No Spectators

by Penna Dexter: There’s a wide disparity across America regarding how we’re experiencing the coronavirus pandemic. More and more of us know people who have or have had COVID-19, but polling shows the majority still doesn’t.

A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 59 percent of Americans don’t know a soul who has contracted the virus. Yet every one of us is affected by it.

Some Americans’ lives have been upended — others terribly inconvenienced — due to the policies our leaders have put in place to stop the spread of the virus.

This pandemic is unique in that, unlike in other national emergencies and tragedies of the last half-century, none of us is just a spectator.

Commentator Jonah Goldberg points out that “Most historic events, even if significant and tragic, are remembered largely as moments on television.” As momentous as these events may be — and as heart-rending or life-changing for some — most of us experience huge national events as spectators.

This was true of threats to national security — from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the 911 attacks. We experienced national accomplishments, like putting a man on the moon, vicariously, on TV. And, since fewer than one percent of Americans serve in the military, most of our perceptions of recent wars are informed largely through media.

We have to look back as far as the Great Depression and World War II to get to the place where the appropriate question was not “Where were you?’ but “What did you do?” or “What happened to you?” As Jonah Goldberg points out, “There’s a huge psychological difference between watching and participating.”

Perhaps your participation means suffering or persevering through rough personal circumstances. Perhaps you’re now homeschooling. Churches are participating by involving their members in serving their communities by delivering food and supplies. Some are even setting up coronavirus testing sites.

People also tell pollsters; they’re participating by praying more.
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Penna Dexter is an author, lecturer, visiting professor and radio host and contributor on nationally syndicated Point of View and the "Probe" radio programs.

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