Guest Commentary: Virus and Virtue

The new social distancing behaviors are not just about self-care but also about an intergenerational social contract.

by Alan Hirsch

My daughter is a High School Senior. This is her ultimate year in Davis. 

But with the virus shutdowns, her school trips to Disneyland and Canada have been canceled.

And now we are asking her and her friends to not just to give up on travel, but on her once in a lifetime events just as they are peaking as seniors: prom, varsity sports, theater, and likely cancellation of their graduation ceremony.  And giving up granular activities like keeping their distance from their closest friends of many years.  Not to go to that concert now, when they finally have a car, a date and the independence to enjoy as they are coming into their own.

We are asking them also to exercise self-discipline by quarantining:  To stay home or in their dorm, when they feel “just slightly off.”

And take on the hassle of washing hands multiple times each day.

THESE SACRIFICES are framed under the now abstract idea there is an invisible danger we need to protect our own selves against.

My socially aware daughter feels the stress of knowing about this death threat of the plague and holds it like this: “It’s going to be OK.  I’ll probably get it, but young people like me will survive.”

She seems to be right: The experience from China seems to be that most healthy youth and school kids will be OK, as will UCD students and most middle-aged adults. Even be asymptomatic.

But it might not be OK for older people and people immuno-compromised.  The Chinese experience shows that 5% of people my age will die of it. And 18% of people over 80. We the elders are the potential “losers” if hospitals are overcrowded and we can’t get care.

In reality, we are asking the young to sacrifice, to be hassled, to protect the old.

It takes a bit of moral imagination and empathy for children and younger people to understand that their behavior, their sacrifice to an almost invisible danger, is important when they figure out it is not really self-care, but more about protecting others from virus spread.

It is really about protecting the community.

So, I suggest we begin talking, framing acts like washing hands and bumping elbows not as a personal choice of self-care, but one of choosing to act ethically.

As altruistic acts of charity.

And we Americans especially need to talk about it this way to subdue the libertarian streak so dominant in our culture, that is tearing us apart. Subdue the idea that some of us are “losers” when so much of our station in life is determined by the DNA lottery or the social status and wealth of our parents, or just the fact we were over 70 when COVID-19 occurred and not a more resilient 18.

We need to ennoble the simple act of hand washing as an act of patriotism, based on love of your neighbor, your fellow Americans, whatever race or creed they are. Stop thinking of this as a foreign virus connected to a certain race, as some have portrayed it. Rather it is a public health crisis we will struggle with as humans with our shared vulnerabilities.

Thinking of these actions as altruistic would also reframe these not as acts done out of fear but as loving acts of care for others.

We can then think of this time not as one of self-isolation, self-care and self-sacrifice, but one when we think of things greater than just ourselves.  An opportunity to strengthen community connection by giving to others in the beloved community of Davis.

Postscript:  I think we, the elders, need to also remember the reciprocity of the social contact with this “intergenerational ask” of the young. We need to consider the ethics of our own choices about the carbon footprint we leave in the atmosphere with our vacations, our autos, our airline flights, our lifestyles. In other words: “Hey Boomer”  is a call out from youth to the “free riders” among us who aren’t prioritizing the future health of the earth they will inhabit.