Since the anniversary of the start of the first lockdown in the UK is approaching, it seemed appropriate to interrupt my 'Experiencing Political Texts' series of posts to reflect on the current situation.
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought restrictions to our liberties of a kind that would not previously have been imagined. Under the current lockdown the reasons for which we can leave our homes are severely limited, our right to gather with others in public places is almost completely denied us, and even the control we have over our own bodies is compromised through the requirement to wear a face covering in shops and on public transport. There is also pressure being exerted on us to be vaccinated, and there have even been suggestions that some types of worker will be forced to do this.
This situation has led me to reflect in more detail on the concept of liberty and its history. The right to liberty in the abstract - as well as to the more concrete liberties of free movement, gathering in public spaces, and control over one's own body - were by no means a given in the past. They were only secured after hard fought battles and painful individual sacrifices. Nor are they universally enjoyed across the globe today. Nonetheless, liberty is central to contemporary political philosophies, and politicians of all stripes in the UK are keen to defend and protect liberty.
The virus challenges all of this not only by inducing governments to limit individual freedoms, but also by raising the uncomfortable question of whether the dominant place accorded to liberty in certain societies (including the UK) has actually increased the threat the virus poses to us and our lives. Many commentators have drawn attention to the fact that countries where restrictions on the freedoms of their citizens are more common often have far lower numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths than those countries that prize liberty. Vietnam is often cited on this point. At the time of writing it had recorded just 2,448 cases and only 35 deaths as compared with 4.18 million cases and 123,000 deaths in the UK. While I do not underestimate the value and importance of liberty, I do wonder whether we are paying too high a price for it just now.
Declaration fo the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
Liberty has always had to be set against other values - and not just the right to life. Our modern veneration of liberty owes much to the revolutionary upheavals of the late eighteenth century, especially the French Revolution. Its motto was Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. These three concepts were highlighted (and the relationship between them articulated) in the Declaration of the Rights of Man first issued in 1789, which began 'Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.' Soon after 'Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité was being emblazoned on everything from official documents and political texts to medals and even buildings.
The pandemic has not only brought restrictions to our liberties, but has also raised questions about our commitment to equality. In recent times, equal treatment, in various respects, has been extended for example to women, those from ethnic minorities, and those with disabilities. This equality is widely recognised today and enshrined in legislation such as the 2010 Equality Act in the UK. However, our experience of the impact of Covid-19 might lead us to question (if we had not done so before) the extent to which equality operates in practice. Commentators have noted that in many homes the burden of childcare and home schooling is falling more heavily on women than men. A recent government advert that was quickly withdrawn after complaints that it was misogynistic in its depiction of lockdown life, was perhaps more realistic than we might care to admit. As a result, the long term effect of the pandemic on women's careers may be more significant and long-lasting than its impact on the careers of men. There is also clear statistical evidence that both infection and death rates have been higher in people from ethnic minority backgrounds than among the population as a whole. There may be several reasons for this, but it is certainly clear that those with lower levels of income, amongst whom ethnic minority families are overrepresented, have been more harshly affected by the virus. This is true both in terms of rates of illness and death and as regards the impact on employment and household income. Rather than complaining about the restrictions on our liberties imposed by Covid-19, perhaps we ought to be inquiring more deeply into the unequal nature of its impact on our lives.
Fraternity is perhaps less central to political life today than liberty or equality. Not only are the masculine connotations of the word off-putting, but it sits sharply at odds with the liberty of the individual that we so highly prize. Yet for the French revolutionaries, liberty and fraternity were seen as complementary rather than competing concepts, capable of both reinforcing and tempering each other. Certain phenomena this year - including the Thursday night clapping that punctuated the first lockdown and the actions of individuals like Captain Tom Moore - suggest that the sense of altruism and community to which the concept of fraternity refers has certainly not disappeared completely. Yet at the same time the stockpiling of provisions and ugly scenes in supermarkets that were a feature of the first lockdown, together with vaccine nationalism, raises questions about this me-first attitude remains not just strong but also acceptable.
Early in the French Revolution, not long before the Declaration of the Rights of Man was drawn up, Emmanuel Sieyès published his pamphlet What is the Third Estate? In that work he considered what a nation requires in order to survive and prosper. The nation, he observed, could continue to function efficiently without the privileged orders (the clergy and the nobility). But without the third estate everything would fall to pieces. The third estate, Sieyès argued, contains within itself everything that is required to form a complete nation. He then used this observation to justify the third estate's claim to political representation on an equal footing to that of the other two estates. Within six months of its publication, What is the Third Estate? had been used to justify the establishment of the National Assembly which represented the nation as a whole, but was made up simply of the third estate and those members of the other two estates who chose to join it.
Portrait of Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès. Image taken from Wikimedia Commons.
I was reminded of Sieyès's pamphlet, and of the notions of equality and fraternity it upholds, in the first period of lockdown, when our attention was drawn to the list of key workers who would have to continue working because our society cannot function without them. Despite their importance, it was apparent that many of these roles are neither the best paid nor high status in our society.
We should use the forthcoming anniversary of the lockdown to reflect more deeply on what we have learnt this year, on what Covid-19 has revealed about our society, and on what measures we need to take to construct a better future. Rather than rushing to recapture our lost liberties, I suggest that we devote our energies to reinvigorating our understanding of the other two concepts in the triad - equality and fraternity.