It would be easy to say that this is someone else’s fight. It is easy to say, as some pundits have said, that this is not a fight at all. You don’t go to war with a virus. That’s not how it works.
But according to Andrew Roberts, the great biographer of Churchill and Napoleon, that is exactly what is happening and exactly how this works. He asked, when we spoke to him (listen to our in-depth conversation with him here), if he could conclude our conversation by reading a passage from a speech Churchill gave to the Royal College of Physicians in 1944:
The discoveries of healing science must be the inheritance of all. That is clear. Disease must be attacked, whether it occurs in the poorest or the richest man or woman, simply on the ground that it is the enemy; and it must be attacked just in the same way as the fire brigade will give its full assistance to the humblest cottage as readily as to the most important mansion.
The war against disease, against pestilence, against infant mortality, these have been the collective battles of humanity since before Marcus Aurelius. Indeed, those were the primary battles of Marcus Aurelius’ life. He fought against the Antonine Plague, selling off the imperial treasures and forgiving Rome’s debts as he did so, not out of self-preservation (in fact he ultimately died of it) but because he cared about other people. He fought armed only with the crudest medicines and understanding of science to help everyone he could, even as he mourned the deaths of his own young children.
It is so easy to say, as people now feel comfortable saying on the internet, “Oh, but wouldn’t many of these people have died anyway? COVID-19 only affects the elderly and the immuno-compromised.” Disgusting. Heartless. It’s also easy to say, as some people do from inside their mansions and with their comfortable finances, that we should all just stay in lockdown until this is over. This too is heartless to those who will lose their jobs, who are trapped in abusive domestic situations, who suffer from depression, and the unborn future generations who are deprived of the growth and dynamism of the economy.
War is hard. It is not clean. It is not easy. But it must be fought. It demands your sacrifices. It’s victims demand your compassion and its mercilessness spits in the face of your glib and selfish attitudes.
The virus is the enemy, as Churchill said. It must be attacked on the ground with everything we have. It needs you to hold your shield, as the Spartans did, for the protection of the whole line.
P.S. This was originally sent on June 2, 2020. Sign up today for the Daily Stoic’s email and get our popular free 7-day course on Stoicism.
