Personal discipline during COVID-19

Two thousand five hundred years ago, philosopher-educator Confucius observed, “When something is praised overmuch, the matter must be looked into.” A more recent Irish proverb warns, “The more he praised his virtue, the more we began to count the silverware.”

The U.S. is currently paying a terrible price for failing to question its self-serving “Me” ideology. At the slightest hint of the need for personal restraint for the common good in the current pandemic, far too many Americans have, instead, started trumpeting “freedom” or to vaguely claim that their constitutional rights are being violated by “socialists” or “communists” with no convincing indication that they know what any of these terms mean. Nor do these individuals comprehend that freedom is not an absolute and that it requires citizens to have a sense of personal discipline and social responsibility.

The dangerously out-ofcontrol spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. strongly suggests that neither of these virtues are understood or practised. This is a “Me” culture run amok to the detriment of all. The attitude that wearing masks or social distancing is a curtailment of freedom has already led to an increasing number of needless deaths with no end in sight.

And for the small number of Canadians thoughtlessly following misguided American behaviour — better think again.

Gerald L. Harrison, Saskatoon