“War metaphors evoke a sense of fear (1).”

Recently through Ancestry.com, I found my father’s draft registration card. My father enrolled in 1940—prior to the U.S. entry into WWII. At the time, he was 24 years old and married to my mom. He served for 3 years in the Air Corps as a private—never saw combat—but the impact of WWII changed him and certainly influenced how I was raised.

I’m doing a lot of reflecting these days while sheltering in place—and one method of dealing with stressful situations is to look back and consider other stressful times that we have been through as individuals—or that our whole society experienced. It’s cathartic to reflect on past collective traumas and to see if there are any lessons learned that might help us today.

War will be the top of most every list of major societal traumas. The impact of a large war is far reaching in number of people and number of future generations impacted. As a society, the number of people significantly impacted by our current ongoing wars is quite small—a benefit of technology and perhaps some censorship. This results in an ignorance of the horrors of war because most people in our society have not experienced them directly—yet most of us carry a deep emotional fear of the trauma of war that is embedded in our culture and patriotism.

War metaphors of the COVID-19 pandemic are rampant.
March 19th Our President referred to himself as a “wartime president (2).”
March 24th he said:
“We’re at war, in a true sense we’re at war, and we are fighting an invisible enemy…”
March 29th:
“Nothing would be worse than declaring victory before the victory is won.”
March 31st:
“We will win this war”

On Sunday 4/5/20 U.S. Surgeon General Vice Admiral Jerome Adams warns this week will be ‘our Pearl Harbor moment’ as coronavirus death toll rises—to which George Takei (who portrayed Lieutenant Sulu in the original Star Trek TV show) replied on Twitter:

“Sorry. This isn’t our “Pearl Harbor” moment. That was a surprise, dastardly attack by an enemy nation. This is our “Chernobyl” moment: a preventable catastrophe that was denied, downplayed and mismanaged until tens of thousands were dead.”

I make several moral objections of using war metaphors about the COVID pandemic:
1. They evoke fear and can cause us to accept actions and behavior that are abhorrent under the disguise of obtaining “victory” at any cost.
2. They distract us from recognizing and naming the underlying causes of the disgrace of being inept and ill prepared for what was forecast by Government agencies (3).
3. They evoke an animal emotional response that masks our ability to be rationale or compassionate.
4. They keep us from holding people accountable for the failures in our infrastructure, hospitals, federal stockpiles, eliminating needed agencies, and leading credibility.
5. They setup the scenario that we will celebrate our battle victory over the virus—instead of conducting a serious investigation of how this could have gone better.
6. “No U.S. president, even an unpopular one, has ever lost a re-election campaign during wartime .” (this reference is to true wartime—not hyperbole) (4)

Don’t misinterpret my views—the pandemic is a crisis and is impacting the world. People are dying. Lives are being torn asunder. Society and first responders are doing amazingly well in horrific situations of the disease, equipment shortages, and endless unknowns.

BUT—I think by using war metaphors about COVID-19 we are in danger of not seeing “what is” and of not pursuing “what went wrong” and of not being able to say “never again” with confidence.

My hopes and prayers are that we pay attention to the revelations that COVID-19 is showing us—both
the extraordinary resilience and compassion that humans are capable of,
AND
the failures in ourselves and each other and in our society.
This is our opportunity to learn and move a little closer to the Beloved Community–
let’s pay attention…………yours in shared ministry…………Rev Russ

Referenced articles:
1) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10926488.2018.1407992?src=recsys&
2) https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/trump-coronavirus-statements/
3) https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/covid-military-shortage-pandemic/
4) https://medium.com/@wsonn/no-u-s-president-has-ever-blown-re-election-during-wartime-7648e5413638