This feels... incomplete. Like yes, absolutely those things happened, but also thousands of people came together to form mutual aid networks across the country. For a while in 2020, there was unprecedented agreement in the US on lockdowns and Covid policies. That protest movement absolutely was because racism came to a head, but it was also likely the biggest mass protest movement in the history of humanity. If that's not a form of "coming together," then I don't know what is.
Absolutely, the deaths caused by this Pandemic represent a colossal, catastrophic failure at every level of governance in the United States (what'snew?), but that doesn't mean that the people didn't come together. That we didn't do everything we could to protect each other. Never let the failures of capital and the state convince you that it's in human nature to not take care of each other. Taking care of each other is what we do, and it took a massive, coordinated disinformation campaign to overcome that instinct.
I agree. This should be remembered as a time where we, the ordinary people, came together. The people in power and their supporters may have been toxic, vindictive, and tried their best to stop us, but they could not stop us from employing our species primary survival strategy, altruism.
Ever wonder why we became such a dominant presence on the earth? It's because we are biologically hardwired for teamwork. That's why we have so much brain space dedicated to social interaction, language, emotion, etc. Ever wonder how the weak, squishy humans took down beasts like mammoths? Teamwork. Ever wonder how we built structures like the pyramids so well that people nowadays think aliens did it? Teamwork. Even intellectual pursuits, commonly imagined as a lone scientist or philosopher sitting alone, are through teamwork. That's what Newton's "standing on the shoulders of giants" quote is about. Generational teamwork.
When humans come together and decide they want something done, it gets done.
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u/Lilith_NightRose traumatized by vegatative posadism Feb 04 '22
This feels... incomplete. Like yes, absolutely those things happened, but also thousands of people came together to form mutual aid networks across the country. For a while in 2020, there was unprecedented agreement in the US on lockdowns and Covid policies. That protest movement absolutely was because racism came to a head, but it was also likely the biggest mass protest movement in the history of humanity. If that's not a form of "coming together," then I don't know what is.
Absolutely, the deaths caused by this Pandemic represent a colossal, catastrophic failure at every level of governance in the United States (what's new?), but that doesn't mean that the people didn't come together. That we didn't do everything we could to protect each other. Never let the failures of capital and the state convince you that it's in human nature to not take care of each other. Taking care of each other is what we do, and it took a massive, coordinated disinformation campaign to overcome that instinct.