The Corona Mindset, yet another pandemic?

A few days before the Dutch government announced an 'intelligent lockdown' in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, our son Elias was born. 'Generation C' joyfully made its way into the world amid chaos in hospitals and a new climate of grief and fear. A time in which governments were frantically trying to find the best measures to protect those most vulnerable to the virus (generally older people, often with pre-existing conditions). People's lives were protected at all costs: to halt the spread of the virus communal life came to an abrupt stop, with uncertainty when -if ever- we could go back to normal. The Dutch government was using a fear-based narrative to get its citizens to comply with the ever-changing list of measures. This narrative of safetyism disproportionally focused on death, illness, and other negative factors. Moreover, it implied that physical safety trumps psychological safety, and that other people are a source of danger, thereby creating new vulnerable groups and larger systematic vulnerabilities. Lastly, the pandemic put us in crisis mode, only looking at what is right in front of us instead of looking at the larger and longer-term whole. I am worried about Elias, no longer because of the virus, but because of this limiting mindset that spreads as a result and will be endemic to his generation.

The current response to the Corona pandemic is creating systemic fragilities and is reinforcing a limiting mindset

Like many other countries, the Dutch Corona approach focused on maximally controlling the virus, keeping the healthcare system from becoming overburdened, and protecting vulnerable groups. Statistics on progress towards these goals were given daily in the form of two metrics: COVID-19 related death count and amount of new patients admitted to the intensive care. While it is important to keep track of such measures to see if the curve is flattening, it is a slippery slope to exclusively focus on merely protecting lives. In my view, such an agenda shows an unhealthy mindset of safetyism. Safetyism refers to an obsession with safety, trying to eliminate threats to the extent that people are unwilling to make reasonable trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns (in The Coddling of the American Mind, Lukianoff and Haidt, 2018). In this case, we are obsessed by saving lives from the virus, and don't want to take trade-offs into account, whether in the form of psychological consequences or financial burdens. By focusing exclusively on the group vulnerable to effects of the virus, we forget that the current measures of self-isolation and lockdown create new vulnerable groups and increase fragility in the system at large. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb (in Antifragile, 2012) says best "The benefits [of fragility] are small and visible, the side effects potentially severe and invisible."

Taleb's main argument is that we should strive for 'antifragility', which he describes as the ability to grow from volatility, randomness, shocks and uncertainty, as long as these errors are non fatal. Mother nature and her constant evolution serves as a prime example of such an antifragile system. 'Fragility' on the other hand, is a system that needs to be left alone, protected, and that will inevitably break in time. A recent example is our banking system, which was prone to systematic error, and defaulted in the 2008 financial crisis. The distinction between fragility and antifragility applies to the current global pandemic, as uncertainty cannot be measured (we don't know what is coming), but fragility can be measured. We should therefore widen our scope beyond what is easily measured and instead evaluate the system holistically to gage its level of (anti)fragility. Then, we should ensure we are ready to absorb and grow from additional volatility and shocks by rational tinkering, and steer away from the 'zero-risk bias' that is informing decisions now. If we merely focus on protecting the current system, thereby implicitly accepting its fragility, an eventual break-down is inevitable. These large systematic consequences are amplified by the mindset and the underlying assumptions it perpetuates, for decision-makers now and in future generations.

In which direction should we shift our mindset?

1. Moving away from a negative narrative, to allow the positive

We thus need a collective mindset that facilitates 'post-traumatic growth', instead of 'post-traumatic stress'. We need to make room for the possibility that volatility exposes useful information and create a mindset that embraces growth as well as trial and error. For example, it has become painfully visible that people with underlying conditions (such as heart disease, diabetes, and obesity) are more vulnerable to the effects of the virus. We should use this insight resulting from this pandemic and focus on becoming more healthy as a population, and where possible target the root cause. This will allow us to absorb and grow from shocks that will (inevitably) come again in the future. Positive psychology is spearheaded by Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, and challenges us to shift away from excessively focussing on illness, which emphasizes maladaptive behavior and negative thinking. This movement inspires us to thrive, increase well-being, and foster flourishing, instead of merely aiming to 'get back to normal'.

2. Shifting from an individual mindset to a collective one

As Eula Biss powerfully argues in her book 'On Immunity', we should steer away from merely protecting the porous borders of the individual, and focus on the health of all. The concept of 'herd immunity' illuminated that we need to work together, as the health of each one of us is contingent on the health of the group. Thus, a shift from focus on individual fears, to collective strength is warranted. Others should not be seen as a possible source of the virus and attack on our own bodies, but as an important piece for the general health puzzle. This goes for both physical health and psychological health.

Eula Biss: “Our bodies may belong to us, but we ourselves belong to a greater body composed of many bodies."

3. Going beyond our short-term focus to incorporate longer-term goals

Besides a shift from the individual perspective to the collective, we need to shift our time frame. The unexpected nature and scale of the crisis triggered us to focus on what is right in front of us. Now first responses have been made, there is room to shift to a wider perspective, taking into consideration the consequences in the more distant future. For some reason, our government is willing to pull out all stops when a crisis is short-term and in clear vision. However, systemic risks within a longer time frame, such as climate change and growing inequality, are discounted and just like the large bills to pay for the Corona measures, are passed onto the next generation, introducing more systemic risk yet again. As Tyler Cowen convincingly argues in his book 'Stubborn Attachments', "Rather than opting for a strictly zero discount rate, I suggest a more modest postulate: deep concern for the distant future. In this view, we should not count catastrophic losses for much less simply because those losses are temporally distant." 

To conclude, I am not arguing that we should not take any measures to keep this virus from running rampant. I am arguing that we judge the effectiveness based on factors beyond simple metrics such as virus deaths and hospital beds. I want us to acknowledge downstream consequences and fragilities we are creating in our system, and focus on creating a true growth mindset. We need new generations to grow up believing that nature can bounce back from setbacks, that we are a social species, in which other people are not the enemy but the solution. I want my son to grow up in a society that dares to have difficult conversations and values inclusive longterm considerations, demonstrating our inherent antifragility as social species.