This meme has been making rounds on the internet and my friendship circles.
Notice the attempt to portray those who want to re-open schools this fall due F2F learning, and those who want to reopen the economy as fascists? As if these people want totalitarian control, war, and death camps, instead of less government control, education, and prosperity.
I have no firm stance on reopening schools, but this meme is the standard bullshit of American political discourse these days. I am tempted to riff off the left and call it late-democracy.
Instead, let's dig into it a bit. What is "the economy?" It's just us, we people. It's the food that keeps making its way to your table via the grocery store. It's the plumbers who keep fixing our broken pipes and the HVAC folks who keep us at liveable temperatures (literally saving lives). It's the activities that support our social lives. And I say this very seriously, if, like me, you are one of the fortunate ones still receiving a paycheck, you should think of this who are struggling before sneering about the economy.
On sacrifice, what kind of sacrifices are made for the economy. We all sacrifice for it, to the extent we ever work when we'd rather do something else, but let's limit this to the sacrifice of human bodies. Is anyone really under the impression that we don't sacrifice people to the economy regularly? Over 5,200 workers died on the job in 2018, and several million people were injured.
The question we face is what margin we should be on. What are the real risks and gains of reopening schools? I don't know, which is why I don't have a firm position on what to do this fall. But that is the question.
Would you want to be operated on by a doctor who finished medical school online because of covid-19? Would you want to be represented in court by an attorney who finished law school online? Would you want to drive across a bridge designed by an engineer who completed his or her degree online?
