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On “Jared Diamond in Conversation: Opportunity in Crisis”
In the article on July 13th, “Jared Diamond in Conversation: Opportunity in Crisis”, He claimed the COVID-19 crisis can be a good opportunity for humans to global problems.
One of his famous books, “Guns, germs, and steel” shows the microbe shaped human history. For example, germs brought by Europeans unwittingly became a major factor in conquering the American continent.
Even though he admitted the COVID problem is a disaster, it is not forever and the economy will be recover. Rather, he paid attention to other big problems like climate change, the exhaustion of essential world resources, or inequality around the world.
For him, this crisis can be a good opportunity because this crisis will give us world identity. The world has long suffered from a lack of world identity.
“There are grounds for optimism. COVID, for the first time, will have mobilized the world to face a global crisis, because COVID faces everybody. No country alone can protect itself against COVID, so for the first time in world history, the world is mobilized to solve, at a global level, a global problem.”
Because this problem cannot be solved on their own (nation), corporations are necessary.
if they just control COVID within their own frontiers, they are going to get re-infected, as has already happened with China, as has already happened with New Zealand. Not all of us have learned the lessons that COVID is teaching us, but COVID is a determined teacher and will keep at us until we have learned all that.
And he also emphasized the importance of leadership to make differences. He gave examples of Churchill and Lincoln. Both mobilized everybody by trying to unify their constituents.
“Abraham Lincoln was another good leader, who spoke to all Americans. In his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln did not use the words north or south; (instead) he spoke to all Americans.”
I agree with the importance of corporation and leadership.
However, I think he is going too fast to form “us”. People in the world are rather competitive for this crisis, nation by nation. Actually, media and the Internet are showing not only that the COVID crisis is global, but also that it has been differently dealt within each nation. The numbers of victims, infection rates, and government policies have been compared. It is very visible that some are very successful to deal with it, others not. This competition can cause good results to the crisis, still. Certain ethnic groups and the infected people are blamed and hated as if they were the same as viruses.
And his every successful example of solving problems is humans versus humans within limited places. Decisions makers can learn lessons from Churchill in the wartime, but not easily in the pandemic.
One of the difficulties of “world identity” is conceptual, ontological. Even in his writings, He wrote global threads as “common enemies” against humans in another article, described COVID as a “determined teacher” which in this article. This is not just a matter of a metaphor.
Obviously, he wittingly urges humans to shape a better future in this opportunity. I agree with his opinion as suggestions to create opportunities, not as an analysis of the ongoing situations. “We” need international corporations and good leadership. And other concepts and expressions to make them possible.