How I prophesied reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic

Actually, I could upload here an old blog that I have written about six years ago: my blog “All things have their season”. It was already the second blog with this title, but I mean the one about apples, dated the 26th October, 2014. For what has happened? Recently, when leafing through my book “Rondom Montaigne” (“About Montaigne”) and rereading old blogs I discovered that both in this blog and in my book – in chapter 9 – I had prophesied how people would react to the present Covid-19 pandemic! Of course, I didn’t forecast this pandemic but what I did forecast were the reactions to a natural disaster, and isn’t it so that the present pandemic is such a disaster? Now I could stop writing and simply paste here the blog just mentioned. Instead, I’ll write a summary of this blog with an explanation and comment. If you want to read the original blog, you can find it here: http://philosophybytheway.blogspot.com/2014/10/all-things-have-their-season-2.html 

“All things have their season”, as Montaigne tells us in the 28th essay in Book II in his Essays. Montaigne sees there a strict connection between a certain stage of life and what you can do; not so much what you can do physically but what is reasonable to do in that stage of life, or what is right to be done. Montaigne gives us the example of Xenocrates who was still studying, when he was already very old. Montaigne comments by quoting Eudemonidas: “When will this man be wise, if he is yet learning?” For learning is something you do, when you are young, for what sense does it have to study when your life soon will come to an end? Although Montaigne admits that you can also study simply for pleasure, even when you are old. But in general it’s so that all things have their season.
Seasons like life rhythms are natural and you must adapt yourself to it, so Montaigne. Maybe this was true in antiquity and also in the days of Montaigne, but the times are changing and gradually the seasons of life disappear; at least to a high extent, for birth and death, being young or old, still exist and will ever exist. But let me explain the disappearance of the seasons with the help of the example of apples.
When I was young, say in the 1960s, all through the year there was a kind of seasonal rhythm of apple varieties that you could buy in a supermarket or in a greengrocer’s shop, especially in autumn, but in fact the rhythm existed the whole year round. In autumn, when the apples were harvested, a certain apple variety was for sale only during a short time and then the next variety came in the shop. In winter they sold apples that could be stored for a longer time. Of course, there was some overlap, but in fact one variety followed after another. There was a rhythm in apple varieties that followed the seasons. Discovery, Alkmene, Benoni and so on, one after another, till the long season of Elstar apples begun. One year later the cycle started anew. All apples had their season. Today, however, this seasonal rhythm in apple varieties has almost disappeared and the whole year round you find the same apple varieties in the supermarket and greengrocer’s shops, independent of the season you are in. That’s pleasant, for so you can always buy the apples that you find tasty.
This example illustrates how we have become less and less dependent on nature. Today, we can make and adapt nature as we like. At least, that’s what we think, but when a calamity happens, and then I mean a real calamity, a natural calamity, like a nuclear disaster or an earthquake, do we know then what to do? Of course, there are bodies, organisations, the government, relief workers, regulations, and so on that will handle the physical side of the calamity but are you mentally prepared? Less and less we are able to deal with unexpected occurrences. We tend to think that what is, will exist eternally. And if then something happens that we didn’t expect, even if it is natural, we blame others for it and aim our frustrations at them. 

That’s more or less what I prophetically wrote six years ago in my blog “ ‘All things have their season’ (2)”. Indeed, prophetically, for it is what we see now: A pandemic has broken out and many people mentally panic, because they no longer know how to deal with an event like this. Government and virologists are blamed for the consequences of the pandemic, they are accused of evil intentions and they are even physically threatened. Others think that a conspiracy is the cause of the pandemic: The coronavirus has been spread on purpose, they say, for what reason ever. Even Bill Gates is mentioned as one of the perpetrators. However, the simplest explanation of the present calamity is reasoned away by (too) many people, since they can no longer mentally grasp it: They cannot understand that the Covid-19 pandemic is a natural phenomenon and that it has a natural origin. Therefore, it is important that seasonal rhythms and other dependencies on nature keep existing, for they show us that we still are a part of nature, anyhow and despite all scientific progress. So they prepare us mentally for calamities. “All things have their season”, as Montaigne taught us. 

Sources
- Montaigne, Michel de, Essays, Book II, chapter XXVIII, “All things have their season”, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3600/3600-h/3600-h.htm#2HCH0049
- Weg, Henk bij de, “ ‘All things have their season’ (2)”, on http://philosophybytheway.blogspot.com/2014/10/all-things-have-their-season-2.html
- Weg, Henk bij de, Rondom Montaigne. The Hague: Uitgeverij U2pi, 2019.