Now for the past few months, we keep bombarded with the heated debate of continuing with lockdown versus opening-up-the-economy, mask vs no mask, efficacy of certain drugs overrated, etc…etc.. It’s being played out in the media, press briefings, internet and social media widely. The question to be asked is which side are you on?
The lockdown versus opening-up happens to be a classic example of moral dilemma something which we commonly call as Sophie’s choice. Sophie’s Choice is the name of a novel by William Styron. The context is set in the European background where a woman is in a predicament and is forced to decide of her two children which one will live and which one will die. Since then the phrase has become a synonym when making a choice between two extremely difficult options none of which are desirable.
If you’re a salaried employee with the facility of remote working or work from home option, you probably want to vote for a continuation of lockdown, wanting to keep country shutdown till someone invents a vaccine. However, if you are a business owner or a restaurant owner, then you are probably want to open up, eager to restart the business. Moral dilemmas like Sophie’s choice, or the lockdown versus opening-up, astonish us because they provoke our sense of right and wrong. Hence, it’s no wonder so many of us are confused. Leaders at levels with varied portfolios from politics, healthcare, business, academics, etc are no exception and they are in similar dilemma too. Trying to do the best they can with the information in hand at that point of time.
A dilemma begins with two good results. Just as Sophie wants to save both her son and her daughter, countries want to save lives in a pandemic and also want to return to the normal life i.e. sending students back to school and adults going back to their jobs. However, in a practical world, either of the two good results can be achieved but only with opposing reactions. Sophie can say, “Save my son” or she can say, “Save my daughter.” Similarly, countries can stick with the lockdown option or they can choose to open up the economy.
Just as Sophie can’t choose to save her son and her daughter, we can’t open up the economy and enforce a lockdown at the same time. Although the two actions are designed to do good, they cancel out the good results of the opposite action. The lockdown results in people loosing work, destroying businesses, etc. On the other hand, opening up spreads disease, causes death, and perhaps even sets off a new round of lockdowns.
Solving this dilemma needs creativity, innovation with the key ingredient of HOPE. For starters, our choice isn’t as binary as Sophie’s. We can choose little bit of both the options. Some areas can be partially opened and some areas can be partially shut. Doing this will help us to understand how quickly the disease spreads and how the economy recovers. As countries experiment with hybrid open-shut tactics, other countries can copy strategies that work, and avoid tactics that fail.
Closing Thoughts:
To overcome this pandemic, we may have to sacrifice one good action for another. We need to accept the fact that whatever we choose to do will be partially right and partially wrong, which may eventually better than inaction! But we need to respect the suffering of others, and do our best to make rational decisions based on imperfect, evolving & dynamic data, and get through this pandemic. With this empathy, compassion, acts of kindness and acting responsibly towards the society will lead us to recover soon to normalcy – together. I am sure as humans we will RISE again stronger together as always we have done in the past millennias when faced with unforeseen catastrophes!
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Randomness Pattern 