A little bit of pub for a new documentary on the highly obscure diginet Decades on why the 1918 flu pandemic had surprisingly little cultural impact or joint memory. A lot of the documentary still is applicable to today, especially how government and media suppressed information and flouted social distancing to help the greater need of winning WWI–and in doing so cost more lives than the war itself. Even more telling, when someone is asked why we remember the AIDS pandemic so much better they respond something like “because no one figured out how to politicize the Spanish flu”.
An explanation often cited for the collective consciousness of the world forgetting the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic is that it was too *horrible *to remember. (This lecture explains it succinctly). I agree with the premise and believe it may be a defense mechanism of the mind: when threatened with an overwhelming catastrophe, the mind (singularly or collectively) simply shuts down, like a mouse grooming itself when placed in a cage with a snake.
I don’t know. I get it. I know Covid is out killing people. I know riots are happening. I know our president is dangerously incompetent.
I just don’t want to read about it or hear about it or talk about it anymore. I think others feel the same way. With the passage of time you often forget stuff you don’t talk about.
On the other hand, not everyone forgot about it. When COVID-19 started, it was already routine in Japan for sick people, or people who thought they might be sick, to wear a mask when in public: That’s a habit that started with the Spanish Flu.