Covid-19: Disruption & Crisis, Possibility & Peril
“There’s a love that doesn’t bend,
When everything comes to an end.”
– Ryan Driver in honour of Justin Haynes
All of a sudden everything’s irrevocably changed.
Our normal routines and habits of typical behaviour, the things that were significant to us, our commitments, the relationships we were immediately involved in, the tools we used, the authorities we believed in and responded to, the goals which we worked towards and our expectations of the future, the stories of our lives, the whole worlds we lived in, have suddenly shifted into a new reality.
Everywhere everyone is seeking to find a way to adapt to something completely beyond their control.
But we’re not ready.
How could we be?
And the new reality is a tragic one, a plague which is running amok, invisibly infecting us, making us sick, and even killing those most vulnerable to it.
This is a crisis, and a deep disruption.
‘Disruption’ is a word that has been popularized of late, most frequently used in the world of entrepreneurship, as a description for the impact a technological innovation might have. As it happens I’ve been researching and doing workshops on ‘disruption’ and ‘curiosity’ for a couple years and I’m a bit of a purist on the use of the word. Much of what is currently called ‘disruption’ I would call ‘evolution’.
The word ‘Dis’ originates from the Roman word for ‘the gates to hell’. The gates of Dis are what the three headed dog Cerberus guarded. So, as a prefix in front of every word we use to demonstrate that something is wrong – dysfunction, disability, disorder – it has a powerful place in our lexicon. ‘Dissing’ someone is insulting them. And the word ‘rupture’ means that something is ‘ruptured’. That is, broken beyond repair: a ‘ruptured spleen’, a ‘ruptured pipe’.
When I began to get a grip on the word (if that’s possible) I wrote, in a blog post entitled ‘Disruption is asking the question, ‘Who Are You?’, ’that “Real disruption is a wound to the integrity of an identity.” Real disruption goes to your core, and may hurt deeply, and questions your, our, very identity – who we are.
Band-aids don’t work on ruptures. Recovery from real disruption requires more than ‘repair’ or ‘replacement’. In fact disruption isn’t asking for ‘re-covery’, a return to a previous mode of operation, at all. Response to real disruption requires radical adaptation, structural transformation, a change in identity.
We’re in a crisis, and ‘crises’ are ‘disruptive’. The etymology of ‘crisis’ is also very telling, coming from the Greek krisis, “the turning point in a disease, that change which indicates recovery or death” with further meanings of a trial, judgement, decision or separation. Going farther back is even more interesting as it derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *krei- “to sieve or sift”, with a specific reference to ‘separating the wheat from the chaff”. A crisis was once understood as a disruption which, to survive, required the separation of the wheat from the chaff, what we need from what we don’t need.
So, we’re in a time of ‘disruption’ and ‘crisis’. Four core elements of both ‘disruption’ and ‘crisis’ are volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity; known in worlds of change theory by the acronym ‘VUCA’ (the acronym was devised by military strategists to describe the difficulty of decision-making due to ‘the fog of war’ in combat situations). We don’t know what is going to happen because we hardly know what is happening, the situation is novel and changing rapidly, the number of possible variables is overwhelming, the intentions of influential actors are not aligned, and people affected are reacting in ways that are panic-driven or ill-informed and so lacking in rationality and predictability. What is becoming increasingly apparent is that the paradigm in which ‘the world order’ has been operating – its current form of governance, its financial markets, its political and economic models – is under extreme duress, responding inadequately to the threat, and becoming, at least temporarily, crippled by its onslaught. The temporary collapse of that model, it’s inadequacy in the face of the disruption, opens the door to radical change.
Naomi Klein, in her very recent video ‘CoronaVirus Capitalism’, daringly opens and closes with a quote from the free market economist Milton Friedman: “Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change.” In the realm of such change, Klein states, “seemingly impossible ideas suddenly become possible”.
But which impossible ideas, which impossible reality, will become possible is a question that doesn’t have an answer in the thick of crisis and disruption. There are a plethora of possibilities and perils that Covid-19 has opened the lid on.
COVID-19 AND ITS POSSIBILITIES
I’ve seen a lot of folks expressing, despite the critical nature of the crisis, an optimism about it’s possible outcomes. I’ll call these folks the ‘Kali-ites’.
Kali is the renowned Hindu Goddess of astonishingly fieresome aspect. She has either four or ten arms (handy), is either black or blue in colour, her eyes are red with intoxication and rage, her hair is a mess, sometimes she has small fangs and her tongue is sticking out (like Miley Cyrus a little while back), she wears a skirt made of human arms and an impressive necklace of human heads, and is accompanied by large snakes and a jackal. Not Barbie. She also has one foot on what appears, at first glance, to be a very sorry looking blue dude, but he is not in fact a vanquished foe but her consort, the god Shiva. He’s just chillin’ down there – maybe getting the f**k out of the way – while she completely annhilates all the baddies (I could use a consort like that!).
