Our Impatience Is The Virus’ Friend

Open the shops now! Stop the compulsory wearing of masks now! Such demands are inevitable in a society raised to impatience. Our now-and-immediately culture is playing into the hands of the virus.

We don’t have to consider capitalism and globalization as fundamentally evil. In this article, I do not want to decide whether our system generates more damage or more benefits for humanity.

I want to show that the way we deal with the current pandemic is primarily influenced by a mentality fostered by the capitalist system.

This mentality is characterized by the fact that people want everything immediately at all times.

We have become accustomed to having to click on a button to buy almost every item within a second. We can prepare a meal in the microwave in ten minutes instead of standing in the kitchen for over an hour and cooking. We can decide to travel to the other end of the world the next day at any time and find it reasonable to have every piece of information, every book, song, and movie we can think of immediately.

Our world has become faster and faster over the last decades, and our attention span has shrunk in comparison.

Little by little, we have lost an important virtue — patience.

Developments that need to be looked at over a long period of time for us to be able to judge them are increasingly elusive to our intuitive understanding. It does not make sense to us that many things cannot be solved here and now. We no longer understand that truth only becomes visible with time and cannot be postulated within hours.

In talk shows, political debates, and interviews, we quickly lose patience when someone builds up a thought or argument slowly and logically instead of making a simple and concise statement.

For every problem and need, we expect an immediate and simple solution. We are overwhelmed by the complexity of the world on an infinite number of levels. We demand from the leaders that they take over our thinking and immediately do everything right. Above all, however, we expect them to leave us alone as far as possible and not to tell us what to do.

So if we say that we expect quick solutions from the leaders, we do not mean that they have to be good and right. They just have to be easy to understand and not demand anything from us.

This is the situation in which Corona took the stage. Scientists around the world were working hard to learn more about this virus and understand its spread. They finally concluded that keeping a distance and wearing masks is the most effective way to reduce the risk of infection.

To implement this insight, severe cuts had to be made in public life all over the world. Bars and restaurants had to close, major events had to be canceled, and travel to other countries had to be prohibited.

In public, the wearing of face masks became mandatory, and people were asked to keep their distance.

It was said from the outset that these measures would have to remain in place until the virus was under control, and it would not be under control until there was medication or vaccination.

The majority of people understood the need for the measures. But what they did not realize was how long would be long enough.

People assumed a few weeks because, in more extended periods, hardly anyone can think today. We expected a vaccine to be available quickly because we had no idea how long it would take to develop a new vaccine under normal circumstances.

At the same time, many suddenly experienced what it really means when public life is severely restricted. Many impulses that we were used to giving in immediately could suddenly no longer be lived out.

People were confronted with an enemy they did not understand, and at the same time, they experienced that this enemy forced them to postpone the satisfaction of many wishes indefinitely.

Populist politicians recognized this insecurity and used it to catch voters. The calculation was simple: if we cannot explain to people how to overcome this crisis, we will simply claim that there is no crisis.

As irrational as this is, such strategies are successful. By denying a crisis, one has overcome the crisis seemingly overnight and can return to normality. This miraculous elimination of a crisis is precisely what people expect. They want quick and easy solutions to complex and long-lasting problems.

In some countries, such as the USA or Brazil, those in power are pursuing precisely this strategy and have succeeded, at least up to a certain point.

But in countries where the government has adopted a more sensible course, impatience also exists. In Germany and other European states, this impatience is not forced by the government but is brought to the government by the people on the street.

In particular, Germany has a massive problem with conspiracy theorists and right-wing extremists, who all deny the crisis and formulate demands for rapid normalization. Many citizens, who are otherwise not inclined to take radical views, are convinced by such groups because they too are becoming increasingly impatient.

The result is that time, and again politicians with governmental responsibility are deviating from the government’s official course and rushing forward with demands for easing restrictions. This happens because politicians, too, are impatient. Many of them are willing to deviate from the path they believe to be right for better survey results in the short term.

So the reason why large sections of the population want to hear less and less about the restrictions to combat the pandemic over time is not primarily stupidity. Of course, the hardliners among the pandemic deniers are stupid, but the majority of people who are influenced by them are more impatient than stupid.

It is clear, then, that our accelerated lifestyle has contributed to the rapid spread of the pandemic and is now making it almost impossible for us to control it. Any effective measures against the virus will only work if the vast majority of people cooperate and remain patient.

Unfortunately, that is not to be expected, and so we will have to be prepared for the fact that only a vaccine will really ensure that the pandemic subsides. Relying on people’s discipline in this seems hopeless.

René Junge a published author writing on ILLUMINATION.

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