What we can learn from pre-scientific societies’ responses to the risk of contagion
Last week, I came across a video of a heated argument between an unmasked woman and store employees. While the woman sounded fed up and defiant about all the restrictions that have become the new normal, the employees were rightly concerned for their health and their livelihood. On my daily walk, if I see someone walking towards me, I cross the street in the interest of keeping a safe distance . When crossing the street is not an option, I stand still with my back to the walkers until they have passed behind me. When at the grocery store, I carefully clean the shopping cart with hand sanitizer.
To an extra-terrestrial (or a Rip Van Winkle who fell asleep pre-Covid and is just waking up), actions like these would surely seem bizarre. Maybe they indicate belief in a ritual with an unfathomable metaphysical meaning. Or, they simply suggest a fundamentally unfriendly and rude culture.
Looking back
As I ponder the new etiquette, my mind flies back to the mores that were prevalent when I was a child. I grew up in Mumbai during the 1960s. As the biggest, most cosmopolitan, and the most commercially developed city in India, it was far from a backwater. In an India that was emerging from the…
