A friend sent this to me today. It is food for a lot of thought and reminds me of Bill saying frequently that the Chinese virus is simply a new way to die after we have virtually eliminated other ways like small pox and bubonic plague.
What
might C.S. Lewis say of our new COVID situation? Here’s what he said in
1948 about the mental shift required by living with the threat of the
atomic bomb:
might C.S. Lewis say of our new COVID situation? Here’s what he said in
1948 about the mental shift required by living with the threat of the
atomic bomb:
“We think a
great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic
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, an
age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor
accidents.”
great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic
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, an
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 atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high
percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed,
one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have
that still. 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.
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 atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high
percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed,
one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have
that still. 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 an atomic
bomb, let that bomb 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 bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they
need not dominate our minds.”
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 an atomic
bomb, let that bomb 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 bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they
need not dominate our minds.”
— “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948)