If SARS-CoV-2 had at least one tiny little hand, then the globe would currently be sitting right in the centre of its palm. For a few months, the planet has been in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is no doubt this latest virus is leaving tragedy, misery, and mayhem in its wake.
Just as a Phoenix might rise from the ashes, however, there are sparkles increasingly igniting in homes, communities, and halls of Parliaments, that might lead an increasingly optimistic dreamer to think that a previously unimagined future is tantalizingly close to our fingertips.
It could certainly be argued that there is nothing new under the sun about cooperation. In some ways, it’s a lot of blah, blah, blah. Everyone knows that cooperation is good: Many hands make light work; we’re all in this together; united we stand, divided we fall; if we don’t all row, the boat won’t go; and on and on.
Posters abound with lots of mushy sentiment about thinking of each other, working together, and so on. At any one time, there is a plethora of workshops and training to sign up for where you can learn what is needed to create more effective and productive teams. Organizations and workplaces spend large sums of money getting people to play nicely together in the sandpit.
We’ve all heard the words, but, how much as a society, have we, until now, really embraced them? The amount of money that is poured into competitive pursuits is staggering. Think about the cost of something like the Olympic Games. The volume of money flowing in all directions to create an event like that is mind-blowing. And what is the event? It’s a huge showcase of competition. And on much less extravagant scales, every week people tune in or turn up to follow their favourite competitors go about their competing business.
Where is the spotlight on cooperation? What would we have to do to create a fan-packed stadium and whip them up into a frenzy to watch, way down in the middle of the pitch, a little group of people puzzling over how they are going to solve a problem together?
The spectators can see on big screens all around the arena the small troupe of co-operators staring intently at a large piece of paper they surround. Then, without warning, the stars of the show high-five each other and start moving about smiling, and nodding, and sharing. Before too long, the intractable problem has been defeated. It’s too much for the crowd to bear. They’re overcome with frenzied elation. Crowd control officers are strategically positioned just to ensure these cooperation fanatics don’t cross too far over the line.
It just wouldn’t happen.
And sporting heroes aren’t our only competitor icons. Captains of industry — those people in the 0.1% who have amassed fortunes they couldn’t spend in several lifetimes — have got to the top of the money pile by being super competitors. As a society, in fact, as multiple societies, we demonstrate daily in all sorts of ways that competition is what we really admire and value.
But perhaps that’s changing. SARS-CoV-2 has been wreaking untold havoc, and has, metaphorically, sent practically the entire world’s population to its bedroom. We’re in lockdown. How ironic that from a Draconian strategy like “lockdown,” something as wondrous as genuine global cooperation might emerge.
We’re not there yet by even the most generous dollop of wishful thinking but, increasingly, people are demonstrating new and ever more increasingly creative ways of connecting and contributing.
We’ve all been told to stay in the corner — well, our houses at least. And, for the most part, we have. That’s cooperation. For brief periods out of our homes, we’ve been told to maintain a safe social distance. And, for the most part, we do. That’s cooperation.
In Rwanda, Parliamentarians and hundreds of senior officials are foregoing their April salary to contribute to efforts supporting vulnerable people in the population. That’s cooperation.
Everywhere you look, there are more and more examples of people cooperating and contributing to the collective effort. Musicians are playing on their balconies, art galleries have created virtual exhibitions, online communities are sprouting like mushrooms, and donations of needed supplies are appearing.
There is also an increasingly more public discussion about supporting the vulnerable groups in our towns, cities, and communities. One could be forgiven for thinking that there’s almost a competitive camaraderie to being the most creatively connected, or sharing the funniest solution to coping with the lockdown.
Have we, previously, been too immersed in our global squabbles to be able to step out of them and figure out what needs to be done? Has SARS-CoV-2 virussed us into a corner from which no existing solution will provide the escape that is needed? With our backs against the wall, are we on the precipice of reorganizing to a new way of being as a species, that no longer positions the individual and the collective as opposing propositions? Is there a way of combining our efforts for the greater good that, at the same time, celebrates, rather than sublimates, the individual? Can I be “me” and “us” all at once? Is there yet another option that is still just beyond the horizon of our imaginations that is encouraging us with its alluring glow?
A couple of decades ago, William T. Powers said, “The childhood of the human race is far from over. We have a long way to go before most people will understand that what they do for others, is just as important to their well-being, as what they do for themselves.”
Out of the turmoil that SARS-CoV-2 continues to create, might we finally be growing up?
