David Carlson: None are safe until all are safe

To explain chaos theory, the writer Neil Gaiman offered this riddle: “A butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian jungle and subsequently a storm ravages half of Europe.”

The point of this puzzling comment is that there is a connection between seemingly random events in the world. Of course, it’s impossible to prove that such a connection really exists.

But we don’t have to look far for a connection that we can prove. This connection might be expressed in this way: The chances that residents of central Indiana — that is, you and me — will catch a more dangerous form of the coronavirus in a year or two could depend on whether a tiny village in Latin America, Africa or Southeast Asia receives one of the vaccines today.

We don’t make this connection because we tend to view the coronavirus nation by nation, state by state, and sometimes even county by county. Unfortunately, what the news rarely shares with us is how few people in Guatemala or the Democratic Republic of Congo have access to the vaccine.

Experts now estimate that poorer nations will likely not be fully vaccinated until 2023. In hearing that news, we might be tempted to breathe a sigh of relief and think, “Thank God that’s not us.”

The sobering truth is that the coronavirus doesn’t honor national borders. Different countries might have different vaccines, but we all have the same virus and now the same mutations. This virus isn’t standing still; it is mutating every day. It is mutating even as we read this column.

And here is what would be funny if it weren’t so sad and dangerous. The virus is ever-so-grateful that human beings are nationalistic. The virus loves the illusion that nationalism creates, that those of us in the richer countries who’ve been vaccinated will stay safe.

The reality is that as long as the virus is given time to mutate and become more deadly, it doesn’t care if those mutations take place in Malawi, the Philippines or San Salvador. Put another way, this virus is a frequent flyer and travels without a passport.

Knowing this, however, can be good news. For decades, religious leaders have been anticipating a positive global spiritual change in the world, one that recognizes that humanity is one family. In an odd way, the virus might be accelerating this spiritual change, but the key word here is “might.”

We “might” accept that none of us are safe from the virus until we all are safe, but instead we “might” pretend that we’re protected from nations that are still at high risk.

The bottom line is this: The virus, like other crises facing our world — global warming, depletion of the rain forests and the world’s exploding population — is changing by the minute and by the day. But there is a significant difference between the virus and these other problems. If we listen, we can hear our earth grieving when her climate, fragile rain forests, and population are ignored.

The virus, however, isn’t grieving, but thriving. And the virus will continue to thrive as long as humans are stuck in nationalistic and short-term thinking. The virus loses when we accept that we are all neighbors of one another.

The virus is betting on humanity not changing. That leaves us with only one question: “Over the next critical months, will humanity prove the virus wrong or right?”

David Carlson of Franklin is a professor emeritus of philosophy and religion. Send comments to [email protected].