I want to talk about personal responsibility, using the extraordinary historical example of the village of…

I want to talk about personal responsibility, using the extraordinary historical example of the village of Eyam (h/t to @PeterMella5). Now that the pandemic will apparently be a matter of personal responsibility, what are we seeing? /1 #covid19 https://t.co/r18qBeWMZ7

Generally I think it’s fair to say we’re seeing people reinstate their pre-pandemic lives. That’s what personal responsibility apparently means to so many, ‘getting their life back’. Meaning their social activities, mostly. (Which actually isn’t personal, it’s social.) /2

The obvious clash here is that the pandemic is still going. For so many, taking personal responsibility for the pandemic basically means doing nothing, except returning to their pre-pandemic life. They’re not even just looking out for themselves, to protect themselves only…/3

…in some selfish way. They’re not protecting anybody, themselves included. Happy to go back to social ‘fun’ activities, their understanding of care for others is socialising with them. Encouraged by idiot politicians and some experts, telling them they’ll collapse in a…/4

…mental health heap if they don’t. We can all accept that our current leaders have no desire to lead anything, except a conga line of donors to the State and federal treasuries. But then left to our own personal responsibility Covid devices, we have choices. As Eyam did. /5

What did Eyam do? It ‘locked’ itself down. The town agreed that was the best thing to do, the moral thing to do. It cost many of them their lives, but they stopped other towns dying as a result. The toxic wasteland of modern libertarian politics sees personal responsibility…/6

…as a binary with collective responsibility. You either look out for yourself, or for others. Doing both at once, seeing those as actually the same thing, doesn’t even compute in this idiot belief system. The fact that what is best for the community is also what’s best for…/7

…you undermines their whole market Economy based fantasy view of society. You’re not ‘maximising’ your market return, doing that, apparently. But anyway, these zealots are way too far gone to bother with. I wanted to end by asking a hard question. /8

How are you dealing with your friends, family and work colleagues, in this era of personal responsibility? We can all (rightly) blame politicians and their hand-picked experts for this. But that’s getting us nowhere, they don’t care. But your friends, family and colleagues…/9

…might. How high are you setting the bar with them? I’m now at a point where I openly tell all of these people closest to me that if their beliefs and actions don’t include looking out for the welfare of our community, by doing everything they can to restrict Covid spread,…/10

…then we are no longer valuing the same things in life. And that it may mean I have no desire to have much more to do with them, I don’t respect them. Harsh words, which will change my life probably forever, leaving me isolated from many. But where does the buck stop? /11

How will anything ever change if we refuse to confront these brutal, tragic realities with the people around us? Constantly hand-balling it to politicians is a cop-out. We’ll be waiting forever for them to do anything, and they still won’t. It’s now up to us. /12

If you want to be popular, maybe re-enrol in high school. You’re a grown up now, do grown up things. That’s what ‘getting my life back’ means to me. Not pretending I’m back in high school again, with all fun, and no responsibility. /end