This is the story of two men in the USA who recently found they could not breathe. It’s about 6 weeks since George Floyd had his neck stepped on by a group of policemen. And it’s a few days since Richard Rose, proud non-wearer of protective masks, died of Covid19, after testing positive on July 1st.
I’ve just seen a Facebook post in which someone I know admits that she finds it ‘funny’ that Richard Rose posted a defiant statement on April 28th, declaring he would not wear masks, and that he ‘had made it this far by not buying into the hype’ around Covid 19. Now two months later, he is dead, and his belief in his exceptionalism has been proved to be unsubstantiated.
Some people found the sight of George Floyd being killed humorous, too. Lynchings have always had some public support, for their entertainment value. We saw his death throes being imitated and exaggerated by people on home videos, with people taking it in turns to be victim and perpetrator. It reminded me of the kids in ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ enacting what they had heard of Boo Radley’s tragic life, so ignorantly and so callously.
Both men were asphyxiated. One by external force imposed unjustifiably on him in a public street. One by internal breakdown of his respiratory system, in his home, as a result of his own choice to exercise personal freedom. I personally don’t find either death funny, or even ironic. But I suppose callous unconcern is a legitimate response to the world in which we now live, and (in its own way) it is a form of survivalism.
Some commenters on Richard Rose’s puny statement of defiance said his Facebook statement that he would not wear a mask should be ‘engraved on his tombstone’. I wonder what will be engraved on theirs. Or whether there will be no gravestones available, because we will be buried in mass burial sites in public parks, because the public services which administer our civilized processes of health, death, and burial will be overloaded.
Perhaps we will end up living in small colonies of like-minded people, all living as we ourselves do, either maskless or masked, depending on our mutually-held beliefs. Like physical, real world versions of echo chambers.
‘Ask not for whom the bell tolls’ no longer has currency, I’m sorry to say. We are all becoming islands, withdrawn from each other, from fear of contracting illness, and suspicion that others do not uphold the same strict standards of social distancing that we ourselves do. We don’t want to be put at risk by being in contact with them, and we want to show our distinct difference from Covidiots who don’t wear masks by mocking their choices. Empathy creates connection, and we want to burn those bridges.
Richard Rose was exercising his right to not be afraid, to not be cautious, and he could not have made his stance
more clear, really. Do we have our own moral objections to finding his fatal stupidity funny? But it’s karma, right? His careless defiance which turned out to be so puny and unfounded? His own immoral behaviour in infecting so many others in the name of his puny, unfounded defiance? It is funny in a way to see people making claims based on a sense of personal exceptionalism. I guess we’ll all find out what’s true before this is over.
Salman Rushdie summed up the chaotic, disconcerting paradoxes of the sudden shifts of postmodern life in his novel, ‘The Ground Beneath Her Feet’:
‘These things are bad for you: sex, high-rise buildings, chocolate, lack of exercise, dictatorship, racism! No, au contraire! Celibacy damages the brain, high-rise buildings bring us closer to God, tests show that a bar of chocolate a day significantly improves chilren's academic performance, exercise kills, tyranny is just a part of our culture so I'll thank you to keep your cultural-imperialist ideas off my fucking fiefdom, and as for racism, let's not get all preachy about this, it's better out in the open than under some grubby carpet. That extremist is a moderate! That universal right is culturally specific! This circumcised woman is culturally happy! That Aboriginal whistlecockery is culturally barbaric! Pictures don't lie! This image has been faked! Free the press! Ban nosy journalists! The novel is dead! Honor is dead! God is dead! Aargh, they're all alive and they're coming after us! That star is rising! No, she's falling! We dined at nine! We dined at eight! You were on time! No, you were late! East is West! Up is down! Yes is No! In is Out! Lies are Truth! Hate is Love! Two and two makes five! And everything is for the best, in this best of all possible worlds. ‘ ― Salman Rushdie
Under the manic energy of this cumulative outburst beat the twin pulses of fear and anger, the very qualities we pray to be rid of, in the Metta Meditation. If we entertain them, we will be overridden like the doomed City of Hamelin in the old children’s story.
Let us act in such a way as to ensure a better outcome. May we be well, and happy. May we act in such a way as to lengthen our lives, if we find them valuable and meaningful. For we hold these things to be self evident.
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