Our Ancestors Would Be Amazed At Our Cowardly Coronavirus Hysteria
The Venerable Bede and his contemporaries knew there are things worse than physical death, which is why their fear in the midst of epidemics was not paralyzing.
By Keith Stanglin
May 6, 2020
While reflecting on our plight in the current pandemic, CNN’s Brian Stelter recently lamented, “We’ve never lived through something quite like this. We have nothing to compare this with!†It is true; we have never lived through a pandemic like this, but others have. Many writers have documented the devastating plagues of the past and observed that, in almost every measurable way, this novel coronavirus is just a passing blip on the screen in comparison with the major epidemics of history.
But less has been written about our society’s response in comparison to the responses of our ancestors who went through worse epidemics. As I read through premodern histories that record the effects of epidemics much worse than our present crisis, and compare them with our cultural reaction to the coronavirus today, I am struck by how our ancestors seemed to take them all in stride.
I wonder what our medieval predecessors would think of our societal reaction to this virus. In short, they would marvel at our fear and melancholy.
more
https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/06/our-ancestors-would-be-amazed-at-our-cowardly-coronavirus-hysteria/?fbclid=IwAR1x0mEs3Oz-ugNrzUTRi9-Q3F2OFtW6hYsaWh8twPwClHTw6Qb8WaWrCv4
