Zack - The American Tragedy of COVID-19: Social and Political Crises of 2020 (Explorations in Contemporary Social-Political Philosophy)

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Zack, Naomi, 1944 author.

Title: The American tragedy of COVID-19 : social and political crises of 2020 / Naomi Zack.

Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, [2021] | Series: Explorations in contemporary social-political philosophy | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: Naomi Zack presents an organized analysis of the major crises of COVID-19 in US government and society during 2020. While preparation for this disaster was lacking, we can learn from the fallout how to prepare for the next big disaster Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020057551 (print) | LCCN 2020057552 (ebook) | ISBN 9781538151181 (cloth) | ISBN 9781538151198 (paperback) | ISBN 9781538151204 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: COVID-19 (Disease)United States21st century. | COVID-19 (Disease)Social aspectsUnited States21st century. | COVID-19 (Disease)Political aspectsUnited States21st century. | EpidemicsUnited States21st Century.

Classification: LCC RA644.C67 Z14 2021 (print) | LCC RA644.C67 (ebook) | DDC 362.1962/414dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020057551

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020057552

TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

To Alex, Bradford, Jessica, Cloe, and Winona

[The tragic hero is a] character between these two extremes...
a man who is not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune
is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or
frailty (hamartia).

The well-organized person is happy even in Hell.

You know, were not heroes. And for me personally, I cringe when I hear people refer to health-care workers as heroes, because at the end of the day, what we really need is for everyone to sort of dig deep and take a look at the way that they could personally contribute to making the world a better place.

Jasmin Marcelin, MD
(https://www.npr.org/transcripts/940115260)

The 2020 coronavirus pandemic has revealed many fault lines in democratic states around the world, especially the United States. As I write this, the seven-day daily-death average in the United States has reached 2,200, and it is still climbing. We follow the news about the pandemic, and we see a reflection of our highly polarized society. We also see the consequences of vast racial and economic inequalities for the most vulnerable among us. When this pandemic subsides, what lessons will we have learned?

In The American Tragedy of COVID-19, Naomi Zack explores this question. Drawing from her expertise in the fields of the philosophy of race, political and social philosophy, and disaster studies, Zack examines how our systems have both faltered and held up under the strain of this pandemic. She explores what the pandemic reveals about the current state of our democracy and the choices we have going forward to rebuild it.

Zacks book shows how different issues and developments are interwoven: from police abuse to our education system, from conspiracy theories to the culture wars, and from socioeconomic inequalities to the media and cancel culture. She synthesizes and distills the most significant moments of a year that no one wants to repeat2020. Most important, she does this without finger pointing and shaming opponents or looking for magic bullets.

Sadly, saying we face some existential crises is not hyperbolic talk right now. Will our planet be habitable in fifty years? Will our democracy collapse? These are the kinds of questions many now ask. Under the strain of worry, we look for solutions and fixes. One of the strengths of this book is that it resists the desire to reach solutions too quickly, instead exploring the difficult choices and trade-offs we face. Echoing Dr. Marcelin above, lets not look for heroes who can rescue us (e.g., a political candidate or a new technology); rather, let us examine our responsibility for wisely choosing the remedies that can heal us.

Zack forces us to think beyond our party affiliations and philosophical camps. As she notes, she is philosophizing the unphilosophicalwhich means more than using philosophical tools to address ordinary problems, as pragmatism promotes. I take her phrase to suggest that we need to try to understand phenomena that resist philosophical analysis but urgently require philosophical reflection. This book will get us started with that task.

Laurie Shrage

Professor of Philosophy

Florida International University

December 7, 2020

This book was written while its subject matter was unfolding in the world. I would not have thought this was possible before I accepted an invitation to write a chapter for the Disaster Law Handbook (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press). I am very grateful to the editors of that volume, Susan Kuo, John Travis Marshall, and Ryan Max Rowberry, for encouraging me. The book has unfolded from the chapter I submitted to them, Federalism, Culture Wars, Rhetoric: COVID-19 USA, and gone further.