Sufficiently-Demanding Sacrifices

The above tweet from Elizabeth Bruenig is her take on the film Joker. I think her line about "a lack of opportunities for heroism" best gets at what the film and its cultural impact are about.

I haven't thought about that tweet until recently when I began to see content on Twitter responding to coronavirus like this:

Downtown Nashville is undefeated. pic.twitter.com/BFIOzukFct

— Janna Abraham (@SportsPundette) March 15, 2020

There are numerous other instances of people heading out to bars and other crowded spaces, very much in spite of CDC recommendations, which has sparked responses like this:

Greatest Generation: Came together and laid down their lives to defeat Hitler in WWII.

Current Genrations: Hoarding toilet paper and refusing to stay home and watch Netflix so people don’t die.

— Sean Kent (@seankent) March 15, 2020

I remember talking to a nun at a college where I used to work. She was a student there during WWII. She talked about how they gave up their class rings because the country needed the metal for the war efforts. She described it as a sacrifice people were happy to make.

I know there is less patriotism and civic trust now than in the 1940s but I can't help but think that the difference in the public response between WWII and coronavirus has something to do with what we are asking people to sacrifice.

I read somewhere that the religion with the most loyal followers will be the one that demands the most from its adherents. It should not be a surprise that suicide bombers abstain from alcohol and cover their women head to toe.

The people heading out to bars are people who are probably not going to die from COVID-19. We're not asking them to save their own lives, we're asking them to make a sacrifice for others. Is the problem that the sacrifice is demanding too little? After all, there is nothing heroic about staying home and watching Netflix.

Is the problem that the risk of exposure is actually enticing to these young men, since most of us have never had a rite of passage to prove our manhood?

Instead of paternalistic lecturing, I wonder if more people would listen if this was framed as an opportunity for heroism.

We need healthy young men to deliver groceries to the elderly, the immunocompromised, and those at highest risk of dying from COVID-19 who cannot leave their homes. We need adults without children to volunteer to watch the kids of doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals so they can go to work and keep our hospitals operating at maximum capacity.

We need you to be leaders in our communities because no one else is going to do it. We need heroes because the stakes are so high.

There are certainly people who are going to do what they want, no matter how you frame the conversation. Just as I'm sure there were students who did not want to give up their class ring during WWII. But there might be enough people willing to listen to make a difference.