Luck, Wisdom and Health to Us All

Humans are stubborn and resilient creatures, so even in times of hard trials like the ones we are going through, we try by every means to fool ourselves into feeling better than we realistically should or deserve to. In December, I read lists in several places of positive things that supposedly happened in the year just ended. You know: we learned to bake sourdough bread, we spent a lot of time with our loved ones, Jan Plestenjak has a new song, Rok Snežič isn’t allowed into Bosnia, and so on. These attempts to find rose-tinted glasses through which our reality wouldn’t look so oppressively gray remind me of the legendary joke about the reporter who, as she left the theater where an assassin had just murdered her husband, asked Abraham Lincoln’s wife, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”

And yet, if we set aside for a moment the pandemic that has thrown the world off its hinges, a few things did happen last year that give us hope that the future may be a shade less gray than the present. Besides the fact that we got a dog in the family, I would mention at least two more: first, the outcome of the American election, and then, of course, the record-fast development of a vaccine against Covid-19. What the November election and the race for a vaccine have in common is Trump’s claim that he won both. Fortunately, that isn’t true. The thought of Trump in a white coat with a syringe full of bleach would probably drive even Dr. Fafangel into the arms of the anti-vaxxers. What Biden’s victory and the vaccine’s victory also have in common is that they are not bona fide positive events but rather opportunities to stop negative trends before everything goes completely down the drain. Biden and the vaccine are also linked by the fact that, for many who like neither Trump nor the coronavirus, the cure is worse than the disease. You know: Biden is a reactionary old fart, Hillary’s pal, and the vaccine contains chips that Bill Gates put there. No point wasting words on such nonsense. Of course Biden is far from perfect—but, as with the vaccine, where, as with most other medical substances and procedures, we cannot completely rule out side effects, the risk of his presidency pales beside the threat that the alternative inevitably brings. At the same time, of course, neither Biden nor the vaccine guarantees a final solution to all our problems. On a submarine whose engines have failed, we have stopped sinking to the bottom; now we have to figure out how to get back to the surface before we run out of oxygen.

Most of us spent the first days of last November tensely following the vote count in the American election. The importance of Joe Biden’s convincing victory should by no means be underestimated. This time the American electoral contest was not between two competing political options but between two completely different political and social concepts. One of them, for all its weaknesses and inconsistencies, is based on the principles of liberal democracy, that is, the democratic rule of law, political pluralism, judicial independence, free media, human rights and civil liberties; the other is not. In today’s United States, as in other countries where nationalist populism is growing or even in power, the division is not between left and right. It is a contest in which on one side are pluralist democratic options—left, right and center—and on the other an authoritarian paradigm of power that tries to camouflage as a culture war its intention to subordinate the whole of society and its subsystems to its interests. In Trump’s understanding of democracy, only his victory and dominance are allowed, regardless of the election result. But this story is far from over. Trump lost, but he is not lost. There is more rationality in the furious foot-stamping and throwing of toys against the wall than appears at first sight. Donald Trump is taking a run-up for the second half. The frantic repetition of absurd claims about a stolen election is meant to radicalize his supporters and to bring the Republican Party completely to heel, leaving room only for blind obedience to the great leader. If the institutions of American democracy withstood the onslaught of rampant populism this time, Trump and the little Trumps are determined to leave nothing to chance in four years’ time. Or to election results. Of course, it is not only about the United States; what happens in America influences the political situation in other parts of the world in many ways. Reactions to the American election in Slovenia are a projection of domestic ambitions regarding the direction of development of our political system. That is also why reactions here at home were so colorful and boisterous. From the statement by the gentleman from New Slovenia that they were disappointed because the candidate closer to their values had lost—by which of the Ten Commandments the orange pussy-grabber is closer to the Christian Democrats than Biden, who is first at Mass every Sunday, is a question to which it would be fun to hear the answer—to the foot-stamping refusal to recognize the results and the international squabbling on the part of the prime minister, who inconceivably and irreparably drew us onto the world diplomatic map.

And soon after the results of the American election were known, the world also got a vaccine against the disease that has had us literally by the throat for a year. We got the vaccine very quickly, faster than expected and, it seems, for many even too fast. Just as in the first phase of the pandemic we were all epidemiologists, today we are evidently all immunologists and pharmaceutical experts. Why should I get vaccinated if I’m healthy? Mate, you can’t make a vaccine in a year, don’t give me that. The pharmaceutical industry cooked up the coronavirus so it can make money. Some are afraid, some refuse to be vaccinated out of selfishness, others would probably swear by cold-water cures and healthy eating even in the event of a nuclear attack, and there are many who don’t want to be vaccinated because they don’t trust science. Their self-confidence comes from the feeling that they are not alone. The internet connects them with like-minded people and gives them access to more comfortable facts and an alternative reality tailored to their fears, traumas and needs. How can it be fake news if everything is written just the way I feel and believe? A revolt that sees knowledge as a conspiracy theory is worrying. Of course the pharmaceutical industry must be under public scrutiny, but that does not mean they are in breach until every member of the tavern council and every sage on Facebook has given their approval. Imagine a world in which the speed of progress was adjusted to the cognitive abilities of the slowest common denominator. Resistance to and suspicion of vaccines reflect a broader revolt against rationality, science and expertise that began long before the pandemic—and that in the past was most ardently and opportunistically fueled and exploited precisely by populism. On the other hand, it is true that for many, reservations about vaccines express distrust of authorities that disappointed and angered them in their handling of the pandemic so far and are now trying to convince them to get vaccinated. If I can’t trust them on the purchase of protective equipment and the closing of kiosks, why should I make an exception for the vaccine? Besides the availability of sufficient quantities of vaccine and the efficient organization of vaccination, it will therefore be crucial in the period ahead for politics to regain people’s trust. Through integrity, responsibility, effectiveness and a different kind of communication.

Populism and Covid-19 have different causes. The first was largely made possible by the inconsistency, indecency and mistakes of a politics that otherwise never stopped talking about liberal democratic values; the second was caused by the whims of Mother Nature, whose work was made much easier by the fact that we have long been treating her like a pig treats a bagpipe. Without a radical change in our relationship with the environment, Covid-19 will be merely the trailer for the horror films still awaiting us. Global warming, new pandemics, droughts, floods, famine, conflicts and uncontrolled migration caused by natural disasters… The worst thing that can happen to us in facing such challenges is politics that tweets during a global health crisis, plays golf, denies climate change, always shifts blame and responsibility onto others, lines its own pockets and subordinates democratic institutions and social subsystems. In the fight against global threats, things look bad for humanity if we are led by ostrich-like nationalism and a selfishness that believes every problem can be solved simply by pushing your fellow human being into the muck. Fortunately, in democracies, at least for now, voters still decide. So let us use our heads. As Abraham Lincoln said, if you turn your backside to the fire, you’ll sit on your blisters. Biden and the vaccine give us another chance to get our act together. I hope we manage it.