I’ve called this divide the protected versus the unprotected. The National Institutes of Health scientist won’t lose his livelihood over what’s happened.
#Peggy noonan struggle session skin#
But personally they have less skin in the game. Since the pandemic began, the overclass has been in charge-scientists, doctors, political figures, consultants - calling the shots for the average people.
#Peggy noonan struggle session professional#
The normal people aren’t connected through professional or social lines to power structures, and they have regular jobs - service worker, small-business owner. The overclass are highly educated and exert outsize influence as managers and leaders of important institutions-hospitals, companies, statehouses. We see the professionals on one side - those James Burnham called the managerial elite, and Michael Lind, in “The New Class War,” calls “the overclass” - and regular people on the other. There is a class divide between those who are hard-line on lockdowns and those who are pushing back. She said she couldn’t apologize for trying to feed her family. They are not now paying an equal degree of sympathetic attention to those living the economic story, such as the Dallas woman who pushed back, opened her hair salon, and was thrown in jail by a preening judge. Our news professionals the past three months have made plenty of room for medical and professionals warning of the illness. It’s been there the whole time but it’s getting worse, and few in public life are acting as if they’re sensitive to it. There’s a class element in the public debate. We can’t become a nation of agoraphobics. We can’t let an appropriate sense of caution turn into an anxiety formation. At the same time we can’t allow alertness to become exhaustion. These simple things have proved the most valuable tools in the tool chest. We should go forward with a new national commitment to masks, social distancing, hand washing. There will never be enough tests, it was botched from the beginning, if we ever catch up it will probably be at the point tests are no longer urgently needed. Vaccines are likely far off, new therapies and treatments might help a lot, but keeping things closed up tight until there are enough tests isn’t a viable plan. Summer may give us a break, late fall probably not. I think there’s a growing sense that we have to find a way to live with this thing, manage it the best we can, and muddle through.
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