Depending on Others

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how much we depend on others. Overall, we’re a self-reliant lot, but we need each other’s cooperation and support more than we like to admit. “You didn’t build that,” Barack Obama famously said in 2012. He was talking about how public infrastructure gives each of us a leg up when we want to start a new enterprise.

His point almost seems quaint now, at a time when for most of us starting a new business is taking a back seat to staying alive. The essence of his thought, though, is more important now than ever. To stay alive in a pandemic, we have to depend on one another.

On our families, friends and neighbors to wear masks and be sensible about where and with whom they gather.

On our legislators to rush emergency aid to those caring for the sick and those who have been forced out of work and can’t afford to put dinner on the table.

On our fellow citizens to pull together, to do the equivalent of buying war bonds, for this is indeed a war.

So, how’s that going?

Don’t want to wear a mask? Grab your assault rifle and surround the home of Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer. Or if you’re not into that level of militant vigilantism, just have family and friends over for the holidays, because, you know, that’s what you’ve always done. 

Maybe you’re a Republican in the Senate, considering your political future, which seems to occupy much of the time of many senators. Get behind Mitch McConnell’s opposition to giving aid to suffering state and local governments. Why should you help those wasteful Democrat-run blue states? What did they ever do for you?

You’re not a fancy politician, you say, just an average Joe. Don’t despair. Go to Facebook and troll those vote-stealing, socialist Democrats. You’ll find plenty of company.

We’re an independent lot, we Americans. We don’t like to be told what to do. We’re reacting to Covid restrictions like we do to soda bans.

We’ve always been free to eat unhealthily, and we’re seeing the result of that in staggering obesity rates. Many are insisting on being free to gather and not wear masks, and we’re seeing the result of that in staggering Covid infection and death rates.

You’d think we’d figure out that we’re only hurting ourselves. Maybe we’re slow learners.

All this leaves me wondering about my place in a society that seems hell-bent on libertarianism.  No matter what I think is best for the public good, if we won’t cooperate with each other, at some point it gets down to every man for himself.

Billionaire preppers have escape bunkers in New Zealand. Survivalists of more modest means have mountain redoubts stocked with shotgun shells and canned goods.

Maybe I should reread Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road for clues about how best to get through this.