Chapter 61 “the post pandemic world: shifting personal values”

As we near the end of my long-winded accounting of the plagues that afflicted the world for little over a decade it was inevitable personal values underwent somewhat of a change. In 2019 the driving ambition of many was the accumulation of personal wealth and status symbols like big retirement accounts, big houses, cottages, expensive vacations, top restaurants, the best private schools and the mandatory Fillipino nanny. Good health and plenty of everything was a presumption except of course for cancer and a whole host of diseases. For the less affluent there was more of a survivalist mentality but employment, as crappy as it often was, was taken for granted. For the poor life was often bleak as those with mental and physical disabilities got short shrift. And there was a mean streak of arrogance amongst the elite. A CEO of a Canadian publicly traded company in 2019 made by lunchtime on the first working day of the year more than an employee in that company made in a year. Yet only a few cared being blinded by poverty or the race for wealth.

After 70% of the earth’s population was eliminated by all these pandemics personal values or ideologies shifted;

1. Health became a number one priority. Diets shifted away from fast food and chain restaurants particularly amongst the less affluent elements of society where such diets were more affordable than healthy foods. Plant based organic foods became the norm. Dietary supplements which boosted the immune system became very popular.
2. The pursuit of wealth did not disappear but the diminution of corporate giants became more difficult considering most of “the senior management teams” perished and the remaining population was sick and tired of greed to the extent legislation was passed in many countries limiting executive compensation.
3. The distrust with Big Pharma as useless pill pushers and the thousands that died in their pandemic vaccine trials was not quickly forgotten.
4. Vaccinations for chicken pox and measles became dirty words.
5. Life became simpler. Good food on the table became paramount as it, and not Big Macs and fries, boosted the immunity system and good health.
6. Disease and pandemics were recognized as part of life instead of being feared. One did what they could through a healthy lifestyle to be in the best of health.
7. Politics in democratic countries shifted emphasis on public health through increases in funding to community health and hospitals. This jacked up corporate tax rates. In autocratic regimes tyranny and surveillance increased to “prevent the reoccurrence of pandemics” caused by enemies of the state.
8. Life was something to be enjoyed instead of ignored through the pursuit of wealth.
9. A greater sense of family developed. Long term care facilities were a place for seriously ill persons and not a dumping ground for the elderly.
10. Entertainment and professional sports were decimated because there was no corporate money to support the arts like ballet, classical music and opera they too perished or were community based. Great opera companies, theatre companies and the like were transformed into “travelling minstrel shows”. Mindless television shows disappeared and replaced by locally produced events. Reruns of mindless television shows and old movies resurged in popularity.
11. Religion was slammed down on the mat. How could Allah or God or whatever supreme being one believed in could let so many innocent people die. About the most popular sect was the “Noah’s Ark” movement that claimed the pandemics were God’s way of punishing the wicked. Of course, most victims were innocent and far from wicked.