Perspective, not panic, is sage advice. It is especially so in current times.
We have become a nation of wusses, sissified, soft and scared of our own shadows. Our youth has been conditioned to be scared and/or offended by nonsensical things. “Safe spaces” are required for the young generation. Debate and opposing views, even at universities, is considered too threatening to be tolerated.
Life is too tough to go it alone. Government must backstop us in virtually all endeavors. Lunches at school must be “free.” Colleges should be “free.” Welfare has become a career choice for too many. In short, we have been made dependent and are a far cry from what has been called “The Greatest Generation.”
Now comes the corona virus! Oh my, it is an existential threat to mankind unlike anything ever seen before. There is no question that we should be concerned over this threat. But, to say that there has never been anything like it before is just plain nonsense. It must be dealt with, but it is not something new. It likely is something that pales in comparison to history’s prior curve balls and threats.
“Perspective not panic” does not imply that the corona virus is not a threat. It clearly is, but so is the flu, the common cold, heart disease, cancer, automobile travel, sky-diving, etc. So was World War I and II and many other things that those who don’t have historical perspective do not see.
Perspective, Not Panic
This piece by Everett Piper of the Washington Times really puts our current situation in perspective. He utilizes an adaptation of Matt Smethurst of C. S. Lewis’ essay at the end of World War II to assist:
Matt Smethurst of the Gospel Coalition recently challenged his readers to consider the words of C.S. Lewis’ essay titled “On Living in an Atomic Age” that was written some 72 years ago at the end of World War II. In referring to the following excerpt from Lewis, Mr. Smethurst takes the liberty of replacing “coronavirus” where Lewis instead referenced the “atomic bomb” throughout the quote:
“In one way, we think a great deal too much of the coronavirus. ‘How are we to live in a coronavirus age?’ I am tempted to reply: ‘Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.’
“In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the coronavirus was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways … It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.
“This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by the coronavirus, let that virus, when it comes, find us doing sensible and human things — praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts — not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about viruses. They may break our bodies (any microbe can do that), but they need not dominate our minds.” — C.S. Lewis, “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948).
Toughen up Snowflakes. The world did not begin with you and likely not end with you, in spite of your fears and helplessness.
