There Are Only Hard Facts and Harder Decisions
Welcome to the pandemic
One thing this pandemic has shown is that people have a problem facing facts.
I don’t mean facts in the sense of the scientific data (although that’s clearly a problem as well, judging by the litany of conspiracy theories that have become acceptable even in polite company). I mean “facts” in the more colloquial sense — of coming to terms with reality and accepting it on reality’s terms.
We’ve taken a merciless but increasingly well-understood virus and turned it into a divisive, partisan argument. We have somehow come to believe that what we think about the virus, or our own personal needs in relation to it, have some relevance to its spread from person to person, and its ability to kill with ruthlessness and painful efficiency.
Because we can’t bear something, we believe it doesn’t have to be borne. That’s why we see people going ahead with large, in-person weddings, or looking for hookups on Tinder because they “need the spontaneity.” It’s why our Instagram feeds are filled with vacation photos and stories from nights out.
Perhaps nothing captures this sense of entitlement better than a tweet I saw from the Fox News host Laura Ingraham:
