Our Plagues

We learned from Albert Camus’s novel The Plague. This historical, classical and award winning work was published in 1947.The story takes place in a French Algerian city called Oran. The inhabitants, of the city, were portrayed as money centered, bored, inauthentic, superficial, and non-loving. This work has been considered existential. Camus raised questions regarding life and death. The Plague also provided an allegorical treatment of French resistance to Nazi occupation during World War II. An article titled” Camus on the Coronavirus “in the March 22, 2020 Edition of the New York Times was timely. This essay foreshadows Camus’s insights with today’s inept handling of Covid-19 and further suggests that our plague are the political policies of” neoliberalism.”

In Camus’s work, the protagonist, Dr. Bernard Rieux, was a man of about 35. He treated the first victim of the plague and used the word “plague “to describe the disease. Initially, he was uneasy and had difficulty in confronting the grave danger facing the town.  As a consequence, Dr.  Rieux minimized the risk. Shortly afterward, he acknowledged the gravity of the situation. He warned the authorities that unless steps were taken immediately, this epidemic would kill off half the town’s population of 200,000 within a couple of months. He was initially met with denial and resistance by the town’s authorities. They were unwilling to take the necessary steps in shutting down the town by employing “social distance,” or by quarantine. Additionally, the doctor viewed the townspeople people as stupid, pitiful with dupes of illusion.

In the Plague, Camus foreshadows the denial of death and destruction, Camus’s character The Prefect was a perfect example. The Prefect, the chief magistrate, at first, believed that the talk of plague was fake news. He’s a self-deceiver, a coward, and quibbled over the health information provided. He used optimistic language and downplayed the seriousness of the threat. But eventually, on medical advice, he authorized limited measures to combat it. The death toll rose and the country’s emergency medical reserves were depleted. This inept character did everything he could in falsifying information. He refused to take responsibility for the deaths. Another Camus character, Grand spoke with empty phrases, clichés and generalities. Camus’s characters are like Trump.

We know that Trump was given early medical input. His early apparent denial or disregard, downplaying its severity, flip-flops, Covid -19 testing fiasco, promoting a drug in which he has interests, talk about the early opening of the government, limiting deployment of military health personnel resources suggests that his reelection is more important than death to the elderly with their diabetic, immune and respiratory diseases. Some might say, what about the sanctity of life? The sanctity of life for whom? We have been at war for over 20 years and have the highest incidence of gun deaths. The wars have accomplished what other than death and more hate? Soldiers, death, maimed with high suicide rates are not heroes. Soldiers are victim’s .The second amendment has facilitated death as well. These Covid- 19 patients are expendable.

Other examples of Trumps propaganda supported by biased news coverage has attacked Covid- 19 for the singular purpose of supporting this president and his policies in order for him to be reelected. Some of their false claims have included: 1. The Democrats were overhyping Covid- 19 in order to hurt Trump 2. The cure of shutting down the government was worse than the disease of Covid- 19 3. The statistics on the death toll of Covid -19 were exaggerated. Yes, fake news is alive and perpetuated by Trump’s media for those in power.

The federal government’s response to Covid -19 has been appalling. At one time the government was the Arsenal of democracy, mobilized the country with its resources and won World War II. The government also faced a terrible infectious disease that attacked the immune system named poliomyelitis and called polio for short. With the expertise and government assistance for virologist Hilary Koprowski, Dr. Jonas Salk and Dr. Albert Sabin an inexpensive oral polio vaccine was developed with the assistance of the NIH. This vaccine became the only polio vaccine used worldwide. Trump’s federal government had shipped 11.7 N95 masks and 79,020 ventilators but for some reason are now stockpiling or withholding these necessary supplies.

While Trump’s federal government response has been inept and criminal, state governors such as Andrew Cuomo, Jay Inslee, and Gavin Newsom have been spectacular in their knowledge, organization, planning, and helping other states in dealing with Covid -19.  Social distancing works; retired healthcare workers rejoined the battle; and plans to disinfect N95 masks and send additional PPE resources were heartwarming to see. Dr. Bernard Rieux in Camus’s novel stated that he wasn’t a hero “the whole thing is not about heroism,… It may seem a ridiculous idea, but the only way to fight the plague is with decency. Decency is doing my job.”  Presently, my friend Paul is a driver who transports warehouse food to the supermarkets. He works many hours of overtime and does his best to stay safe by disinfecting the truck’s that he drives. He doesn’t consider himself a hero but is doing a necessary and vital job of providing food and supplies for all of us.

Neoliberalism, our virus, has assaulted the majority by weakening the role of government while increasing the power of corporate and private wealth. The negative propaganda regarding the federal government was labeled as too large; to ineffective; and hampered by bureaucracy. The idea, in place, was that private enterprise was more efficient and the model to be followed. This propaganda was expressed by Ronald Reagan’s claim in the 1980s that “government is the problem.” Unions were attacked as being the enemy; privatization of prisons became the norm; wage stagnation and inequality for 90% of the population was initiated; infrastructure spending was hampered; limited manufacturing ability and outsourcing of manufacturing; and the nonsensical war on drugs accompanied by privatization of prisons and imprisonment of the poor are a few examples of discrimination, maximizing wealth and power for the few. Additional illustrations included rigging the tax cuts and tax code for the elite; dismantling regulations for the banking industry and Wall Street; maximizing the importance of lobbyists in writing favored legislation; and hobbling revenue for the federal government while increasing the national debt. For those that remember, the increased national debt worked in World War II.

Pandemics, as a threat, was presented by Dr. Fauci in 2017 and CDC funding was subsequently reduced. Trump has weakened the federal government by numerous firing of those called “disloyal;” hiring incompetents to cabinet posts per Betsy DeVos, Rick Perry, and Dr. Ben Carson. Other illustrations of a weakened federal government include the Senate impeachment sham ; attacks on the media; employing fake news propaganda; and the  disinformation and humiliation  of presidential news conferences  while attacking legitimate questions of reporters as to Trump’s competence and responsibility are more of the same.

Albert Camus struggles with man’s existence of life and death. Man is aware of his vulnerability, helplessness, dependence and that he’s going to die. With God being dead, so is man’s immortality. How does one face the absurdity of life? How can man face the paradox of life and death? In the past, he relied on the illusions of democracy, freedom, capitalism, religion etc. How can man lead an authentic life, not become robotic and fight the power and influence of propaganda and advertising? Advertising simply creates a desire for some product, generally not needed. It’s simply about consumption and profit.

Man’s initial test is to admit and accept his existential existence. Man must realize that he is going to die, has strong irrational forces within him, and come to realize that he can’t be comforted by religious, political, scientific or other illusions. According to Camus, suicide is not a viable option. One of his characters, Cottard contemplated suicide but with recovery of the plague, succeeded in living.

Man has to deal with the frailty, contradictions and the absurdity of living with the many natural and man-made viruses affecting existence. According to Camus, the plague is within us. With that being said, we are more than likely transmitting primitive beliefs, false idols, folk science, fairy tales, illusions, mythology, political stupidity, irrationality, rationalizations, paranoid hate along with sadomasochistic interactions. As a result, we have to deal with our dark side which Jung refers to as our “Shadow.”  Hopefully, solidarity, reason, wisdom, and sublimation can prevail. Past religious prophets have provided the road map.  If actually followed, we can create meaning for ourselves, combat behaviorally the ongoing man made and biological virus’s {neoliberalism, climate change, nuclear war, Covid-19, hate etc.} and threats as well as interacting with others more humanely.   Thank you Camus for your insights.