I love you.
But I disagree with this right down to my very core, to the depths of my soul. (And that's probably why a virus could become political.)
But I see how the idea exists. Survival of the fittest. As long as someone is part of the fittest, sacrificing members of the herd who aren't is acceptable. That is how animals do it, especially when there's a lot of predators and they're just struggling to not go extinct. That's the exact right mentality when the chips are down and there's no other way to keep the species going. Adopting that mentality is a sign of living near an apocalyptic event, being filled with a belief that the species as a whole is on the verge of extinction and needs extreme measures to survive. That's why only the healthier people would be given a chance, along with the hope they'd spawn more of the thinkers and artists later. Every writer who has penned a dystopian novel knows there needs to be fit characters to get to the end.
😔
But I'm not the fittest.
And I thought we lived in a society well enough off to be able to protect those with weaker bodies. That we didn't need to sacrifice the old or sick. That we weren't in danger of extinction. (Nearly 8 billion people. Not 8👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤. 8 billion. That's kind of a lot.)
See, in that kind of scenario, one where the population has advanced enough to not have to sacrifice, one where thinking and art can be just as valued as health and strength, in that scenario it's HOPE, not fear, that gets the whole to act in the interest of mass preservation without sacrificing. Where the smallest numbers are lost because the focus is on keeping the current group alive. (The opposite of cutting the loss of all the weak and hoping enough will remain to regrow numbers later.) In that scenario, the virus is the predator and everyone fights it together. The strong and the weak. And they're GLAD. They like that they have evolved to the point of being able to support each other, to not have to sacrifice. It means longer lives. It means a society. It's what animals don't have. And it is THE mark of being a dominant species. It means you're not prey. Prey leaves the weak. Strong prey can say they're not scared, but they've left a chunk of their own to die, knowing that chunk cannot protect itself, because that's all they can do. That's fear. Bravery is protecting the whole group from the predator, from the virus. It's shielding the weakest members and saying, "it's okay, we won't let it harm you."
That's the society I want to live in. But as it vanished this year, and my health is weak, I will probably die wishing that society existed here. And that's why I disagree. Because the virus is riding on the strong to get to the weak. And the more of the weak it gets, the stronger of a predator it becomes. And eventually it will take down the strong too. And it will win. Because they called "hope" a "fear" and misused it.
Sorry.
