An invisible agent forced our reluctant attention. COVID-19, a destructive stealthy force, an unrestrained actor, has a universal audience, subjecting us to the threat of death. Scientists are more unified than governments in containing, if not conquering altogether, this terrifying pathogen. It is only the latest, not the last, biological terrorist determined to destroy the human species. Will it be endemic? Pathogens are limitless. Already, there are approximately twenty-five vaccines to stay the biological assaults of nature, making the human body a pincushion.
Is this historic moment a new case of nature against man? Or man against nature? Worse, a perfect storm of contending, competitive actors?
With more scientific ignorance than certain information, we are unwittingly subjected to the unknown, pernicious path of this pathogen. “Coronavirus Hijacks the Body from the Head to the Toe, Perplexing Doctors,” one study reassures us. Now that Mother Nature has gotten our universal attention, will she finally succeed in ending our species? Or are we rather an accomplice in our own demise?
COVID-19 is only one arrow in nature’s quiver that aims with brutal indifference to pummel our species, loosing earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, floods, volcanic eruptions, and the like. Nature seems adamantly determined toward our extinction, forcing us to the defensive.
The Apocalypse’s Four Horsemen—Conquest, War, Famine, and Disease—stalked humanity relentlessly from its beginning. They ride ruthlessly in every age, differing only in the quantity of destruction they bring, consistent in the devastation they leave in their wakes. The four personify man and Mother Nature, in tandem, on the same mission: the destruction of the species. It appears humanity is equally cooperative with Mother Nature. Both manifest their worst evil intent, sharing the same DNA.
“Have I not reason to lament what man has made of man?” (Wordsworth). Or, lament what man has made of nature? Was there an original harmony between the two? When did the shift from cooperation to conflict become the norm between individuals and groups and nature? Or was there always an inherent division? The Book of Genesis fingers man as the original culprit, now in need of salvation.
Despite the preponderance of scientific evidence, the degradation of our climate continues unabated. The latest update indicates parts of the planet are already trending toward uninhabitability. The prognosis is millions migrating to yet habitable places, accelerating social conflict, not cooperation.
Competing nations have developed sophisticated weapons of mass destruction, a stockpile to kill the seven-billion-plus inhabitants of the planet twice over! On the micro level, there is unrelenting manufacturing and distribution. We have over a billion guns available to aim at one another. To keep us fearful, terrorists imagine surprise attacks to keep us on edge. The ever-increasing disparity of wealth benefitting 1 percent of the global population underscores there is no noblesse oblige to cooperate for the common good of humanity. Indeed, “the poor you will always have with you.” The privileged will always need “the hewers of wood and haulers of water,” the mudsills, to do the essential dirty work.
“What evil lurks in the heart of man? The Shadow knows.” The capacity for evil is programmed into every person, a social virus that spikes and strikes, always and everywhere. The struggle is to keep the lid on the id. Many can’t. “There is nothing new under the sun.” Unique to the human species, unlike lower species, is our willingness to torture one another. Outright murder would be merciful. Torture has been a constant, and technology has only provided more sophisticated means to intensify pain. Torture museums scattered through the world remind us of what we want to deny about our species.
Given the maelstrom that is humanity today, should our species continue to bring unsuspecting beings into existence? This is a philosophical question that most persons don’t have the luxury of time or inclination to consider. The unspoken assumption is that though there have been horrific pandemics throughout history, as well as endless self-inflicted brutality to our species, “This, too, shall pass away” remains our mantra. But humanity has been consistent in our inhumanity toward one another. The worst will continue, only with new actors. But unprecedented degradation of the planet is the wild card. Mother Nature had the first word in the origin of species; she, not we, will have the last word. The Sun will eventually absorb the Earth. All will pass away.