In a renowned tale featuring Kali she completely demolishes the demon Raktabija. Various heroic gods – including Durga the Goddess of war (who seems a lot like Athena from Greek mythology) – had been trying to defeat Raktabija but from every drop of blood that came from his wounds a replica of him would come to life, so soon enough there was an army of Raktabijas overwhelming the good guys. Durga produces Kali from her forehead (Zeus did the same with Athena) and Kali doesn’t mess around. Kali sucks his blood dry so there’s no more clones, and then eats all the clones; she doesn’t just kill them, she eats them. So, to say the least, Kali is seriously badass.
But here’s the thing; Kali is essentially benevolent. She’s revered, primarily, as a divine protector of the good, a destroyer of evil forces, as a Mother Nature, even the Mother of the Universe itself, bestowing liberation, enlightenment. Being a natural force, a wild thing, the force of her capacity for destruction sometimes gets carried away. So, while the devastation and tragic consequences of Covid-19 – a virus, a force of nature – are clear, there are many people who see the momentary collapse of an unjust socio-political paradigm as a great possibility for good.
My dear friend, Dani Guiharo, quarantined in Spain, e-mailed in response to my query of his well-being “I am positive that this is changing the world for good.. Anthropocentrism is dying… positivism is dying.. nation-state is dying.. capitalism is dying.. All of these are obsolete.. none of them are able to respond to what is happening… All the paradigms we live by are not reliable anymore…“.
Here are some of the possible positive benefits arising as a result of this disruption.
The revaluation of (climate) science, data, facts and ‘truth’, and a Green New Deal
The last couple of decades have seen a precipitous decline in huge swaths of the public’s confidence in science, facts, research and expertise. Special interest groups profiting politically or financially from ignorance have fueled conspiracy theories levelled against climate science and well-researched reporting (“fake news”). Covid-19 is proving, again and again (witness Donald ‘It’s-Gonna-Be-a-Miracle’ Trump time and again eventually conceding to Anthony Fauci), that data matters, facts matter, and ‘truthiness’ is fatal. Folks who were blowing off the virus as a democratic or socialist hoax have had their come-uppance, and some have died already. Expertise matters, and those who flout it reap the reward of their ignorance not in decades (as with climate change or tobacco) but in weeks or days.
Simultaneous to a revaluation of science we may see a devaluation of superstition, particularly prevalent in the evangelical right. Prayers, and anointments, and sending cash to a televangelist will do nothing to mitigate the spread of the virus. Listening to and obeying the directives of experts in epidemiology will save your life, and the lives of your loved ones. The fact that the vast majority of Americans are, albeit tragically slowly, coming around to the views of scientists demonstrates a devaluation of superstitious and conspiratorial thinking.
The experience of Covid-19 epidemiologists and community health care experts – to be vilified by wishful thinkers, profiteers and conspiracy theorists for presenting facts – has been precisely what climate change researchers and experts have been experiencing for years. In the case of Covid-19 the immediate price paid for ignoring science has been immediate and devastating. The fundamental efficacy of valuing science, data and facts is being driven home as we speak, and this may bode well for the revaluation of climate change science.
In response to the devastation of the Great Depression Franklin Roosevelt crafted ‘The New Deal’, a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations which focused on relief for the unemployed and poor, support for farmers, the unemployed, youth and the elderly, recovery of the economy, and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression. The Green New Deal is a modern revisiting of Roosevelt’s approach, combined with sweeping reforms to combat climate change by supporting renewable energy and resource efficiency. Could the crisis caused by the CoronaVirus be the perfect opportunity for pushing through a Green New Deal?
A decline in polarization
CoranaVirus presents a common, and formidable, enemy that finds as much opportunity in people of the right wing or the left wing. Covid-19 doesn’t care whether you voted for Donald Trump or were a leader in the Occupy Movement, it just wants to find a human host to grow in. Whether you’re a libertarian or an anarchist (I’m cheating here – these actually have quite a lot in common) the symptoms of Covid-19 are the same, and the danger’s the same, and we all have to take the same measures to limit its growth. So there’s a common enemy, and a common goal, that crosses political and party lines. Crises and ‘shocks’ can disrupt enduring patterns of relating, creating openings for change and transformation.
