Yesterday (November 2nd), I read an article in Junior Skeptic (included in Skeptic Magazine). It told the history of plagues, of epidemics, of pandemics. How an unknown disease killed upwards of 20% of the population of Athens (404 BCE). How a plague during Marcus Aurelius’s reign (161-180 CE) killed 20% or more of the citizens of Rome. How the first wave of bubonic plague killed somewhere between 25 and 50 million people in Europe (it reached Constantinople in 542). The second plague pandemic killed about 1/3rd of the European population, and some settlements were wiped out completely. (The last plague epidemics occurred in the 1600s and 1700s.) How smallpox ravaged Europe. How the Europeans brought smallpox to the Americas, killing up to 90% of indigenous populations.
In every case, major political and economic change followed. Athens lost the Peloponnesian War. Rome became weak, and finally lost its hegemony a couple of centuries later. The bubonic plague finished off the western Roman Empire. And so on. A little extra research showed that the second and third waves of bubonic plague caused Europe-wide wars and re-arranged the remnants of the Roman Empire. Even the Spanish Flu of 1918-19 caused disruption: the Roaring 20s were as much a reaction to it as to the Great War.
And generally speaking, people forgot the great plagues almost as soon as they fizzled out. School histories tend to ignore them. In fact, I didn’t know about the Athenian epidemic until I read this article; and I thought I had learned a pretty good overview of ancient Greek history.
We don’t want to be reminded that we are subject to the random appearance of pathogens. Even now, when SARS-COV-2 is infecting people, there are many who claim it’s a hoax, or no worse than the flu, or caused by G5 phone towers, or whatever. Anything, it seems, rather than face up to the terrifying truth: we have no defences against new pathogens. And another, much less convenient, truth: that these new pathogens transfer from animals to us. Which means that as climate change alters ecosystems, it also alters the interactions between humans and other animals, and so increases the odds that a new pathogen will emerge.
One of the factors in today’s US presidential election is covid-19. Mr Trump persists in downplaying its severity and perils. Mr Biden persists in using covid-19 as a symbol for Mr Trump’s failures as a President.
We shall see what happens. But in any case, the American Empire has begun its downward trajectory.
See Wiki’s article on SARS-COV-2
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