Larry's Lunchette

My personal relationship with the virus, I keep under daily review; my current assumption is that I am infected, but with minor symptoms: cough, temperature, feeling generally grotty; without testing, there’s no way of knowing, so I’ve adopted this ‘best’ scenario.  I can no longer go shopping though – my thanks to the kindness of others.  My salvation just now is the garden, where the ‘life force’ and I work in harmony (usually).  For some reason I’ve stopped shaving – in bathroom mirror, I look like rough sleeper.

I continue to get solace from books – this week from revisiting Stoic philosophy in the ‘Meditations’ of Marcus Aurelius: “You have power over your mind – not outside events.  Realise this and you will find strength… Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking… Death smiles at all of us, all we can do is smile back.”  Those words were written 2000 years ago – I wish I could think of any genuine advance we’ve made in human wisdom.

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Last Saturday, the leader in the Financial Times proclaimed: ‘virus lays bare the frailty of the social contract – radical reforms are required to forge a world that will work for all’.  Reading it, I remarked again on this newspaper’s welcome shift in balance – that its emphasis is no longer entirely economic.  The editorial sets out the kind of radical reforms that now need to be put on the table: ‘reversing the prevailing policy direction of the last four decades.’  If there is a silver lining, it says, the pandemic has injected a sense of togetherness into polarised societies; the great test to come, is whither current feelings of common purpose will shape society after the crisis.  ‘Beyond the public health war, true leaders will mobilise now to win the peace.’

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If, like myself, you find the concept of ‘revolution’ too disruptive – you might enjoy the late Erik Olin Wright’s more ‘gradual’ anti-capitalism (a Marxist theorist referenced in Michael Roy’s recent blog).  Wright’s book explains, how our third sector (social economy) helps ‘erode’ capitalism – by experimenting with new collaborative mechanisms – non capitalist ways of organising an economy.

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This piece by Fintan O’Toole includes two dramatic satellite images, of air pollution in north Italy – one in March 2019, the other in March 2020, when the economy had shut down: “Coronavirus is devastating for humans – but for the planet it’s a holiday from our otherwise relentless foulness.”

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This pandemic has shown how quickly human societies can transform themselves.  This is a Social Europe article: A Green Reboot after the Pandemic (several authors) “on one planet all species and countries are ultimately interconnected – problems can only be managed through collective action.”

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Longer term readers will recall that I was a fan of Corbyn and McDonnell’s left-wing agenda – scrapping austerity for investment (now Tory policy).  This is Corbyn’s final Facebook post – and though it hardly matters in this crisis – I would like to acknowledge the courage and integrity of what was attempted.

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Sebastian Barry on Marcus Aurelius.

“It seems uncanny that there is a radiant book for these times, although it was written 2,000 years ago. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is very modern somehow, of the moment certainly. He advises not to rail against misfortune, but to use all your self and self-possession to breast it.  Throughout the years of his reign as Roman emperor, plague burned back and forth through the empire. His philosophy is that troubles are constant, a given of life. The weapons against them are courtesy and compassion, and to do the work that has been allotted to you. The comfort of Aurelius is in his calm certainty, whispered in your ear.”