Coronavirus: Thread

[grarpamp]

https://www.aier.org/article/will-2020-prove-to-be-the-beginning-of-the-end-of-modernity/

Daniel Hannan – Lord Hannan of Kingsclere – is today among Britain’s
wisest and most articulate champions of classical liberalism.

He’s also today very pessimistic about the future of liberalism. This
pessimism is on full display in this recent video.

Hannan predicts that the post-Covid-19 world “will be poorer, colder,
grayer, more pitched, more authoritarian.”

I ardently wish that I found his stated reasons for pessimism to be
unpersuasive, but this wish is not granted.

Hannan’s pessimism, to me, seems warranted.

I urge you to watch the entire video. At under seven minutes, it’s short.

But I believe that my summary here of Hannan’s point is accurate:

We humans are evolved to put our trust in hierarchy, for hierarchical
methods of decision-making were quite effective at protecting the
small tribe, as it roamed the countryside, from predators and
privation. And our deep past was in fact fraught with dangers that,
when not quickly avoided, killed us. In that long-ago era, anyone
refusing to follow the leader’s commands was indeed a threat to the
survival of the tribe. As a result, fellow tribe members turned on
renegades. ‘Renegadeness’ was thus largely drained from the gene pool
and replaced with the instinct to conform, especially whenever there
was a perception of danger, which there was quite often.

Confidence in hierarchy, hair-trigger alarm, and fear of strangers
(who back then usually were sources of real danger) helped our
ancestors to survive. And survive they did for 300,000 years, nearly
all of which time was spent hunting and gathering in small tribes. But
these genetically encoded instincts that are so useful to members of
the always-imperiled tribe do not support a liberal, open society of
the sort that arose in the West over the past few centuries.

We humans have been around for at least 300,000 years. Nearly all – 97
percent – of this time was spent as hunters-gatherers in a perilous
world. Yet only in the past two or three centuries have we stumbled
upon a set of beliefs and institutions that suppressed many of our
primitive instincts in a way that encouraged the emergence of
modernity. By historical standards, the world that we know today is
freakishly abnormal.

And while the material blessings of modernity – the likes of indoor
plumbing, endless supplies and varieties of food, dwellings with solid
floors and roofs, artificial lighting, faster-than-galloping-horses
transportation, and miracle medicines – are easily noticed, all of
these blessings as we know them today require a deep and
globe-spanning division of labor. This division of labor is more
unlikely and (hence) more of a marvel than are any of its most
stupendous fruits, such as antibiotics, airplanes, and astronauts.

Modernity is not normal; it has been around for a paltry 0.1 percent
of humans’ time on earth. And the reason modernity is not normal is
that liberalism – the source of the division of labor and, thus, of
modernity – is not normal. We humans are not genetically encoded to be
liberal. Therefore, Hannan argues, there is every reason to expect
that we humans will revert to our historical norm – the norm that is
in our genes.

The reaction to Covid-19 is powerful evidence that our primitive
instincts remain alive and ready to reestablish their dominance over
the happy accident that is the culture, and resulting institutions, of
liberalism.

The hysterical fear that Covid stirred in so many people – including
in many who are highly educated, of a scientific mindset, and, until
Covid, of a liberal bent – and the sheepishness with which people
followed the “leaders” who promised protection from Covid prompts Dan
Hannan to worry that 2020-2021 is the beginning of the end of
modernity.

Chances are high that he’s correct. And if he is, civilization as we
know it will end.
Modernity Is Not Natural

My Hannan-like pessimism on this front is only furthered by reading
Notre Dame philosopher James Otteson’s remarkable new book, Seven
Deadly Economic Sins. This must-read work is not about Covid; nor is
Otteson himself especially pessimistic. But in his luminous
explanation of some of the foundational features of modern society,
Otteson identifies the thinness of the reed upon which modernity
rests. His Chapter 4 (“Progress Is Not Inevitable”) is worth quoting
at length:

    What has changed over humanity’s recent history is not biology,
psychology, physiology, ecology, or geography. What has changed,
instead, is their attitudes. As economic historian Deirdre McCloskey
has demonstrated in her magisterial three-volume investigation under
the general title The Bourgeois Era, the most salient factor
distinguishing the post-1800 era from anything that went before is the
attitudes people held toward others. Before that period, the standard
background assumption people had was that some people are superior to
others – more specifically, one’s own people are superior to those
other people – and hence people believed they were under no
obligation, moral or otherwise, to treat all human beings as their
moral equals. What began as an inkling in the sixteenth century,
gained some traction in the seventeenth century, and then began to
spread in the eighteenth century was the idea that cooperation was not
only allowable, but morally appropriate; and not only with some
people, but with ever more people and ever more groups of people. As
that idea spread, more and more cooperative behavior was engaged in,
leading to mutually beneficial exchanges and partnerships, which
launched world prosperity on the precipitate upward slope we have seen
since.

    If people are to engage in voluntary transactions and partnerships
with one another, however, they also need to trust one another….

    [C]ulture is critically important for growing prosperity, but
culture can change – and quickly. The culture that enabled the growth
in worldwide prosperity we have experienced over the last two
centuries is not only recent but rare. And it is fragile…..

    People have gone from a default of regarding people different from
them with suspicion and as likely enemies to a default of viewing them
at least neutrally and even as opportunities. They have gone from
viewing trade, commerce, and mutually voluntary and mutually
beneficial exchange as unworthy of virtuous human beings, to viewing
it neutrally, to, finally, viewing it as at least possibly worthy of
dedicating one’s life to. They have gone from viewing human beings as
fungible atoms in undifferentiated masses to seeing them as unique and
precious individuals possessing moral dignity and deserving both
liberty and respect. They have gone from viewing violence and torture
as acceptable, even natural, ways to treat and engage with others to
believing that violence should be a regrettable last resort – and that
torture is inhumane and should be minimized, if not abandoned
altogether. And they have gone from automatically distrusting everyone
they meet but do not know to increasingly being willing to extend to
others, even strangers, the benefit of the doubt.

Modernity is impossible without widespread peaceful engagement with
strangers. And such engagement is impossible without mutual trust. Yet
abruptly starting 16 months ago, we were told to abandon our modern,
liberal sensibilities.

Abruptly starting 16 months ago we were warned not to trust strangers
and not to engage with them commercially or socially. Abruptly
starting 16 months ago, we were instructed to see strangers – indeed,
to see even members of our extended families – as being chiefly
carriers of death. Abruptly starting 16 months ago, we were initiated
into the cult of pathogen avoidance; we were urged to behave as if
avoiding a headline-grabbing virus is not only the main responsibility
of each individual, but a responsibility that should be pursued at all
costs.

Abruptly starting 16 months ago, modern men and women were not only
given license to revert to atavistic dread of strangers, but
positively encouraged to harbor such dread and to act on it. Such
atavistic attitudes and actions came all too naturally.

Abruptly starting 16 months ago, humanity was encouraged to hold in
contempt – even to censor – the relative few persons who refused to
abandon liberal sensibilities.

Abruptly starting 16 months ago, we prostrated our panicked selves
before our “leaders,” begging that they use their god-like knowledge
and powers (called “the Science”) to safeguard us from one particular
source of illness, believed to be demonic.

Abruptly starting 16 months ago, there quite possibly began the end of
liberal civilization.