"At dusk, apartment blocks became amphitheaters. People stepped onto balconies and stoops, banged pots and pans, clapped into the cold air, and sang across courtyards to honour frontline workers. Neighbours taped hearts in their windows. Teenagers ran groceries to elders. Seamstresses stitched makeshift masks on kitchen tables. None of this was coordinated. People across classes and backgrounds saw each other's distress and isolation and found diverse ways to express the very same sentiment: I'm right here with you."
"That sense of togetherness unraveled-partly due to stress and exhaustion, and partly due to a series of bitter, mostly online arguments over school closures and masks, over where and when to reopen businesses, over vaccine mandates. Today, half a decade later, our societies continue to relitigate the questions of who got the pandemic policies right-judging based on mortality rates, school achievement, and scores of other factors."
Early pandemic acts of care demonstrated spontaneous, cross-class solidarity through public applause, mutual aid, and homemade protective gear. That spontaneous togetherness later unraveled under stress, exhaustion, and polarized online conflicts about school closures, masks, reopenings, and vaccine mandates. Societies continue to relitigate pandemic policy choices using mortality data, educational outcomes, and other metrics. Recovering social solidarity is crucial for managing future public-health threats and for confronting climate change, AI risks, and democratic erosion. Policies designed without authentic public participation often generate compliance or resistance. Listening, inclusion, reciprocity, belonging, and mutual responsibility increase willingness to share collective costs.
Read at Psychology Today
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