We, as Human Beings

By Anonymous / Fall 2020

It is a new day of 2020, a new day full of confusion and controversy. Almost a year after the Covid-19 was discovered, I spent my day in my room just like the past few months. I saw a new round of home-quarantine order had been applied while many people post their travel pictures or party pictures with descriptions like "Have a good time with my BFF!" Those people ignore the home-quarantine order, just like what they did in the past few months.

About a year ago, the majority of the people and government leaders still questioned the severity of COVID-19. Starting from March 2020, many medical workers like Dr. Colleen Smith, who worked in the hospital, decided to stand out and spoke the truth, "Things are not ok. We didn't have what we needed." They got their voice out through the media to let people know that COVID-19 is not flu. Those words from front-line medical workers brought the public's attention. Shocked by the quick spread of the virus and the high death rate, states began to require people to wear masks for protection and implement the home-quarantine order. We all thought March is the beginning of ending the pandemic, but it was the beginning of chaos. Surprisingly, even seeing the governments' official statements about the virus, many people still believe the "Covid-19" is not a big deal. Because the two parties treated the pandemic with different attitudes, masks became a representation of political attitudes instead of a way to prevent the spreading of viruses. I used to be questioned by random people on my way to the grocery store just because I wear a mask. At that time, news about getting hurt because wearing a mask was everywhere. I didn't understand. Masks are supposed to be a protection. Instead, it has been regarded as a symbol of freedom, a representation of politics. It becomes a materialized Ego--- "I don't know how, but I believe everything is ok!"

In the past three months, things are getting worse. Nearly 20 million people have been diagnosed with COVID -19; over three hundred thousand people died because of the Covid-19. Survivors may undertake the pain from the complication of the virus. The protection, such as masks and medical equipment is limited. Even under so much pressure, there are still uncountable healthcare workers and medical researchers who have tried their best to invest in vaccines, saving lives, and decreasing the virus spread rate. However, all of their efforts are under the shadow of the original debate: "The severity of COVID-19 has been overstated." The scarifications of workers have been minimized, even ignored. Millions of sad stories and somebody's loved ones are buried under those shocking numbers. COVID-19 brings one of the biggest pandemics to human society, but our people treated it as a small flu.

On the other hand, the time we used to overcome the pandemic is too long for people to maintain their ability to feel things. People begin to get used to seeing people fight with each other on the street because of masks. We don't regard one person who died because of COVID-19 as news because we unconsciously think it is normal. When we consider the death rate, the unemployment rate just as numbers, we let chaos become routine. All the efforts of overcoming the COVID-19 becomes a joke.

I felt more sad and scared because of my friend's attitude to deal with the pandemic. Last week, one of my friends who used to take the pandemic seriously told me, "Rufu, if you want to live a normal life, you should stop taking these seriously." I felt shocked, "But hundreds of thousands of people died!" She replied calmly: "Many of my friends hang around and still not get affected. I think the situation is not as bad as we thought." I felt my mind was divided into two opposite sides. One said, "The worst of the pandemic is yet to come." While the other party yelled, "Other people are traveling, and they are still healthy. Am I taking this too seriously?"

I used to love to use this sentence to start my writing: “ We as human beings....” However, under this long dark pandemic, people and society are incredibly divided. Instead of the virus, people regard each other as enemies. Separation replaced united; the definition of “We” no longer exists. Whenever I saw those traveling pictures and protests against wearing masks to achieve personal comfort, I questioned myself: when we lost the ability to distinguish reality and lost compassion, are we still human beings?

I insist we should follow the home-quarantine order for our own and other’s benefits. I thought this is an easy thing to do. So why did things go out of control? Where are those divisions and controversy coming? After taking this class and doing some readings, the first thing that crosses my mind is the vast information bias caused by the social hierarchy.

The new social hierarchy of U.S society is presented in the Figure (1) below:

Figure (1):​ social hierarchy of U.S society in the global content. The Oligarchs group in the top control most of the power, resources and privileges. The upper and middle classes entertain some power and resources, they need to compete with each other to get more. The working class still struggle about basic living needs and rights(Wcwp 100 lecture, Niall Twohig).

This is only one type of social hierarchy. People could be divided into different stages according to their ability, gender, resources. People get treated differently on education resources, opportunities, and information gathering, etc. The top stage of the hierarchy controls most of the information, enjoys most of the privileges, and usually are the one who makes the rules. They could use their power to get first-hand information and make decisions accordingly. Even if they make bad decisions, they still have vital support. During the pandemics, wealthy people had the lowest death rate because they could afford the best medical team. Even when most people lost their job during the pandemic, companies such as Amazon make more money due to the increasing demand. For most of them, their benefits damaged by the pandemic are relatively small to take into considerations.