Renewed respect for the role of government and a revolution in health care policy
The governments – federal and regional – of every nation affected by the CoronaVirus have proven to be absolutely essential. From disseminating the information required to educate a populace, to advancing restrictions to limit or delay the spread of the virus, to managing the logistics of a radical re-orientation towards health and safety, to massive injections of money into collapsing economies; big biz, small biz, and everyday workers. It’s not private corporations, it’s not churches, it’s the government that everyone’s relying on. In the United States – where free market capitalists continue to ideologically dominate – a mind-numbing two trillion dollarS has been injected by the government into an economic system and a health care system ruthlessly exposed to be blatantly unable to manage such a crisis.
The CoronaVirus will reveal that decades of disinvestment in, and the impoverishment of, basic health care is having devastatingly tragic consequences right now, as I write this and as you read this. How many uninsured people in the US, where hospitals are a business, are judging… delaying… because going into hospital costs them more than they can possibly afford. And the consequences of that delay is the spread of the virus into the community. That revelation may lead to massive improvements in Health Care. As Ai-Jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and Caring Across Generations, writes, “This crisis should unleash widespread political support for Universal Family Care—a single public federal fund that we all contribute to, that we all benefit from”.
The CoronaVirus also exposes the gruesome failings of a for-profit pharmaceutical industry. “The CoronaVirus has laid bare the failures of our costly, inefficient, market-based system for developing, researching and manufacturing medicines and vaccines” writes Steph Sterling (vice president of advocacy and policy at the Roosevelt Institute). As Noam Chomsky wrote yesterday, “There’s no profit in preventing a future catastrophe.”
COVID-19 AND ITS PERILS
Equal to the number of folks expressing optimism in the face of this crisis, there are those who are highly pessimistic, seeing in the crisis not only the fundamental tragedy of lost lives, but also the predatory behaviours that typically arise around catastrophic and shocking events. I’ll call these folks the Matthew 12:43-ites (I know, super awkward).
Matthew 12:43 is a New Testament parable featuring its usual protoganist, a man called Jesus, and is commonly called ‘The Parable of the Empty House’. It goes like this:
“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”
The typical interpretation of this parable is that you can drive something very bad out of your ‘house’ (yourself, your community, your financial system, your government) and even clean it up, but if you leave it empty, if you don’t occupy it, what you drove out will return seven-fold and take up residency and everything will be worse than before.
Covid-19, at least temporarily, has the potential of driving a lot of demons out of the house. Market systems which have been benefiting a minute 1% are in free fall, science-deniers and conspiracy slingers are being humiliated by the inexorable invasion of a virulent and undeniable reality, the chronic underfunding of health care systems is being excruciatingly and catastrophically put under a spotlight. People are angry, and they’re going to get a lot more angry, and they’re going to want justice. But they’re also scared, and there is a very long and sordid history of predatory regimes playing on, and profiting from, anger and fear to increase their authority and domination.
Namo Klein outlines this phenomena in capitalist societies in her 2007 book ‘The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism’, whose central thesis is the exploitation of crises – during which citizens are under-resourced, disoriented and distressed – to push through projects, plans, and policies which benefit a very few.
Here are some of the possible, and in some cases actual, negative perils arising as a result of this disruption.
Increase in Authoritarianism
Charles Eisenstein writes, “A frightened public accepts abridgments of civil liberties that are otherwise hard to justify.” and he is supported by American historian Heather Cox Richardson who wrote on March 28, “such profound dislocation presents a perfect opening for an authoritarian power grab.” There is already evidence of a move towards this in the United States as the Justice Department asked Congress last week for the power to indefinitely detain citizens without trial during an emergency (Politico). While such policy changes are typically deemed to be ‘temporary’ Milton Friedman once noted that “there is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program.”
Another typical casualty of authoritarian instincts in times of crisis is the right to protest. Again, a number of US States have already passed laws prohibiting acts of civil disobedience against fossil fuel projects under the claim that it is ‘critical infrastructure’.
Such crises also tend to support another typical potentially authoritarian trend, an increase in the popularity of ‘the leader’ known as ‘the rally effect’. Citizens, in times of strife, tend to coalesce around whoever is leading, no matter their political stripe. George W. Bush enjoyed an astounding 39% jump in his approval ratings after 9-11. Trump, so far, has enjoyed a very humble 3% increase.
Revoking of civil or environmental protections to benefit special interest groups
Under the smokescreen of a crisis it can become possible for special interest groups – public or private sector or both in collusion – to slip potentially unpopular policy or legislative changes ‘under-the-radar’ of its citizens. The Environmental Protection Agency in the United States has already drastically relaxed its regulations on the fossil fuel industry, allowing them to ‘self-monitor’, citing that the CoronaVirus is creating ‘special’ circumstances.
Profiteering
The Covid-19 crisis has resulted in a precipitous decline in financial markets, and a 2 trillion dollar bailout package, both of which give ample opportunity for predatory profiteering.
