How Has Covid-19 Updated Your Priors?
The most prominent intellectual casualty for me is the "conservative disgust" hypothesis, which has now been obliterated to the stratosphere1. I wasn't alone in assuming that concern about infection and pathogens would skew more right-wing, but that didn't pan out at all. Of course, perhaps the thesis is still valid but it got swallowed up by bigger tribal concerns (e.g. the pandemic is used to make our president look bad).
I myself have gotten significantly more mindful about germs and vectors of infectious transmission. Previously, I maintained good hygiene but also accepted we live in a dirty world and it's not necessarily worth worrying about. But now my mind can't help but diagram an extensive chain of custody for every appendage, surface, item, etc. that I encounter. I'm mindful of sitting on a park grass because I know that thousands of dogs have either pissed or taken a shit on that very spot. I'm mindful of putting a package I received in the mail on my kitchen counter, because that bottom surface has rubbed up against any number of foreign substances before arriving to my home. I'm mindful of getting into bed with semi-dirt feet and making contact with the 'top' of my blanket before realizing and switching it to be near my face.
I've seen in the past some atrociously dirty hands on some of my clients (like, almost entirely caked with dirt, as if hand-washing was not invented) but I only rarely hesitated shaking people's hands because it felt important to establish some egalitarian rapport. The prison/jail system had a very difficult time dealing with the pandemic early on because basic amenities like disinfectant were strictly controlled by the authorities. It made me think more about just how atrocious some people's hygiene habits, both by what they prioritize but also how limited their amenities are (the relatively modern luxury of unlimited clean running water on demand isn't going to be around when you're living in a tent under a highway).
But while I may think about it more, it's not clear that my behaviors have changed all that much. I live in a blue city with very high vaccination rates, but I'm very often one of the only people that isn't wearing a mask. I carry hand sanitizer all the time now, but primarily because I recognize how versatile it is. It’s great either for getting rid of pen ink marks and also for cleaning your hands from grease after eating as an inferior but workable alternative to hand washing. While I think masking up when you're vaccinated is fucking dumb, I appreciate the broader availability and adoption of facial masks and would hope they continue to be used in a similar fashion to Asian countries (primarily as a courtesy and signal to others to communicate you are sick).
Regarding government institutions, I've largely been impressed with their resilience. The pandemic, the lockdowns, and the associated disruptions have been the most significant events in recent memory, and I would have assumed at least some governments to have failed entirely. While there was massive disruption in the social order even in highly resilient democracies like the US, it was comparatively small-scale. The BLM riots/protests very likely caused dozens of deaths directly, billions of dollars of property damage, and likely thousands more indirectly in increased homicides and crime, but we're still nowhere near a comparable year during the crime waves of the 70s and 80s.
Similarly, I'm largely in awe at the resilience of global capitalism and its intricate web of far-flung supply chains. No doubt, certain sectors and industries are still in major disarray, but it largely appears to be a temporary blip. I remember the early days when everyone bum rushed the grocery stores. For a while, hand sanitizer, toilet paper, and frozen foods, etc. were near impossible to find, but that was relatively quickly remedied within just a few weeks. I can't recall which economist made this comment, but it truly is a miracle of momentous proportion that a city like New York City with its 8 million residents is not experiencing a famine every single day. Again, the 70s and 80s saw several countries regularly experience famines, but that is just not a thing anymore. I make sure to pay attention to the fact that my grocery store is always consistently full and well-stocked. It's truly amazing, and I don't think I sufficiently appreciated it before.
Along that same note, I have anarchist proclivities but I have to reluctantly concede the significant benefits of government action within a time of crisis. The main one is the breathtaking speed that an extremely effective vaccine was developed. I can't imagine how that would have happened without the resources and coordination partly marshalled up by the world's governments (to be fair, I also recognize how much it has been a hindrance in the past but that's another topic). I also reluctantly recognize the utility of the massive relief packages provided by world governments to its population. It's not clear what an anarchist solution would have looked like, and it's a refutation to my philosophy I would need to give serious consideration.
But that's not to say that it was all rosy. The pandemic and its myriad of seemingly arbitrary restrictions (e.g. no painting, gardening, or furniture selling in Michigan) highlighted how hungry for power government institutions can be. That's not surprising, but it was surprising to be reminded of how fragile that power is. Modern civil society largely exists in a détente scenario, where the hypothetical promise of violence by the state is often sufficient enough to keep people in line. But the pandemic highlighted just how easily that can be overwhelmed. A governor can certainly declare that everyone is required to wear masks, but if you make your actions arbitrary enough, your citizens will just shrug and ignore you. What are you going to do? Arrest everyone?
This fragility was also highlighted during the BLM riots. There's a baseline level of criminality expected, along with the law enforcement apparatus that exists to deal with it. But holy hell, June 2020 was a mess. Once a given community breaks the law enforcement capacity threshold, it's a free-for-all. I had previously dismissed 'broken windows policing', but I'm rethinking its merits now. I think it has been well demonstrated how much disorder can compound on itself. Criminality clearly responds to incentives, and even otherwise law-abiding individuals might get tempted by a store full of merchandise with broken doors, no staff, and no cops around.
Both the lockdown and BLM protests/riots highlighted how important the legitimacy of authority is, not just its capacity.
This AITA post from March 5th 2020 is such a beautiful time capsule of where everyone’s loyalties lied at the beginning.