Seven cultural changes that could (or should) happen after the pandemic is over

The spectre of one's mortality that a global pandemic raises can be a needed and sobering opportunity to reconsider and reorder our lives, if we're granted them longer.

I read this article and decided to share some of what I believe is good thinking.

1. Massive Shift in Education

As schools and universities attempt to maintain learning through screens, it’s an opportune moment to consider whether one’s schooling is really ideal if it can be credited in half the time, through worksheets and video clips, and without in-person contact. Many people who never questioned the U.S. education conveyor belt are now filling in for it, suffering through mediocre, haphazard assignments.

Parents are getting a taste of what exactly their kids do all day. Some will discover that if a layperson can do the job of a credentialed teacher in half the time, maybe that’s an indication of serious lack. Families may discover that learning outside the default is more refreshing, less stressful, and less propagandistic.

We’ve discovered that many Americans value it mostly as a babysitting service. Many governors immediately disbanded classes for a third to a half of the school year — possibly to be renewed this fall — then continued collecting children in the same buildings for daycare and government feeding, even though congregating people like that is supposed to be too dangerous to hold school itself. Then they take billions of “emergency” dollars from the generation they aren’t educating to pay for…millions of public employees getting vacation for two to three months while parents try to do their jobs using badly designed filler?

2. Prepping for Emergencies

Lots of people just discovered they might go hungry without a weekly shopping run and open restaurants, and can’t manage common illnesses without using medical resources that might be needed for people with worse problems. Emergencies happen, and unprepared people make them worse for themselves and others. The more unprepared people we have, the greater a society’s dependency on government and propensity to panic.

Hopefully the shock of realizing these things will encourage at least some people to upskill. Keep a few weeks of food in your pantry at all times, and rotate supplies. Keep basic medicine on hand, and learn how to help people sick with common illnesses that won’t need a doctor if well-managed. And keep more than one roll of toilet paper in your bathroom.

3. More Flexible Work Environments

Speaking of government dependence, a free people does not let government control the half of their lives they spend earning their way in the world. Free people manage their own lives, and passive-aggressive people use government force to get stuff from others instead of negotiating directly for it.

The coronavirus offers workers an opportunity to do just that by forcing many into work-from-home arrangements. Many people, especially working mothers, would like to work from home more or completely, and have been either afraid or unable to leverage their employers into it. Showing their capability during this time gives them more leverage for this kind of negotiation in the future.
This is also a time for employers to stop forcing employees to sacrifice their families and health for employment. Because women are the child-bearers, the weight of being forced to work on an Industrial Era 9-5 hits us harder, but men also love families and need to have some ability to care for them outside of bringing home a paycheck.

4. Better Social Norms About Sickness

We all have heard people at some social event talking, as their kids stick fingers in the snack bowl, about how their family has been sick all week and they just ditched the fever yesterday. We all know people keep working while they are sick, and keep their kids in school although the kids are sick, because they want to bank their sick leave for vacations.

Now this kind of petty selfishness is widely recognized as such, hopefully people will continue to take more care about spreading germs to others. We’re all having a crash course in endangering the elderly, the young, and immune-compromised by going out while still contagious, not washing hands frequently and thoroughly, and touching.

5. Basic Financial Responsibility

Congress just sent billions of dollars to Americans they stole from the next generation without their consent because neither Congress nor Americans prepare for emergencies. It is a crying shame that we live on borrowed money and have nothing stored away against inevitable disasters, so dip our hands into the next generation’s pockets every time “something comes up.” This will lead to an unstoppable national financial disaster sooner or later.

Half of Americans say they couldn’t pay for a $1,000 emergency out of cash or savings. Excluding their mortgages, the average American has $38,000 in debt. That’s just plain irresponsible. This irresponsibility just cost the next generation $2 trillion plus interest for precisely zero government services to them, and the bailouts aren’t even close to ending.

6. Learning How to Live in Deprivation

Let’s face it: Most of us have pretty good lives. Even Americans who are poor are better off, materially speaking, than just about every other poor person in the world. There are many obviously great things about America’s affluence. There are also some bad things about it that a crisis like coronavirus can strip away.

The uncertainty we all are facing about our jobs, health, and the nation’s economy can prompt some empathy and constructive help for people who live in these kinds of circumstances every day. It should prompt all of us to reconsider our life priorities and how we manage the bountiful resources God and our wonderful country have made possible for us to acquire. If you still have a job, give to someone who doesn’t.

7. Revitalization of Community Relationships

When our governments failures, it finally will end the pretense that it’s someone else’s job to solve our personal problems.

Solving personal problems often requires a community. There are many problems so big that one person, family, or even community cannot handle it alone. This is called social capital, when relationships are as good as (or better than) money. Social capital is especially important to impoverished people and situations.

In my neighborhood, people are rallying around our local mom ‘n pop restaurants and buying more from them in hopes of keeping them afloat past the lockdowns. Of course, this is wonderful. But what are each of us doing right now to make sure this nascent neighborhood revitalization continues past the coronavirus crisis? Like restaurants that face closure when starved of customers, relationships and local organizations face closure when starved of time and attention.

Trading favors and volunteering is one essence of community, and lots of us haven’t given much of our resources to making sure these tiny social safety nets exist and preclude the need for massive, ham-handed government ones that will bankrupt us and our children. This moment is an opportunity to change that, and start investing our time and money in our communities for the long-term.