the Spiritual Good. Secondly, how do they effectuate the Spiritual Good in a way that is free of the Trolley-problem? I think that requires some creative thinking, which was foregone in exchange for the appearance of action. The Church had an opportunity to be on the front lines of hope and healing, and so I can’t help but think that was an opportunity missed.
What about the case of Locking Down states and shutting down the economy? The Public Good mentality was a problem here too, because it is by definition reactionary. Proactive measures could have prevented the need for a lockdown, and even so specific and targeted measures could have allowed a partial lockdown. I don’t know what measures would have worked better, my argument here is that the philosophy that “If it saves one life it will have been worth it” is too low a hurdle and allowed our leaders to reach for extreme but disastrous–dare I suggest, Pyrrhic–solutions to this problem.
Conclusion
We have made it through the worst of a period of Mass Hysteria. The consequences are still playing out, but we learned that a false ideal of the public good does more damage than actual public good. Watch for this in the background as events unfold going forward. The “Blamestorm” as WMBriggs put it will target people who didn’t do enough, perhaps a few who did too much, and we will be dealing with the economic consequences for years to come (to say nothing of the cultural and political impacts). The public psyche will be shaken, but will they return to full trusting of the government, or will our relationship with the government be permanently damaged?
May we live in interesting times!
AMDG
Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth 