Three Predictions About Coronavirus

So, we officially have a pandemic. This too shall pass. When it does, I predict that we will have learned three things about ourselves. One of them is cause for optimism, one for pessimism, and one is a draw (for now).

First, civil society in the United States still works. When public health experts confirmed that the threat was serious and imminent, we didn’t need an authoritarian strongman or central government to force us to act reasonably. Thousands of organizations, from professional and collegiate sports leagues to schools and universities, employers and professional associations and charitable organizations, churches and other religious assemblies, and millions of families voluntarily chose to alter their plans and activities to reduce the speed of transmission.

Americans are used to governing our own lives in our own families, communities, and associations, and we generally do the reasonable thing. We respect knowledge and defer to expertise. Sometimes we overreact, and when the herd gets going, we often go along with the stampede. But this also shows that we trust each other and can perceive the value of wisdom and prudence in others.

Our response to COVID-19 will prove that our practical reasoning muscles are in pretty good shape for a 243-year old. This is good.

Second, the intact family matters. With schools closing and parents (re)assuming a larger role in the education of their children, I think we are about to see the limits of government-run education. In particular, government schools cannot compensate for the losses children suffer when the family breaks down. A child being educated in a home where both parents are present just has a better chance of learning in this moment than one with one or both parents missing.

We have known for some time that children in intact, biological families outperform children raised in other family structures in educational achievement (and on other measures). The reasons are fairly obvious. People naturally care for their own children, and on average they care for their children more than they care for other peoples’ children. Also, two parents can divide the burden of parenting, whereas a single parent must bear it alone.

Now consider that 4 of 10 children in the United States are now born out of wedlock. This is bad.

Third, the science-skeptical humanists and the pragmatic-elite technocrats will have lots to say about this moment in history, and they will battle to a stalemate. Who is to blame for this pandemic? And who holds the greatest potential to mitigate its losses? Without a rigorous, scientific understanding of viruses and human behavior, we would be at the mercy of Coronavirus, as people were at the mercy of plagues and pandemics in centuries past. Score one for the technocrats.

On the other hand, the virus spread quickly around the world precisely because our world is interconnected by industry, trade, and technology. And science did not prevent the human blunders that unleashed this thing on us. And people are now dying. And more will die. Science cannot make people other than we are, nor the world other than it is. We did not create nature; we cannot recreate it. The best we can do is exercise dominion over it as stewards of a good and fallen earth that each of us inherits and then leaves behind, which our ancestors were given in trust long before any of us can remember, as the Hebrew and Christian traditions have always taught. Ashes to ashes. Score one for the humanists.

If it turns out that this thing came from a laboratory in China, as some have speculated, then the science-skeptical humanists will claim victory in overtime. But most people won’t care. They will correctly perceive the false dichotomy. The power to create is also the power to destroy. That’s not a reason to stop innovating. We are an energetic, creative, and productive people who love to generate new ideas and innovations. We are also a people who love beauty and traditions and believe in numinous causes of happiness, who admire virtue and love our neighbors. We take the good when we can, and the bad in stride.