The challenge the world over is managing the natural human resistance to being locked down

Feb 04, 2021 Letters

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Dear Editor,

The constant locking down of human beings is contrary to man’s natural coexistence with nature and with each other. From a long-term perspective, the practice poses a threat to man’s very existence.

Lockdowns are bound to be resisted by man. We are currently witnessing riots in cities around the world. Opponents of the lockdowns are branded ‘trouble-makers’ and an ‘uneducated, radicalized lot.’
Instead of engaging the opponents in dialogue to quell the disturbances, the coercive apparatus of the State has been called upon to act condignly. News about a South African, more transmissible, variant of the virus has been discovered in major capitals around the world. This new variant, while lowering the effectiveness of the vaccine, has raised to a higher level the frustration and resistance by humans knowing that new variants will mean more lockdowns.
With its constant mutations, variations and re-infections based on scientific data, it appears as if the virus will be around for a long time and so will be the lockdowns. The stringent enforcement of protocols and the need to resort to continuous locking down of cities and towns, and by extension, their inhabitants, will only exacerbate the problem.
Already signs are evident. Appeals by public health authorities in some capitals encouraging their citizenry to not travel have largely been ignored. Millions continue to board commercial aircraft that fly domestically and internationally.
Compounding the problem further is the contest between the speed of vaccinations versus the speed of virus infections. Which of the two will win will depend on the speed of both production and distribution of the vaccine. And while the war of words and allegations of ‘vaccine nationalism’ and ‘export controls’ rage on, thousands are dying and millions continue being infected.
In many countries, public health authorities are being challenged by a restless sea of humanity whose nature is not to stand still. They must constantly be on the move. If the pandemic continues to mutate resulting in new variants forcing governments to respond more aggressively, riots and protestations are likely become worldwide. In the circumstances, governments can become more authoritarian and inclined to resort to coercive regulations and protocols, ostensibly to keep their restless and impatient populace ‘safe.’ In many countries where cities and towns look ghost-like, law enforcement is being used to arrest, forcibly remove and charge citizens.
In Barbados, we read where, in the course of an imminent lockdown, ‘house-to-house testing will be done and persons deemed to be infected will be picked out of the community and taken for treatment immediately.’
After enjoying decades of the ‘Four Freedoms’ based on constitutional guarantees, international conventions and covenants to protect their right to freedom and liberty, the world’s citizenry are being called upon to accept restrictions for extended periods, denial of their right to socialize and to communicate with each other than through big tech entities such as Twitter, Facebook, Google and YouTube.
It is as if humans are being psychologically, materially and physically conditioned, because of fear of illness and death, to conform to a completely new reality to which they are unaccustomed. But it is not only adaptation to the vagaries of the pandemic that man is called upon to yield, humanity is also being called upon to conform to demands of climate change.

These two phenomena combined, are likely to have a lasting, if not devastating impact on the human condition insofar as their long held habits, customs and practices are concerned. Man is a product of nature. He belongs to and exists in its midst. To remove man from nature for extended periods is to remove him from his ‘natural habitat’. This is precisely what the pandemic is doing.
Ironic and eerie as it may seem, with the world’s population edging towards 10 billion and with the challenge to increase food production in the wake of the pandemic, it appears that a mix of the Malthusian contention and the Darwinian theory is coming to pass due to the ravages of the pandemic and humanity’s struggle to adjust to climate change.
Under these difficult conditions, the mental powers of men and women are bound to be challenged as it is with children who have been kept out of their classrooms for almost one year now. The absence from the affinities characteristic of a classroom will have a lasting effect on the mental powers of our children. There is no substitute for classrooms as a learning space for children (and adults).
What natural evolution took time to do, actions to mitigate climate change coupled with prohibitions of the pandemic will make natural evolution look like child’s play. No prescience intended. Humanity now faces the strong possibility of its gradual physiological transformation.
For example, our hands will in future perform different functions other than that of labour. Already, our children, rather than holding a pencil or pen in their hands and between their fingers are now pounding away at the keys on a motherboard.
Our eyes will experience changes because we are either scrolling up and down or staring for hours at the screen of our computer, laptop or smartphone. Labour is already being performed by household and industrial robots driven by algorithms, cybernetics and artificial intelligence.
Our body and its gait will adjust from one that is erect to a stooping or slouching posture because we are constantly sitting or standing and have to peer for hours at a computer or smartphone screen or, to drive a motor vehicle or cycle. In other words, our body, mind and way of life will undergo significant changes because of co-adaptation.
Nations dominated by ‘software people’ are in the making. Cumulatively, these changes will contribute to the transition of man from what he is now to what he will be in years to come.
As to the Q&A; “Why worry about that now? When we come to that bridge we’ll cross it.” Truth be told, men like Elon Musk’s Space X, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Paul Allen’s ‘Strataunch’ as well as China’s Yuegong-1 self-contained lab to host the first humans to live on the surface of the moon along with its ‘Yutu 2’ rover on the far side of the moon constitute steps to cross that bridge.
With every passing day, we humans will be subjected to control by technology either in the form of a smart phone, a laptop or a desktop computer. Our freedom of movement will be determined by protocols. Who stands to benefit from this impending transformation and the resetting of the global agenda remains an open question.
Only those who are smart enough will survive and destined to be the purveyors of the unfolding story.
Yours truly,
Clement J. Rohee

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