The current pandemic has affected some countries more than others, partly because they have been slow to react to the crisis. That, it turns out, is a very human response.
The coronavirus pandemic is upon us, and for many people it feels like it came out of nowhere.
The UK saw its first reported cases at the end of January, by which time the virus was already spreading around the world. But it was not until the middle of March that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson “advised” people to avoid non-essential travel and socialising, and only on 23 March did he order the country into lockdown. The slow UK response came in for widespread criticism from public health experts.
In the US, President Donald Trump has overseen a chaotic response. The country has had a dire shortage of testing kits, so its government does not know how many people have had the disease. President Trump also repeatedly downplayed the dangers of the disease – although despite what you may have read he did not (quite) call it a hoax. He also incorrectly compared it to seasonal flu, and falsely claimed the US response was more comprehensive than any other country's.
How did two of the most advanced countries in the world, with technology and expertise to spare, fail to recognise the crisis as it unfolded? A final answer will only come with hindsight and public inquiries, but there are many known psychological processes that cause individuals and organisations to miss the signs of a coming emergency – even when it is staring them in the face. Read More
Knowing how people react to crises is critical for pastors and other church leaders. I read this article last night and bookmarked it. It contains a number of helpful insights.
When I was involved in child welfare work in the state of Louisiana, I often worked with families in crisis. People react differently to crises. A common reaction is denial. Denial is the refusal or unwillingness to accept reality. The family will deny the existence of a problem, the nature of the problem, its seriousness, and its extent.
When confronting denial, it is useful to bear in mind that person in denial is actually refusing to accept reality at a much deeper level than what may initial may appear to be the case. A person who refuses the recognize the nature of a problem is in all likelihood denying its existence. A successful confrontation must be directed at securing the person in denial's recognition of the problem's existence.
A person may refuse to accept reality because it does not fit with the way they see themselves and others. Rather than accept reality the person in denial will attempt to manipulate others in his or her environment into seeing things the way he or she does. In this way he or she avoids dealing with reality.
In child protection cases persistent denial of a problem's existence, nature, seriousness, and/or extent and subsequent refusal to cooperate with the child protection agency may necessitate court intervention and the temporary or permanent removal of the child from the custody of the parents or care givers.
In a public health emergency such as the coronavirus pandemic in which government officials and politicans are themselves in denial, the situation is far more complicated. In the case of the coronavirus pandemic we have government officials and politicians who are seeking to redefine the problem. Redefining the problem is one way of denying its existence, nature, seriousness, or extent. They are making decisions or encouraging the making of decisions that jeopardize the lives of other people.
4 comments:
Your Trump Derangement Syndrome is showing. He did not say the virus was a hoax, "quite" or not "quite." It is clear from the transcript what he said was a hoax. They're still trying to nail him on that by repeating the accusation (with parenthesis).
In early days of the infection, he did compare it to the flu. So did Toni Fauci, Nancy Peolosi, Anderson Cooper, media medical mouthpieces,and just about every member of the media who should have known better. But for some reason, the TDS sufferers are now investigating HIM for "procrastination."
I have the same feeling about Trump that Churchill had of democracy. But fair is fair - especially where persons of faith are concerned. Fauci knew about the Wuhan plague for MONTHS before informing the White House. The CDC/CIA dropped the ball and he has the gall to challenge Trump on the efficacy of hydrochlorquine! Meanwhile, the Surgeon General of the United States is showing us how to fold bandanas to make face masks? What's wrong with that picture?
Charles, in my own comments I said nothing about hoaxes so please do not fault me for what the author of "Why We Find It Difficult to Recognize a Crisis" may have written. My comments were not about one individual but a segment of the population. People do react differently when confronted with a crisis. A common way that they react is to engage in denial. Another common way is to redefine the problem. That was my observation when I was involved in child welfare work and it is backed up by clinical research.
It is also my observation of how people are reacting in my community and elsewhere in the United States. I hear young people downplaying the seriousness of the coronavirus and minimizing their role as potential carriers of the disease. My next door neighbor shuttles back and forth between his house and the house of a neighbor down the street. I have seen five or more men gathered on the porch of that neighbor. My next door neighbor has been entertaining gatherings of his family and friends at his home. I have seen four or more cars parked outside his house and heard children playing in the backyard. The mayor of my community had to beg residents of the community to observe the president's social distancing guidelines and not go to the store in large groups but just send one member of the household. People were not only disregarding their own safety and well-being but that of others.
In the meantime the number of reported cases of the coronavirus in the community was rising. The principal reason was that people were ignoring the recommendations to stay home, stay away from other people, and not to travel. When I was involved in child welfare work, we had to do deal with the growing number of HIV/AIDS cases in the community. One thing I learned then is that there are many more undiagnosed cases than there are diagnosed ones.
I posted the article because it offers some insights into how people react to crises and why, information which I thought that pastors and other church leaders would find helpful in understanding the reactions of their congregations.
It does concern me how politics are driving the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in a number of states and communities rather than science. How we respond to the pandemic should, in my way of thinking, NOT become a referendum on Donald Trump and his policies or the platform of any political party. Human lives are at stake. What should be our main concern is the safety and well-being of our communities and the protection of the health of the more vulnerable segment of the population. Unfortunately politics has come to pervade every area of life in the United States that it is difficult to do that. It has come to influence our perceptions of what is occurring and that itself is very dangerous.
I also think that it is dangerous to see each other through the lens of how we perceive the other person to view a particular politician. First, our perceptions can mislead us. Second, people are more than their political opinions. They are God's creation. They are the ones for whom our Lord died on the cross. If we are to look at other people, it is through the eyes of Christ. That I admit is not always easy to do.
I do not think it "dangerous" for Christians to be well informed. That requires a very definite understanding of the politics of the day, and of the influence of politics over health and welfare and yes, even the Church
I think it is "dangerous" to post politically misinformed data with regard to the Wuhan Virus under the guise of political neutrality. The US response under Trump was no more "chaotic" than that of China or Italy. I have already pointed out the "quite" parenthetical slur, and the shared opinion of the media and the Democrat opposition at the onset. The author is not stating facts - he is promoting erroneous opinions - calling into question the entire premise of his missive. What did Georing say about the lie oft repeated? Was total compliance expected on the part of the world population? Surely, we have a better understanding of fallen man than that.
Charles, I am not going to discount what I think is useful information that an individual offers because I do not agree with a political view that the same individual expresses or because he may have gotten some facts wrong. Too often I have seen people focus upon a writer's political opinions or pick out a handful of mistakes and use them to dismiss what are otherwise valid observations. People are choosing to dismiss valid observations on such flimsy grounds because they do not fit with the way that they want to see things and not necessarily with the way that they actually are. This is what clinicians call "cognitive distortion" and we are seeing a lot of it in this day and time. People engage in cognitive distortion for a variety of reasons. Space does not permit me to go into the reasons in any length. It is basically a psychological defense mechanism.
While I was involved in child welfare work as a caseworker for 27 odd years, I originally trained to become a historian and an academician. The history of the rise of Fascism, Nazism, and the Third Reich was one of my particular areas of interest. I am well-acquainted with the propaganda techniques of the last century. It was Adolf Hitler who wrote about the "Big Lie" in Mein Kampf albeit Herman Goering as his minister of propaganda was the one who applied it. Hitler wrote that if you repeat a falsehood or half truth enough times, you will not have to put much energy into perpetuating it. It will perpetuate itself and even those who were responsible for spreading it in the first place will come to believe it. The lie will take on a life of its own. This is indeed happening in the twenty-first century America but it is happening on both ends of the political spectrum--on the right and the left.
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