By Ted Glick
“The truth is that nothing is less sensational than pestilence, and
by reason of their very duration great misfortunes are monotonous. In
the memories of those who lived through them, the grim days of plague do
not stand out like vivid flames, ravenous and inextinguishable,
beaconing a troubled sky, but rather like the slow, deliberate progress
of some monstrous thing crushing all upon its path.”
-Albert Camus, The Plague, p. 179
I’ve read Camus’ classic novel, The Plague, three times, the third
time just a couple of days ago, and each time the experience deepened my
commitment to taking action for a better world. The main characters in
the fictional book, all men, some from the beginning and some later, all
throw themselves into the desperate, difficult and emotionally draining
fight to prevent a hideous and deadly plague that erupts in the town of
Oran, population 200,000 in North Africa, from overwhelming it. As they
do so, Camus explores how, through their thoughts, their journal
entries and their conversations, they try to handle the existential
immensity and uncertainty of what they are experiencing.
There are a number of essentially surface differences between Camus’
plague and the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. His is concentrated in one
town; it is more deadly than, so far at least, it appears COVID-19 will
be; his takes place right after World War II, over 70 years ago; and,
as mentioned above, all of the main characters are men.
From everything I’ve observed via the news, there are an awful lot of
women—nurses, doctors, epidemiologists, media spokespeople, some
political leaders—who are major characters in the real-life plague the
world is contending with now. I’m glad that’s the case. Women playing
hands-on and leadership roles in just about anything improves the
chances for better outcomes.
It was not a major theme of Camus,
but he did address the issue of price gouging, something which has begun
to make the news today in relationship to the exorbitant raising of
prices for essential health equipment such as masks and hand sanitizer,
and even toilet paper. In the fictional Oran, “Profiteers were purveying
at enormous prices essential foodstuffs not available in the shops. The
result was that poor families were in great straits, while the rich
went short of practically nothing. Thus, whereas plague by its impartial
ministrations should have promoted equality among our townsfolk, it now
had the opposite effect.” p. 237
It has been striking that those part of the world’s power elite or
famous people have come down with COVID-19. Without a doubt, that
explains why those like Trump, who tried to wish it away until it became
ridiculous to keep doing so, finally had to take it seriously. But it
is also true that the lowest-income people, those whose health is not as
good, who live in crowded apartment buildings, who have lost their jobs
or who have little in savings to fall back on, or those incarcerated,
will certainly end up disproportionately impacted by the virus.
Source: tedglick.com