Our species has been adaptable in seeking survival. We have been adept at containing the worst of Mother Nature and humanity. We have developed warning systems to anticipate and minimize the onslaught of nature’s endless, uncontrolled upheavals. Rarely, though, have we eliminated her ravages altogether. The development of law to curb the worst of human behavior contains—but scarcely eliminates—our persistent attempts to inflict suffering on one another. Laws and their enforcement are spotty and often undermined and unequally enforced. Today, the international organizations formed after World War II to contain societies’ worst impulses are being thwarted by other nations. COVID-19 has only highlighted the aggravated state of the planet and its distressed inhabitants. The resistance to universally uniting unequivocally against this global threat is Exhibit A: it is humanity’s underlying symptom, the resistance against cooperation. It is every tribe for themselves.
With this grave scenario, in 2020 scientists have the Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight, the closest ever since its inception in 1947.
Humanity persists in its preference for contention rather than cooperation; individuals and groups have been historically combative. It only takes a determined minority to upend social order, and they have never been wanting. Given the state of our species and nature, do life’s pleasures and joys trump the tragedies to which we are subjected from man and nature? Enthusiastically? Are people willing to dismiss the “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to” with the fatal assurances of the song, “That’s Life”?
I would have been happy not to receive the “gift” of life and with it a ringside seat to life’s horror show. I consider myself among the privileged of all humanity but still would consider it a blessing not to have been. The joys and pleasures I’ve experienced evaporate before the weight of human suffering. I concur with Ecclesiastes—it would be a blessing not to be born and see the evils done under the sun. Being aware through modern communication of the daily suffering of billions—yet helpless to offer more than a Band-Aid to a child conquered by war, famine, and pestilence—makes me identify with the pitiful creature in Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream.
My peace at the end of life is that I have no offspring to subject to “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes.” I was forced into life but spared potential others. I broke the link for some unknowns by not choosing life. In these exacting days, “To be or not to be, that is the question.”
“Do no harm” is a doctor’s oath. Rarely does anyone question if the “gift” of life will be good for an unsuspecting child. Choosing to subject the innocent to a cornucopia of unimaginable pain renders one a sadist more than a humanist. By begetting, inescapably we do harm; the only variation is in quantity and quality. Ah, you have to take the good with bad, “That’s Life”! Do we? Especially for the unsuspecting? Are we masochists, unthinkingly slogging through a minefield of disasters initiated by man and nature? Socrates claims life is a disease and death is the cure. He didn’t resist drinking the hemlock. Why has suicide always seemed a solution?
Pascal had a wager theory. Believing in God was better than not believing. If wrong, God would have the last word, and it could be eternal damnation. Pascal’s assumption presumes a vindictive deity, which he fails to name. This deity, the Jewish god Yahweh, realized creation was a mistake. Yahweh admits creating not just a Frankenstein but a creation of Frankensteins! “Every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time” (Genesis 6:5). Yahweh’s response for this mistake was to send the great flood to do away with them altogether—the first historical record of a genocide. If a god could not divine human creations, who?
Most persons might wager that life’s good and positive experiences outweigh the bad and negative ones. It is not a false assumption to maintain that life will always be beset by the Four Horsemen. The historical track record confirms what was the “good old days.” As humanity is obsessed with the denial of death, it is second to our denial of reality. T. S. Eliot reminds us of the uncomfortable truth: “Humankind can bear very little reality.” We constantly change channels to amuse ourselves till death do us part. Don’t focus on the negative; be the eternal optimist. Understandably, this is certainly a survivalist’s coping creed. Denial is a placebo.
COVID-19 undeniably has brought out the heroic in many, rushing into hospitals like firemen into a burning building. Heartwarming anecdotes flood the media to remind us of our better angels. Conversely, the lesser angels are out in force, as in any tragedy—schemers and scammers seizing opportunities to profit from the beleaguered masses. Our Damoclean sword is the looming specter of increasing violence as threatened persons will lash out in deadly conflict, not cooperation.
The fact of life, in reality, is that people are treated for chronic pain, not chronic joy. The first tenet of Buddha was that life is suffering, and he valiantly attempted to minimize it, aware there is no path to elimination except in not choosing to “gift” the unknown. Nonetheless, how many persons would affirm the “gift” of life? How many would publicly and passionately urge persons to “choose life” despite man and nature’s persistence to destroy the species?