Coronavirus Can Save the World
In the event of alien invasion, most human conflict would stop instantly. As their leviathan ships rolled shadows over Earth’s cities, world leaders would dial each other, joining militaries and pooling resources. The squabbling that saturates our electromagnetic waves would cease. “Good luck” and “stay safe” would ring from every pulpit. Our combined nuclear arsenals, once meant for each other, would fill the sky like locusts. With alien blood on our hands and faces, we would emerge into the sunlight victorious—but only if we worked together.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. This axiom, responsible for some unusual alliances over the years—the jihadist Ottoman Empire and Germany in World War I, the capitalist America and communist Soviet Union in World War II—was most recently demonstrated in the globally unified support for the United States after 9/11. Terrorism, which declared the secular state illegitimate, was a threat to all nations; it was in each nation’s best interest to denounce it. This phenomenon was explored in the graphic novel Watchmen: billionaire Adrien Veight slashed the Gordian knot of international relations by teleporting a colossal squid-creature into New York City, instantly dispelling Cold War tensions through the arrival of a new, unexpected, and mysterious foe.
Humanity’s common enemy has arrived. In late 2019, a little strand of RNA wriggled into existence; as of March 2020, it has made its way to every shore of civilization. Coronavirus doesn’t care if we’re Chinese or American, black or white, Republican or Democrat, incel or Chad. The one positive thing you can say about COVID-19 is that it doesn’t discriminate.
Coronavirus is a crisis, but America was already in crisis. Increasing polarization and insufferable identity politics was killing our country. The irony of our self-perpetuated fragmentation—which pitted original peoples like Asians and Blacks against each other, or whitewashed Ashkenazic Jews, first-generation Slav immigrants, and mixed-race Hispanics—is that pitting ethnic groups against each other was literally written into Russian geopolitical textbooks. American political campaigns built on caging specific identities would make Raskolnikov smile.
The fall of Rome happened for a few reasons, but one of them, as geostrategist Zbigniew Brezinski writes in The Grand Chessboard, is that “the citizens were no longer prepared to make…social sacrifice.” He wrote of America’s decay: “as America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, its ability to form a consensus…is weakened and there is unlikely to be a united American response such as there was during World War II.” As Jay Z recently rapped: “No civilization is conquered from the outside / until it destroys itself from within.”
Coronavirus, in its invisible immediacy, asks us to sacrifice and demands a consensus; while such actions are not inevitable, they are in our best interest. Sacrifice can be good: it can ripen a generation’s character and reminds us of our community bonds. The sacrifice asked of most of us today, while economically difficult, isn’t particularly laborious—we are told to sit on our couch.
Commentators have already remarked on coronavirus’ potential to reduce polarization, reminding Americans that leaders of opposite stripes aren’t all bad. I’ve seen left-wing pundits praising the swift response of Republican governor and homunculus Mike DeWine. The right-wing New York Post is complimenting Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo’s stern leadership. For the first time, maybe, since 9/11, Republicans and Democrats are learning that Republicans and Democrats care about Republicans and Democrats alike.
Crises have traditionally been engines of change. The Great Depression catalyzed The New Deal. 9/11 allowed Bush to expand the federal government the most since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Democratic Socialists are getting their day—now is the chance to enact a kind of “New Deal,” as long as they can stomach dealing with the President, who is more ideologically flexible than his Republican allies, and, believe it or not, at this point, shares the same goal: defeating the virus and restoring the economy.
Beyond the American question, coronavirus has the potential to unite the world. As Mahlet Mesfin from Foreign Affairs writes, for perhaps “the first time in modern history, the entire, interconnected world is focused on solving a single problem.” There are heartening signs everywhere: American company Gilead is working with the China-Japan Friendship Hospital to test an antiviral drug in Wuhan; researchers in Germany and Hong Kong teamed up on a coronavirus diagnostic test; even Trump wrote a letter to Kim Jong Un offering help.
It’s not all sunlight and candy. While the private sector is crowdsourcing information, the Chinese and American governments are beefing—the former waging an insidious campaign to blame COVID-19 on American soldiers, the latter deploying a countervailing narrative of the “Chinese virus.” But it is in our best interest to collaborate. Should we develop stronger diplomatic bonds, we can use them to tackle other problems, like preserving biodiversity and multiplying green energy.
Finally, while the quarantine has paralyzed our conventional avenues towards effecting change—for example, mass protests and public elections, or donating blood and volunteering—it has provided opportunities to change ourselves as people. Many of us will have more time to read or reflect.
I’ve seen two primary recommendations: the productive approach, exhorting people to finish their novels, or the restful approach, telling people it’s okay not to finish their novels. Either is good. Many will find time to relax. Entrepreneurs will find problems to solve. Artists will find unlikely inspiration.
In the weeks and months after 9/11, people showed much compassion, but also hate. The pandemic is our chance to exercise free will for good— to not attack each other for the last roll of toilet paper or scream at Asian people in the subway, but to help where we can and share what we got. Anyone who’s received an email has already seen the rising tide of kindness. Students are organizing to deliver groceries to the elderly, restaurants are giving out free food, activists are organizing spreadsheets for service workers to get financial aid. In addition to the cruelty, we should never forget the curious altruism of the “human bean.”
As I write these words on March 24, America is bracing for the worst. We are told this is the eve of chaos—that it is going to get much worse in the coming days and weeks. But we have to sow seeds in darkness. We have to keep our hope that things will not just return to normal, but get better.
This is a terrible crisis. I wish we could snap our fingers and vanquish COVID-19 forever. I pray for every casualty and their families. But this plague is here now and we have to make the best of it.
If we can’t—as a country and a world—rise to this occasion, we likely never will, until forced by violence. Coronavirus will either break our back or demonstrate our backbone. If this is the crisis that renews our country’s resolve and tightens international bonds, that rescues us from domestic and foreign division, then it is preferable—as awful as that sounds—to war, famine, or alien invasion.
I didn’t say coronavirus will save the world. It can save the world. It has the potential to strengthen us as a country, as a world, and as humans. Learning generational sacrifice and relearning national consensus, we will emerge into the sunlight victorious—but only if we work together.
