Quote of the Week...from Aldous Huxley

We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality.  All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.                                   ---Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley was a famous English writer probably best known for his 1932 dystopian novel of a future consumer-based society gone to extremes titled Brave New World.  His above quote about irrationality screams outs its relevance in today's virus-stricken world of mass reaction, much of it without any semblance of reason.  In any crisis, there is a tendency for people...myself included...to react in an irrational way...here are some of those possible ways:

--Panic
--Anxiety
--Scapegoating
--Inventing or subscribing to conspiracy theories
--Revisionism
--Critical hindsight
--Denial

I think that panic and anxiety are self-evident, scapegoating reveals itself whenever people of east Asian ancestry are attacked as if they had something to do with the disease, conspiracy theories are abounding...split between China's nefarious aims, the "fake" news media and the Democratic Party, revisionism is seen with politicians claiming they were on to the virus from the start when they weren't, critical hindsight whenever news reporters practice "gotcha" journalism to put politicians on the spot about previous statements and actions instead of what's currently happening...and denial, probably the most prevalent...and dangerous...of the irrational reactions to this still-spreading pandemic. I've noticed that along with denying that COVID-19 is anything more dangerous than the ordinary flu is often an accompanying social culture of bravado that assumes those who follow the social distancing rules are governed by fear...that is, part of their irrational denial is to accuse others of irrationality...

Once again, we're all irrational beings and are as such predisposed to reacting unreasonably to crises, especially those that seem to mandate drastically changing our social behavior patterns, even if only temporarily.  There are rational components to each of the areas I have listed above: concern instead of panic and anxiety, informed curiosity about the virus outbreak's origins instead of scapegoating, an acknowledgement that coincidences actually do happen and that the simplest answer is the often the true one instead of convoluted conspiracies, "manning up" and explaining one's own inaccurate or misleading statements instead of trying to reinvent the past, placing hindsight in the context that no leader is perfect and all will fail at times...especially in unique circumstances, and optimism that acknowledges...not denies...the urgency of the situation while looking forward to great things ahead for us after this crisis subsides...