VIRUS THRIVES IN DARKNESS.

William Watson

Straight up: I’m not a physician or epidemiologist so I don’t actually know if the virus thrives in darkness. I haven’t heard anyone reputable say anything at all about whether it does or doesn’t. “The virus thrives in darkness” is a play on The Washington Post’s motto: “Democracy dies in darkness.” The darkness referred to is, of course, the lack of information and independent thought in the essentially closed society that would result without a free press. There’s always the danger of exaggerating the importance of what one does for a living but the foundation of our democracy, of any democracy, is that free and open discussion provides the best public policy decisions but also the only legitimate public policy decisions.

China is a less closed society than it used to be. We know much more about what goes on there than we did in Mao’s time, when it might as well have been on the far side of the moon. But it remains a more closed society than ours. We will know less about it in future, after the expulsion of journalists whose only real transgression seems to have been to work for news outlets — the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and the self-same Washington Post — whose editorials have stressed the disadvantages of China’s closed-ness.

After initially reacting with the impulse of officialdom everywhere to suppress bad news and impugn those delivering it, China seems to have suppressed the virus itself, though only with intrusions on personal freedoms and privacy — including an automated cellphone app that determines where and when people can move around — that I trust would be impossible in Canada. Everyone hopes the suppression is permanent and that life in Hubei province gets back to normal quickly — and then evolves toward greater individual freedom and multi-party democracy.

Now we shall see whether an open society such as ours can similarly suppress, contain, slow down, or eradicate the virus — whichever good outcome is feasible. Open societies have faced down difficult problems before, most notably in the 1940s. The reason there are no contemporaneous recordings of Winston Churchill’s greatest wartime speeches ( he did read some of them onto discs after the war) is that they were delivered to under a thousand people — 615 MPS, plus their guests, including the press, in the galleries — during House of Commons debates.

In August 1939, after the Hitler- Stalin Pact, Parliament did give the government emergency authority over persons and property. But it had to be renewed every 12 months. And Churchill had to report regularly to the House on war strategy and its implementation. In fact, war reports were the occasion for his most famous speeches. In a report on the evacuation from Dunkirk, for instance, he first told the

Much of what we need to know about the virus ... we simply do not know.

House that “what has happened in France and Belgium is a colossal military disaster” before telling it Britons would “fight on the beaches.”

In September 1940, as the Luftwaffe pounded London, Churchill introduced secret meetings of the House, not necessarily to discuss confidential matters, but to prevent German command from knowing meeting times. “Here we are sitting on the target,” he told the House. “This group of well-known, prominent buildings and towers between three major railway stations, with the river as a perfect guide by night and day, is the easiest of targets.” It made no sense, he argued, to let the Luftwaffe know when the literally sitting targets would be in place. The House didn’t meet often that fall. But it did meet.

All through the war, Churchill had to describe, debate and defend his government’s policies. In July 1942 he even faced a vote of non- confidence, which, after two days’ debate on “central direction of the war,” he won handily.

COVID-19, though an emergency, and the inspiration for innumerable wartime analogies, is obviously nothing like the emergency the Second World War was. But that’s precisely the point. If the British House of Commons, with an ill- intentioned and theretofore invincible army massed across the Channel, could maintain democratic processes, what kind of people would we be to think this much smaller crisis requires us to abandon the habits of an open society?

We not so long ago elected a parliament to govern the country, which it is doing, though, like all of us, in a fog. Much of what we need to know about the virus — most importantly, how prevalent it is in the population and therefore how high the true death rate is — we simply do not know. As we learn more, and as we live through the social and economic effects of the policies our governments have chosen, it’s possible these policies will need to change.

We can make that adaptation the Chinese way, with people at the top conferring among themselves and doing what they decide is wise. Or we can do it the open- society way, with debate, discussion, maybe even what amounts to dissent. If we do go the open route, people will end up reading things that may surprise or even jar them. (It was a surprise to me to see The New York Times run “Is our fight against coronavirus worse than the disease?” by David Katz, in which the Yale epidemiologist proposed a more targeted lockdown.)

But that is how open societies work — and should work even in emergencies. Congratulations to China for its progress against the virus. But if we give up on open discussion and debate, after which those lawfully responsible decide, our loss will be much greater than sickness, death and economic distress.