My Moment of Lockdown Lunacy & COVID Rage
I went “lockdown loony” a few days ago.
Long story short, a dude in my building flagrantly and rudely ignored the rules when it comes to masks and number of people on our high-rise’s lift etc. I enforced those rules in no uncertain terms, eg, equally rudely.
This led to two middle-aged men trading school-yard insults in the foyer of our up-market building. We almost got to the “your mother!” stage and total meltdown before some tiny remainder of maturity, and the concierge, intervened in. He probably saved us both from court dates and defibrillators. Thanks, Mo!
The whole incident was my first and totally embarrassing experience of “COVID rage” within myself.
I’ve been trying to figure it out over the weekend, as I watched my fellow Sydneysiders skipping on the fine line of this lockdown’s rules. Thousands in parks, beaches, and malls took it upon themselves to significantly tweak the definition of “exercise” or “resupplying”. They congregated, they milled about, they talked more than they walked etc. A Bondi friend described the main drag there as like Notting Hill Carnival, London’s biggest street party.
That’s because it’s likely that — with less than 200 new cases and 5 people in ICU and no deaths in 2021 and vaccinations (very) slowly but surely rolling out — the public’s sense of personal COVID risk is probably way down if not totally knocked out.
Mine is too, as is my patience. I just fail to see the need for this lockdown given the threats — or lack thereof — to hand. Delta appears to be more “scarient” — to borrow a term — than a major new risk.
Why therefore do I feel a need to enforce the rules of a lockdown — even when I don’t think they’re sensible or necessary? What explains this seeming contradiction in my attitudes and my behaviour? And, is it just me that’s subject to it?
One explanation is an old phenomenon I learned about in the politics and polling period of my career. Namely, that there is often a difference between our public attitudes and our private behaviours. Or more simply put, what we believe and the way we act don’t always reconcile. A classic and well cited example is that most of the people who bought Telstra shares when it was floated actually opposed the privatisation of Telstra.
In my case, I’m a public critic of the lockdown but I privately enforce its rules, whereas it would be more consistent for me to let things like mask wearing and social distancing slide because they — from a evidentiary perspective — may be substantially redundant.
But why? Why go out of my way? In fact, why go out of my way when it’s not aligned with my actual views — or at the risk of a busted nose? (Well, assuming I’m half-way rationale and not fully hypocritical, that is!)
I think several factors explain it and, indeed, the community’s overwhelming compliance and conformity to date — putting aside the weekend — with the requests and rules from politicians and public health officials.
As Australians, we trust our governments more than is sometimes obvious. Party polling has consistently shown that, while Australians may complain about Canberra politicians and the mainstream media likes to mindlessly repeat that trope, they also consistently respect their local elected representatives, which is a key test. Local MPs get trust/respect/favourability ratings of up to 70 percent. That all shows that we are actually heavily invested in the social contract that underpins governmental authority.
But it’s probably not, despite our convict roots, from fearing our fellow humans a la Thomas Hobbes. Rather, it’s the opposite: our historical experience of Government, especially in the modern era, is generally positive.
As a migrant nation, with some 60 percent of the community having a tangible knowledge of overseas societies and their governments, and many of us extensively internationally travelling (well once upon a time), we know what real dysfunction and corruption in public administration is. Here, on the other hand, our (high) taxes translate with reasonable effect and efficiency into genuine services like comparatively high-quality schools, health care, and other social and built infrastructure.
Truth be told, our public administrations — be they elected officials or public servants — have done a good job for a long time. Our corruption cases are very few and almost laughable like politicians losing their careers for bottles of wine or campaign posters. So, it’s totally understandable and normal for us to have adhered thus far to the political class’ COVID policy setting. It’s been fully reasonable to believe them to be acting in our best interest.
It’s about something further too. I’ve recently been involved in some contemporary polling that really underscored Australians’ commitment to the value of equality and of all citizens having similar opportunities in our society. The flip side of this in social research / attitudinal terms is that Australians have an acute sense of fairness and especially when something’s not fair.
(Libertarianism, for example, has never had a substantial base in Australian political culture, as the value that is “freedom” isn’t as strongly subscribed to as that of “equality”, but that’s another story from other sets of polling.)
Hence, “if I have to follow the rules so do you and you and you” isn’t just a procedural matter. It strikes at the core of our collective notion of fairness. Dobbing is seen as unAustralian, but the reality is that we’re happy to do it when we feel there’s the overall principle of equity at stake.
I may hate COVID rules, but I hate it even more when someone else flouts those rules to the disadvantage of the rest of us. Mate.
Well at least that’s the way I should have put it.
