Time to face reality

in slowing the spread of the virus, also has given the whole ecosphere a moment to catch its breath.

A hopeful trend is that many people have been lucky enough to rediscover some of the basic human pursuits that uplift rather than diminish us. They've decided to spend quality time with close family and friends, read a book, exercise more, take up an art, a craft, cooking or gardening, learn an instrument or, for members of the digital generation, make creative videos. Or you could join a church, a support group, a cause. In short, those who have not already gone too far off the cliff of superficial distractions are slowly remembering what really matters in life.

None of this is very appealing without any income for the necessities, you might say. But there actually is plenty of wealth out there; it's just mostly concentrated in one place. In this country alone, 1% of the population control 40% of the wealth – almost as much as the entire middle class put together – and that imbalance is growing steadily greater. With some long-overdue adjustments to our political and economic practices, the luxuries of the few can be converted into relief for the struggling many.

Thus, the mobs who are being incited to protest shelter-in-place measures based on their own fear of financial ruin are barking up the wrong tree. They're just doing the dirty work for a small percentage who are consuming an unsustainable share of the world's future and who have the brains to know better.

If we fail to learn anything from all of this and just return uncritically to the binge we've been on, then we're only loading the cannon for a bigger disaster down the road. This is our chance – maybe our last chance – to demand a humane social order.

Let's choose civilization over selfishness.