I would like to say, “If I hear ‘the new normal’ one more time, I’m going to jump off my back deck,” but I know that I will hear it at least a couple more times before I close my eyes tonight, and I really don’t want my loved ones to have to clean up that kind of mess and do all that paperwork.
Here’s a fact: people can be a most pessimistic group, and conservatives can sometimes be the worst of the lot.
I read a lot of pretty ridiculous stuff about what life is going to be like after the COVID-19 pandemic is over (however that is determined). Our supermarkets will continue to require us to travel only one way down the aisles. People are going to avoid crowds. We may never pack out stadiums, coleseums, theaters and other venues again. The handshake may be gone forever.
Now, will the coronavirus have a lasting impact on us? Absolutely. Presumably — hopefully! — our federal, state and local governments, as well as the medical community, will be giving some serious thought as to how to handle future biological crises, whether natural or manmade. Some jobs will undoubtedly move from the office to the home, as employers discover that they can reduce overhead without reducing productivity. Some retailers who were already struggling with brick-and-mortar viability will probably never return as more consumers surrender to the online marketplace. Primary, secondary and higher education may undergo some long-term adjustments, though probably not anything drastic; parents will still want and need their kids to attend schools, teachers still want and need to teach in person, and kids will still want and need to learn collectively.
But here’s another fact: people forget very, very quickly. Especially things that are unpleasant, so they really don’t want to remember anyway.
Remember the Spanish Flu of 1918-20? Of course not — you weren’t alive. But your grandparents might have been. How much did they talk about it? My bet is they didn’t. It’s barely a footnote in my daughter’s AP history book. But it was probably the third worst pandemic recorded throughout all of history. People who lived through the Spanish flu didn’t want to talk about it or remember it. They just wanted to forget it happened — a kind of mass repression.
Perhaps more relevant to us who aren’t 100 years old, remember 9/11? Of course you do. You could probably tell me exactly where you were, who you were with, and what you were doing when you heard the news that a plane(s) hit the World Trade Center(s). (I was in an OBGYN waiting room with my wife, who was expecting our second child.) Sure, 9/11 changed a lot, but not much of everyday life, unless you fly a lot. The airline industry changed for good, with longer security lines, etc. But really, nothing else much changed after a couple of years. We aren’t suspicious of Middle Easterners like we were. Or even Muslims very much. We don’t cringe when we see an airplane over our cities. Our PTSD has pretty much abated.
One more example: Early during the presidency of George H.W. Bush (1991), the Berlin Wall came down, and the Cold War ended. Also in 1991, Bush fought a 1-week ground war that kicked Sadaam Hussein out of Kuwait and drove American military forces to the gates of Baghdad. A March 1991 Gallup poll showed that Bush had an approval rating of 89 percent, the highest presidential approval rating in the history of Gallup polling. However, in November of 1992, Bush lost re-election.
My point is not that Bush was a great president (he was, though he made some critical errors). My point is that the American public, and humans in general, have very, very short memories, even for good things. Those collective memories become much shorter for events that the public simply doesn’t want to remember, because it’s too traumatic.
So, no, our post COVID-19 world will not be exactly the same as it was a year ago. There will be a few differences. And, truth be told, we probably need to make some lasting adjustments. But don’t worry, soon enough — well, maybe not soon enough, but relatively soon — we will all be shaking hands as we crowd into a packed university football stadium. We’re going to be just fine.
The new normal is the old normal!