The people in the middle stage of the hierarchy could afford electronic devices and get a relatively high education quality. They could get information through various media. They tend to verify and distinguish information by checking reliable paper and asking friends who analyze it. Information and resources are reachable with efforts. As a result, most people know the mask is necessary during the pandemic and get rid of the interruption of conspiracy theories.

On the other hand, the people at the bottom stage of the hierarchy struggle with their basic needs. They couldn’t get high-quality education because they couldn’t afford the price. Their information resources are limited. For most of the time, they could only choose to believe whatever information came to them. Conspiracy theories are widely accepted because people around them support them. Compared to the unaffordable medical cost and losing jobs because of the quarantine, the stories of “ Fake COVID-19” are better relief. A high-risk job under a pandemic is better than don’t having income at all.

The different education and neighborhood resources keep people of different stages away from each other. The hierarchy trapped us. People in different hierarchy stages didn't live in the same neighborhoods. They go to different schools, experience things differently. The communication between stages is rare. We couldn't understand other people's life choices. As a result, people with power blame the low-income group for "not working hard enough" without considering the resources' uneven distribution. We should realize that the people at the bottom stage are not stupid or evil. They don't have the resources to achieve a better life and develop themselves. Many people are against the quarantine and believe the COVID-19 does not exist because their information makes them think so. They don't want quarantine to happen because they could not support their families without their job. Those information biases and unreasonable distributed resources increase the stereotype between people. It also increases the conflicts and makes society more divided.

Another reason for chaos is that the separation is more appreciated than unified for the people with power. Sometimes the conflicts and doubts could create more benefits to the top stage. When people fight with each other, people with power could manipulate things easier to act in the way they expedited.

Like we saw in the “ Merchants of Doubt” in the 1990s and 2000s, 75% of Americans agree that global warming is a fact. However, when researchers found that the emission of greenhouse gases such as CO2is one of the main causes, fossil fuel company owners came together to create the “Think tank” “Lobby group” to make doubt and deny global warming. Now, “global warming” has been defined as overstated and “climate change” is a new way to call it (Alexandria). Even reports indicate the iceberg has been melting 3 feet per year since 2010 (Rebecca). There are still many debates about its authenticity. Those strategies work so well that it has also been used to deal with the pandemic.

At the beginning of the pandemic, various media such as Fox News stated, “ COVID-19 is like a cold” multiple times. They aimed to convince people to believe that it is the right choice to keep working as usual. That information stabilized the stock market and economics for a short time. Later, when the death number and unemployment rate went out of control, they changed their attitude and encouraged people to wear masks. However, when the election day comes close. Conspiracies such as “ COVID-19 is fake news created by the other party” became popular again. The behavior such as wearing masks and home-quarantine is regarded as a representation of political attitude again. Conflicts between people become more serious, and it makes more people tend to vote.

The separation of society and the itemized people make neoliberalism become the new stage of social development. Neoliberalism is supposed to be only used in economical market development. In the market, competition is encouraged to achieve the best economic benefits. Only "valuable" parts could survive. Economics benefits rule the system. However, the most fundamental thing for human society and democracy is that people rule society. Human equality is needed. People with fewer abilities should be protected instead of being given up. The fundamental factors of human society and the market are contradictory to each other. As a result, neoliberalism couldn't develop human society successfully. When the elite group of the neoliberals would like to treat the society as a huge market to maximize their benefit, everything has been put into the competition: the education resources, human lives, even democracy (Wendy). The thing we like to see in human society, such as compassion and sacrifices, would be regarded as "breaking the law of the market" in neoliberalism. People would be treated as tools to achieve their benefits. We are dehumanized.

Neoliberalism gives us the anxiety of being given up by society. For example, it makes me feel that if I cannot perform better than other people, I would be defined as lacking value. Nobody cares about how I could survive, and nobody would help me. This makes people like me lack a sense of belonging to society. The only thing we could do is to focus on the individual. No sacrifice is encouraged. Suppose we can't be protected and respected by others under the shortage of resources; we intend to protect the resources we have individually instead of going united and figuring out a way to get more supports for everyone.

