Susan Delacourt writes that we're entering the third quarter:
Studies of people who have experienced isolation in outer space and the Arctic have apparently found that humans get testy and emotional precisely when the end moves closer in sight — as it seems we may be here in Canada with the COVID-19 crisis.
“We have begun the dreaded third quarter of isolation, when — yes — things get weird,” read the headline on an Australian TV news website this week.
The third quarter is when things get nasty and people play the blame game:
In politics, it feels a little like everyone is sick of washing their hands — metaphorically speaking — and decided to get them a bit dirty again. Politicians are sniping at each other about gun laws, about COVID-19 relief and even about whose fault it is that the virus put us all in a lockdown.
The TQP, as it is starting to play out in Canada, could also be described as the naming, shaming and blaming game.
The nastiness has already started:
Blaming, meanwhile, is the lifeblood of politics in normal times, and perhaps we should be reassured that it is struggling back into the conversation around the pandemic as we hit the third quarter. As usual, there’s plenty to go around.
Trudeau’s government is being blamed for doing too little in some areas — on Tuesday, it was not enough aid for farmers. It is also being blamed for doing too much: Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and several premiers are worried that its COVID-19 benefits are so generous that they create disincentives for Canadians to get back to work.
Blame is also starting to circle around China, thanks in part to Donald Trump’s efforts to pin the virus on where it originated, but there are also Conservatives in Canada who argue that Trudeau isn’t aggressively pursuing China and the World Health Organization enough for the spread of the virus. At his Monday briefing with reporters, Trudeau said the blame discussion is a topic for another day.
As for shame, Alberta’s public health officer, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, lamented this week how immigrant workers in the province were being singled out for discrimination because of COVID outbreaks at meat-packing plants. She didn’t say who was doing the regrettable shaming, but we can assume it’s the same kind of people who have been staging tiny, angry protests against the lockdown nationwide — a “bunch of yahoos,” as Ford memorably described them.
“Employees at these plants should not be blamed or shamed for spread of the virus. We are all in this together,” Hinshaw said.
We really should be thinking about how we can do things better. But before we get there -- if we get there -- we're going to get nasty.
Image: Shutterstock
6 comments:
It would seem that our baser instincts can be repressed for only so long, Owen. How the electorate will respond to the gradual return to 'normal' politics, however, is less certain.
This is an opportunity, Lorne. Unfortunately, as a species, too often we grab defeat from the jaws of victory.
Something of this nature, a pandemic, creates endless opportunities to manipulate and exploit fear and inconvenience. It indulges selfishness.
Look at the protesters in the States. They imagine constitutional rights that don't exist except in their minds. Any country that has the unequivocal right to drag you away from your job, slap you in a uniform, hand you a rifle and send you off to risk and perhaps lose your life for the sake of some ill-conceived venture has a pretty clear limit to the rights of the individual.
The protesters see this as an infringement of their rights without regard to what that means for the rest of their community. Preventing the rash and selfish from endangering the lives of others is irrelevant, unconscionable.
As I've written so often, we are all deemed to intend the logical and foreseeable consequences of our actions and, on that, criminal liability may attach. So what should the punishment be? Banishment, I assume. You want to live outside the rules of society, you insist on some right that imperils others in your society, then leave. Go somewhere else. Form your own community of like-minded people and take your chances.
We have exposed just another fault line in an already deeply divided society, at least in America. Each one erodes social cohesion, enhancing a form of tribalism. Tensions worsen, pressure mounts. "A house divided." Perhaps some day it will be known as the "American disease." Let's hope Canadians can do better.
Canadian Confederation was built on the premise that we could avoid the American Disease, Mound. Let's hope that premise still holds.
the third quarter, interesting article. I'm still washing my hands still in lock down. the fractured leg helps with that. However I don't see the impending loosening of restrictions in B.C. as heading into any end quarter. I see it as a momentary reprieve in my opinion, this is not over and won't be for another year. this is a temporary get out of jail card for a few months
Most of us missed Easter dinner with our families, others missed Ramadam celebrations, etc. I expect by the fall we will be back in lock down. I'm hoping we can do Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner some time in Aug virus permitting.
As to some attacking Trudeau, well its just that some politicians can only keep their mouths shut for so long and then they revert to type. /they just cant help themselves. about the only premier who hasn't done a good job is Kenny in Alberta because the slaughter houses are open and those who are going to be slaughtered are the workers. The other premiers have done a good job. The one who has impressed some of us here in B.C. the most is Premier Ford. He stuck to his script at news conferances, got Ontario through this, I didn't know how he would do when the virus struck but I've been very pleased with his performance.
Doug Ford has surprised a lot of us, e.a.f.
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