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18. A Crocodile, a Virus, and the False Promise of Supremacy
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As the pandemic rages through the country, we ask: How can so many people be so convinced that the coronavirus is not real, even when they are dying of it? We challenge Western culture’s idea of survival—that it belongs to the strong. What if humanity's best survival skill is humility? When a crocodile attacked philosopher Val Plumwood, it shattered her “desperate delusion” that human beings are supreme. The truth is shocking and much more humble—that human beings participate in the universal feast, and we too can be prey. The “desperate delusion” of dying COVID patients includes yet another kind of supremacy: the idea of whiteness. We draw on psychiatrist Jonathan Metzl’s 2019 book DYING OF WHITENESS to understand how the fear of losing white status leads people to support policies that sabotage their own health. Metzl calls it “the false promise of supremacy,” because supremacy is maladaptive. Surviving requires being humble enough to see our shared vulnerability and to respond appropriately. So do only the strong survive? Maybe it's the humble who survive, because they are living with eyes wide open.
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