Pandemics and Post-Pandemic Times

Abstract

This essay investigates some of the major pandemics in human history and scrutinizes their sociological, economic, and political pay-offs. To what extent can pandemics transform our society? How do the pandemics in history relate to the current? The Plague of Athens caused disappointment towards Greek gods since the Athenians felt they were not getting enough support from Apollo. The Plague of Justinian brought revolts across the empire and led to the end of Classical Antiquity. The Black Death changed the future vision of Europeans significantly because death was omnipresent. Although the death toll of cholera pandemic was limited, it triggered stigmatization, violence, and racism towards Asian people, especially to Indians. The Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés would never have been able to colonize the Aztec civilization without the smallpox outbreak. After an episode of absurdism and Dadaism, the Spanish flu brought the Roaring Twenties with widespread use of radio, dance-halls, jazz, Harlem Renaissance, gay and lesbian scenes, and women’s suffrage. Coronavirus pandemic shows that society is digitizing at light speed among the art world. This essay also shows that our economy is a positive-sum economy in contrast to the zero-sum economy in times of the Black Death and before. There is also a delicate balance that must be maintained between keeping the pandemic under control and respecting the democratic principles. The essay concludes that each pandemic has an idiosyncratic nature and a pandemic can have different effects in different societies or regions in the world.