by Tuula Helne
Social scientists are often scolded for always claiming that our societies are in turmoil or in crisis. Well, nobody reproaches us now: crisis is on everyone’s lips, from politicians to journalists, the general public and social scientists alike. I must, however, say that I am not at all sure about the gravity of the situation, or if I am, not for widely accepted reasons. I am, obviously, referring to COVID-19.
Perhaps this is just a mass psychosis, a friend of mine said. I tend to think he might be right. Of course, people are dying and suffering from a nasty disease (and I wish it went away), but, on the other hand, people die all the time anyway. At the moment of writing this, the daily newspaper statistics tell that 255 people have died from COVID-19 in Finland. Due to the virus outbreak, previously unimaginable measures that encroach on individual liberties and freedom of enterprise have been taken, with remarkably few voices of protest.
For the sake of comparison: about 250 people die in road accidents in Finland yearly, and about 500 people are severely injured. Yet nobody suggests banning motorways, cars or talks about disqualifying under 25-year old males from getting a driving license. Indeed, how could cars be forbidden: they are the symbol of speed blind capitalism. We (or at least the well-off arrogant male road and world owners) need to get from one place to another as fast as possible, making as much noise as possible while at it. Here I come: notice me!
A second comparison: in the USA, the virus has up to now killed 76 000 people. Meanwhile, about 36 000 people are killed by guns each year. There are proponents of more gun control laws, but I am afraid they will never win, since guns are a symbol of the historical prerogatives of the white male. Moreover, individual rights are inviolate (unless we are dealing with the coronavirus, when restrictions suddenly become legitimate).
A third example: according to WHO, air pollution kills an estimated seven million people worldwide every year. The major outdoor pollution sources include vehicles, power generation, agriculture or waste incineration and industry – i.e. the engines of economic growth. At present, the worldwide death toll for corona is about 270 000.
A fourth and final comparison (and the most symptomatic of the human exemptionalism paradigm): Just on land, more than 200 million animals are killed for food around the world every day. When wild-caught and farmed fishes are included, the total is closer to 3 billion daily. Moreover, since the dawn of ‘civilisation’, humans have caused the annihilation of 83 % of wild mammals. These statistics are not published in the newspapers on a daily basis, if ever. I think they should be.
Global reaction to the slaughter: practically non-existent. Why should we care: the right to kill sentient beings is, in the end, a human prerogative, one indication of the human exemptionalism paradigm (a concept coined by William Catton and Riley Dunlap) that guides the behavior of Homo sapiens. In this paradigm, humans are seen as separate from nature, superior to it, which, we assume, grants us the right to exploit it as we please in order to satisfy our needs and wants, and to increase the wealth of nations (or that of individual capitalists). The paradigm may take different forms, but consumer capitalism is the most powerful among them.
Why is the coronavirus perceived as an unparalleled threat? The obvious reason is that it menaces the dominant paradigm. Viruses are not humans, and consequently not entitled to kill us. Second, the virus also poses a threat because it literally is a pandemic: it ruthlessly shatters the lives of even the inhabitants of the richest nations (who, in the paradigm, are more valuable than the rest of the world). How dare it! People die all the time in Africa, Afghanistan and other godforsaken places but that (as if by definition) is not really our problem.
One thing offering us a ray of hope is that children seem to be less affected by the virus. We should, indeed, be happy about is, considering that according to UNICEF, an estimated 6.3 million children under 15 years of age died in 2017, or 1 every 5 seconds, mostly of preventable causes. Half of all deaths of children under five took place in sub-Saharan Africa. Oh well, treatments cost money.
Third, the virus hurts our economies, and hurting the economy is far worse than hurting people. The nightmare scenario of mainstream economists has come true, but – lo and behold – the medicine is already obtainable. Money is pouring into safeguarding businesses (such as flight companies), and advice for best courses of action abound. As the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Confederation of Finnish Industries stressed in an interview, ‘it is now particularly important that all enterprises and people who find it within their capabilities consume as much as possible and keep the wheels of the economy rolling’. Now is also the time ‘to buy our children the toys they have been dreaming of’, as the CEO of the Association for Finnish Work maintained.
COVID-19 is essentially a problem of the Anthropocene. The virus crossed over from animals to humans because of our increasing encroachment onto their natural habitats. As people move deeper into the territories of wild animals for extracting more and more resources, they are exposed to the pathogens that earlier did not leave these areas. There is simply not enough space for animals and nature on this planet anymore. And so be it, according to the paradigm we live by: humans first (or the chosen among them).
To go back to the noise humans make: I have recently been haunted by an article about the mass strandings of beaked whales. A growing body of research points to what triggers this heartbreaking behaviour: the noise caused by ship traffic and industrial and military activities (such as drilling, explosions and powerful sonar systems). Since noise is very stressing for cetaceans, they do their best to escape it as quickly as possible. There are medical explanations (such as decompression illness) for why they end up beaching themselves, but I cannot help thinking that they just could not stand the noise anymore. Do the whales commit suicide because of us?
Yes, I do worry about the impacts of the pandemic, but not for the generally accepted humanistic or economic reasons. I fear that the virus hysteria and its consequences will overshadow much graver problems, such as those I yet did not mention: anthropogenic climate change and plastic pollution. No time for these now; we’ve got to keep the economy going and growing. It is, at the end of the day, in the best interest of the oh so wise Homo sapiens.
Yes, the world is in crisis, but the reason is not COVID-19.