Towards a General Pedagogic Model of Plagues and Pandemics

Abstract

Plagues have been recorded, as a natural part of human history, since time immemorial. They have also acted as trigger points for major socio-political change, in Egypt, according to biblical history, and in the world’s then most powerful and advanced civilization of Athens, millennia ago. Quite possibly we are witnessing something of a similar nature: the unleashing of social fissures, plus expectations of radical systemic and/or institutional change, under the pressure of the current plague. This would seem to potentially parallel the Athens crisis in the most powerful, yet currently most vulnerable nation of the world today -the U.S. Athens succumbed to the new superpower Sparta. America seems to be threatened by a similar challenge from our modern world’s second-most superpower, -China. This paper offers a simplified, pedagogic model of the process of plagues, and the stages that humanity invariably has to deal with. In so doing, it is hoped to reduce the opacity of the phenomenon, together with the deceptions foisted on a gullible populace, by official leaders -both authoritarian and democratic. Its simplicity is intended to encourage the youngest in the world, to be able to actively participate in the epidemiological research effort. The traditional response of vast portions of humanity to consider plagues with resignation, as probably Divine retribution for wrong-doing, could thus be reduced, and supplanted by a set of expectations for plague control, based on rational decision-making and empirical research. Advances in science in the past century have encouraged a change in human expectations, regarding health, longevity and disease control. Political and economic evolution are argued not to have kept up with this scientific evolution. The aspiration is that the youngest generation be offered an institutional opportunity, at a global level, to help change the current disequilibrium

Keywords: Plagues, Pandemics, History, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Pedagogic Model, Systemic Change, Institutional Change, Black Lives Matter

JEL Classification: I10, I13, I15, I18, I20, 131, I38, I39