Category: COVID

Take the Red Pill?

Artist: Miriam English

It is over twenty years since the science fiction film, The Matrix burst onto our screens and most famously introduced possibly millions of viewers to philosophical ideas such as Simulation Theory and the potential dangers of unregulated technological advancement. Are we living inside a computer simulation?

Perhaps the most famous scene in the movie involved the lead character having to choose between taking a blue pill, which would allow him to continue living in a blissfully unaware fantasy state, or a red pill, which would wake him up to whatever harsh reality actually existed in his real world.

This metaphor has apparently been adopted by elements of cyberculture, with one usage of the urban slang term, ‘red pill’ meaning ‘a waking up from a ‘normal’ life of sloth and ignorance’ and choosing the hard road – facing authentic life, warts and all.

By contrast, ethicist Jessica Baron suggests that the western world has been choosing the blue pill – blissful ignorance of the world’s problems:

“Our creature comforts are too nice, too necessary (at least we believe) to give up, and we’ve proved over and over again that we’re unwilling to do so, even if it makes the world safer or fairer for other people.” 

Perhaps the era of COVID is a good wake-up call. While some entitled people in certain western nations bewail home isolation and an inability to get a haircut, others in developing nations live in more severe conditions, where they lack even the most basic food, shelter or medical facilities. Like many other plagues down through history, COVID will undoubtedly prove to be predominantly an affliction of the poor. While world inequity provides opportunities for COVID to linger in poor communities, the virus will remain a threat to us all. If morality is insufficient to motivate us to the task, then surely enlightened self-interest should compel the world to confront such inequality.

It may be time for our culture to get redpilled out of our complacency. Let’s use the era of COVID as an opportunity to change the world for the better.

© 2020 Geoff Allshorn

It Gets Better

Gilbert Baker’s Rainbow Flag design, rendered by Guanaco et al, CCO 1.0

US 2013 Humanist of the Year, Dan Savage, is perhaps best known for his adult advice column. But his major contribution to humanity may be his LGBT activism, particularly the It Gets Better Project, founded in 2010 as a response to anti-LGBT bullying. Savage had hoped that 100 people might contribute videos in support of young LGBT people; but within weeks he had received thousands of videos, including one from then-President Barack Obama.  Kevin Rudd and NASA also offered support.

Such is the power of humanism: finding common humanity and offering compassion and uncompromising support where it is most needed.

A humanist perspective can be life-changing. NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, whose year in space allowed scientists to investigate the long-term effects of spaceflight, as measured against his Earth-bound twin brother; has spoken about how a cosmic perspective can create awareness of environmental and humanist ideals.

As we experience the COVID-19 crisis, we have the opportunity to apply such principles and remould Australian Humanism into a twenty-first century powerhouse – and beyond that, to determine what sort of future world we wish to create.

© 2020 Geoff Allshorn

Pandemic ≠ Panic

“An atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that deed must be done instead of prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanquished, war eliminated.”
– Madalyn Murray O’Hair.

Photo of Madalyn Murray O’Hair. 1983 at Robert Ingersoll statue, Peoria, Illinois. photo by Alan Light, CC BY 2.0

We live at a time when our normal human activities have been upended.

Many people around the world seek consolation within their places of worship, in defiance of social isolation mandates, and thereby become vulnerable to potential infection. Affluent nations close their borders and their hearts to the sufferings of people in less affluent nations, who will undoubtedly endure a disproportionate impact of the virus as it sweeps the world.

Humanists can take this as an opportunity.

As people who defer to medical science and trust that a way forward can best be sought through evidentiary inquiry, our rationality must also be tempered with compassion. This is a time of coming together, assisting those within our communities. Phone calls and other electronic communications are ways through which we can keep in touch. There may even be avenues of practical action (within the confines of social isolation) where we can help ourselves and others.

Our local and global communities equally deserve our consideration.

Atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair is sometimes referred to as the ‘most hated woman in America‘ because she dared to agitate for the US separation of church and state. Rather than deferring to thoughts and prayers, her principles of pragmatic activism (as expressed in the quote above) demonstrate values to which Humanists can subscribe.

We remain part of the human family, and we have the responsibility to come up with solutions that can help to change our world.

© 2020 Geoff Allshorn