Last week, I suggested that, while the COVID moment is far from over, it is possible to see the outlines of what well may become the dominant narratives of this historical period, the key stories we will tell when we look back on the pandemic. The stories that, to my thinking, could rise to the surface are: the story of scientific excellence (reflected centrally in the rapid development of mRNA vaccines), the story of the presence of inequities in both morbidity and mortality from COVID and in populations that faced the brunt of the economic costs of the steps we took to mitigate the pandemic, the story of widespread loss of trust in institutions as a consequence of partisanship and the spread of misinformation, and the fact that, for all the suffering caused by COVID, it could have been far worse, had we faced a more lethal contagion.
Fundamentally, these stories inform a core narrative of why we believed what we believed during COVID—why we came to regard the virus as a threat worth shutting down the world over, worth the pursuit of novel vaccines, worth better understanding inequities, worth trying to convey accurate information in a climate of institutional mistrust, and worth recognizing that the next contagion could be worse. Today’s Healthiest Goldfish will consider why we will remember what we remember about COVID—why certain narratives may “stick” while others may not. Such a consideration is useful, I think, because it reflects why opinions cohere among groups, and the values and habits of thought that underlie the choice to embrace, or not embrace, the narratives that inform health. How we prepare for the next pandemic will depend, in large part, on the story we tell about this one. The better we understand the forces that shape our narratives about health, the healthier we can be, and the better we can prepare for the next pandemic.
It strikes me that certain narratives are likelier to stick when they meet the following three criteria: they seem to fulfill our pre-existing biases, they fulfill an aesthetic need for coherence (i.e., they seem to “connect the dots,” reflecting some measure of order in a chaotic world), and—yes—they are told by dominant groups, promoted by those in power, by “winners.”
Read the full post on The Healthiest Goldfish.