The pandemic explores the huge disadvantages caused by Neoliberalism. Like King Jr., Martin Luther wrote in "The World House": "The profit motive, when it is the sole basis of an economic system, encourages a cutthroat competition and selfish ambition that inspire men to be more I-centered than thou-centered." When economic benefits and power are the priorities, human lives are not as valuable as they are supposed to be. I hear so many stories about "Having parties during the pandemic and developing serious symptoms." All of those people feel regrets about that behavior, but the same thing still happens every day. For people who support Neoliberalism, individual interests such as traveling during the pandemic are more important than decreasing the virus's spreading rate. Some people want to reopen the economy to earn money; some don't want their taxes to pay for unemployment benefits. Most people refuse to give up their comforts and privileges unless their lives and benefits are threatened. As a result, people are more divided, and the society is taped in chaos.

How could we stop against each other and promote our society moves forward? Here are some aspects of my thought. To go through this hard time and move forward, we need guidance. First of all, everybody in this society should know that they have the necessities to communicate with people from different backgrounds. "To come out of this pandemic better than we went in, we must let ourselves be touched by others' pain." (Pope). Resources that explore different sides of society should be more reachable and recommended to everyone. Classes like Wcwp 100, which would lead students to listen to other people's voices and think deeply about society's darkness, should be promoted to every student. Not only for college students but also for kids at a young age(The content should be adjusted according to age). The education system should provide classes about human society's development for every child. Those classes would increase their ability to look at society's problems deeply. They would acknowledge the privileges they have and the difficulties that others might experience. When they grow up, they could think independently based on the baseline of "we as human beings." Those thoughts could help us to earn a bright future for society.

Secondly, more standards about social media are needed to be established. Social media companies should let users clearly know about their capability to use Big data to filter information. People should have the right to stop social media from filtering, and they could decide to receive information from different social aspects. Simultaneously, the mainstream media, one of the most important ways of providing information, needs to be responsible for their news. People with power need to be accountable for their speech on essential occasions. Fact checks are required, and they are responsible for labeling the false information clearly and making clarifications. In this pandemic, tragedy happens because of the incorrect information provided during the official interview: many people fell under the wrong instruction and planned to inject bleach inside the body to cure COVID-19. The Accident likes that should never happen again.

Most importantly, our society should get united with the same baseline: Human is the priority. Things like the pandemic are against the whole human being. No matter what background you come from, the virus treats everybody equally. United society is needed to save lives. Everybody has the responsibility to make some effort. We should all agree that economic development and personal interest need to make concessions for human needs. As part of society, we need to give up our benefits for seconds, listen to other people's stories, and make small scarifications. If there is no candle in the dark, then we should be the only light. At the same time, we should appreciate other people's sacrifices. The whole society should appreciate the efforts made by all of the healthcare workers, researchers, teachers, and social workers. When they try their best to make our community a better place, we should protect their benefits. Like Xuecun Murong discussed, those who find firewood for everyone should not let them freeze to death in the ice and snow; And thorns should not trap those who open the way for freedom. We, as human beings formed a united society. We could be more powerful and create a better future.

Works Cited

Stein, Robin, and Caroline Kim. "'People Are Dying': 72 Hours Inside a N.Y.C. Hospital Battling Coronavirus." 25 Mar. 2020. Web. 21 Dec. 2020.

Twohig, Niall. "Hierarchy-21st Century." Wcwp 100 Lecture. San Diego. 24 Nov. 2020. Lecture.

Martin Luther King Jr. "The World House." Microsoft Word - World House Large Version 1.18.04. 1996. Web. 16 Dec. 2020.

BYU Kennedy Center. "Merchants of Doubt." YouTube. YouTube, 09 June 2015. Web. 21 Dec. 2020.

Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria. "A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez." YouTube. YouTube, 17 Apr. 2019. Web. 21 Dec. 2020.

Lindsey, Rebecca. "Climate Change: Glacier Mass Balance: NOAA Climate.gov." ​Climate Change: Glacier Mass Balance | NOAA Climate.gov.​ 14 Feb. 2020. Web. 21 Dec. 2020. ​

Brown, Wendy, and INETeconomics. "How Neoliberalism Threatens Democracy." YouTube. YouTube, 25 May 2016. Web. 21 Dec. 2020.​

Francis, Pope. "Pope Francis: A Crisis Reveals What Is in Our Hearts." ​The New York Times​. The New York Times, 26 Nov. 2020. Web. 21 Dec. 2020. ​