Early in March it was discovered that 2 US Senators, briefed on the severity of the upcoming crisis, sold off millions worth of stocks, while simultaneously expressing publicly their complete confidence in the US capacity to handle the virus. The success of their insider trading depended on the ignorance of the public, and they went to length to ensure that ignorance was maintained. Richard Burr, after dumping his stocks, tweeted “The U.S. is in a better position than any other nation to handle a public health emergency”.
500 billion dollars of the bailout will go directly to big business. Congress, attempting to resist the kind of cronyism and malfeance associated with the 2008 bailout strove to put a variety of checks and balances in place so that the funds will be allocated with strict oversight, including provisions requiring that the chief bailout overseer inform Congress “without delay” if executive branch departments “unreasonably” refuse the overseer’s request for information. President Trump, in signing the bill, waived that oversight opening a possible path for the kind of unscrupulous ‘bailout bonanza’ that characterised 2008.
THE POSSIBILITIES AND PERILS OF DISRUPTION
Disruption, real disruption, challenges a system in such a way that it must fundamentally change its way of being in order to adapt and survive. Returning to ‘normal’, the old way of doing things, the previous ‘homeostasis’, invites disaster either in the short or long term. As Vijay Prashad said, “We won’t go back to normal, because normal was the problem.”
Will this disruption vanquish, Kali-like, “zombie ideas” (Paul Krugman’s description of “ideas that have been proved wrong by overwhelming evidence and should be dead, but somehow keep shambling along, eating people’s brains.”), and give rise to a new paradigm in which science is highly valued, climate science is responded to in the form of a Green New Deal, politicians endeavour to solve problems rather than vilify those across the aisle, and health care isn’t a for-profit endeavour?
Or will the demon return to the house with seven more, all finding in the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of the current crisis ample opportunity to centralize control and prohibit protest, tear down environmental protections designed to curb climate change, while further rigging and playing the system to maximize profits for a very few?
Right now this is an unknown.
Naomi Klein in her recent video states “Shocks and crises don’t always go the shock doctrine path… it’s possible for crisis to catalyze a kind of evolutionary leap… This no time to lose our nerve. The future will be determined by whoever is willing to fight harder…”.
But what is ‘nerve’? There’s been a bit of a meme going around of late about ‘fear’ being a contagion even worse than the virus. But I think fear can be ok; it’s informative and useful and can result in well directed action. The real danger is ‘panic’, which is paralysing. As a bar owner in New York said as she was forced to close down, “fear is the alarm clock that wakes us up into action, but if we keep that alarm clock ringing it will just drive us crazy in the end, and we can’t take care of business.” Panic is the autonomic fight/flight/freeze response – a highly useful adrenaline fueled reaction to an immediate emergency – gone awry. In fight/flight/freeze our executive functioning shuts down, there is no sense of the future, and we make poor, short-sighted and ill-informed decisions.
So… don’t panic.
‘Nerve’, or courage, is the capacity to take action even when we’re afraid, and even towards what’s making us afraid. But courage requires a certain kind of confidence, a faith, in the future. We’re brave because we believe that it’s what is required in the moment to achieve something we’re committed to. Witness the astonishing courage of the health care workers on the front-line. They’re commitment is to something beyond themselves, they’re committed to ‘us’… the collective, the community. To quote Boris Johnson’s epiphany 3 days ago while in quarantine, “there really is such a thing as society” (obviously real change is indeed afoot – way to go Bo-Jo!).
Staving off panic, growing confidence, and building up courage require a resourcing, a building up of resilience. Rick Hansen, one of the foremost authorities on resilience, describes twelve inner strengths that we can develop to grow more resilient: compassion, mindfulness, learning, grit, gratitude, confidence, calm, motivation, intimacy, courage, aspiration, and generosity. A book could be written on every one of those qualities but my point is that to have the nerve, the courage, to ‘fight harder’, and to bring on Kali, we need to focus on our resilience. Growing it so that we cease to react from panic, but respond creatively from courage and confidence and also curiosity. Curiosity grows from the soil of resilience. And curiosity – the dynamo of learning, the ideology slayer – is humanity’s foremost evolutionary strategy and is our most useful aptitude and motivation for creatively navigating disruptive change.
Covid-19 is a virulent disruption and a crisis with already tragic consequences. Disruption and crisis strike to the core of an identity, a paradigm, requiring a structural, systemic, transformative adaptation. In the midst of the crisis the direction of that adaptation is uncertain: there is possibility, and there is peril. To ensure that the possibilities rather than the perils emerge requires courage, resilience and curiosity.
And actually, to bring it all back to the opening quote to this article, first and last, love.
