Two Powerful Collective Experiences in 2020

2020 will be remembered for a long time. I am not sure if it will be remembered as long as, for instance, the year 1918, in which WWI came to an end and in which the Spanish flu took millions of lives, including the life of my late father’s grandfather. But remembered for quite some time the year 2020, which is soon coming to an end, will indeed be. I think it will be remembered for two collective experiences. The first collective experience is the current pandemic. It shows us drastically that our interconnected modern societies and economies cannot isolate themselves from certain threats and challenges, and it is only to be hoped that this experience will help us to confront other collective challenges, particularly climate change. The other collective experience is the win of the US presidential election by the Biden-Harris ticket. It is a powerful experience to feel the collective sigh of relief (“Weltweite Erleichterung”, worldwide relief, as the Swiss NZZ am Sonntag writes) that follows this win. In my view, this collective sigh of relief has nothing to do with whether you are politically on the left or on the right, whether you are a republican or a democrat, whether you are a conservative or a liberal, or whether you live in a big city or small rural town. I would think that the collective sentiment of relief is based on the simple fact that this election confirms that character indeed matters. That it matters whether or not you are a decent human being that tries to treat his or her fellow human beings with fairness and respect. That it matters whether or not you at least try to do the right thing, or whether you are a cynical, egocentric and corrupt bully that only sees his or her personal interest and is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his or her personal goals, at whatever costs, including breaking all conventions of fairness or even the law. This list could be expanded significantly, of course, but I think the point is made. It feels good that in the context of the fight for the US presidency, leaving all other aspects aside, the candidates of decency, inclusion and broad-mindedness eventually have the upper hand.  

PHH, Zurich, 8 November 2020 (www.haberbeck.ch)