Ebola Hysteria in the Age of Distraction

photos in this post from New Yorker

I no longer have direct contact with cable news but I am aware of the dangers of infection.  The current hysteria over Ebola is being intentionally whipped up by Republicans for political gain but mostly by a couple of cable news networks for profit and politics (Fox) and profit, or at least fewer losses, by CNN.

Clearly many of our institutions as well as the public were not ready.  WHO, C.D.C., various African governments, individual hospitals in the US, etc. didn't have effective plans to deal with this particular infectious disease, and possibly any such outbreak.  There's blame to go around, including to Republicans in Congress who cut the CDC budget, reflecting in part a general complacency in the US regarding infectious disease epidemics.  It just hasn't happened in so long that to some it didn't seem likely or a priority or maybe even possible.

But we've also known for years that as hotter temperatures move north and into higher elevations, plus other effects of the climate crisis, that infectious diseases are likely to be a problem in places unaccustomed to them.  And the likelihood of mutations would increase, which coupled with the fast daily movement of people and products (including food and plants, and the insects and rodents that hitch rides) had the potential to spread infections faster and farther than at any other time in human history.  Stephen King for one has been making a living for decades writing vividly about this.

But there are other new wrinkles in the contemporary world that spread the viruses of hysteria even faster and farther.  Local gossip, hometown zealots and fulminators who see panic as an opportunity for fame, power and profit were always very good at whipping up hysteria without regard to factual information, but within limited areas and over time.

Newspapers at their height of influence saw profit as well as power for ownership in creating hysteria that led to wars, so feeding fears that sell papers even on public health issues was hardly out of bounds.  But the world is tighter and smaller now, not only with instant access to the electronically transmitted hysteria of radio and television voices with their own agendas, their own irresponsibility and direct impulses from troubled psyches to big mouths, but with the open to everybody channels of the Internet--all the comments, tweets, texts, etc.  Getting noticed, feeling part of a group, and a hundred other motivations all too easily trump responsible speech.

The rabid right is not the only infected group.  Political coverage in the age of distraction has become more frenzied, with a higher priority on speed and brevity than thought and accuracy.

Satirists are our trenchant guides to this.  I've already cited Andy Borowitz once: Man Infected with Ebola Misinformation Through Casual Contact With Cable News.  He followed up with CNN Defends New Slogan: "The president of CNN Worldwide, Jeff Zucker, attempted on Wednesday to defuse the brewing controversy over his decision to change the network’s official slogan from “The Most Trusted Name in News” to “Holy Crap, We’re All Gonna Die.”

Most recently he posted: Some Fear Ebola Outbreak Could Make Nation Turn to Science: "In interviews conducted across the nation, leading anti-science activists expressed their concern that the American people, wracked with anxiety over the possible spread of the virus, might desperately look to science to save the day.
“It’s a very human reaction,” said Harland Dorrinson, a prominent anti-science activist from Springfield, Missouri. “If you put them under enough stress, perfectly rational people will panic and start believing in science.”

The irony is more comforting than the current reality however.  We're still knee-deep in hysteria that's way out of proportion to the actual danger, at least here in North America.  One of its many products is hysterical cries for what seem like easy solutions, but are far more complex and perhaps even counterproductive (closing airports may be one.)

Though there are always other factors involved (Arthur Miller's play on the witch hysteria in Salem comes to mind as revealing some), hysteria and panic often depend on ignorance.  Yet we have a supposedly educated country, free from the kind of superstition that fed witch hunts etc. until a couple of centuries ago.  Even with the discomfiting revival in belief in the supernatural, or the ease with which fundamentalist creeds can be turned to hysteria, it seems somewhat counter-intuitive that such hysteria exists here and now.

But consider the speed of information, and how much time the average human appendage to a smart phone spends on dealing with the volume and speed of what is usually pretty mundane data,  relieved by "viral" excitements instantly shared by millions.  It is a culture of perpetual distraction, and it requires instant easy answers to any disturbances in the field.  A complex and deadly reality like infectious disease quickly become overwhelming.

 Used to--and let's be real, addicted to-- speedy and ephemeral bits and stimulations, can we slow down to deliberate and concentrate?  Or is it just easier to lash out hysterically in every direction?  Even when doing so, we become prey to much more than a disease that so far is much less threatening to Americans than a car crash or lightning strike--or maybe more to the point, than the growing threats of floods, tornadoes, hurricanes or other slower effects of global heating, none of which we are dealing with adequately.

Hysteria is the other end of the same continuum anchored by complacency and denial.  The world has been slow to respond effectively to Ebola in Africa, where it really is a dangerous epidemic.  I happen to know someone on the front lines fighting Ebola in Africa.  She is a courageous young woman working with Doctors Without Borders.  We here who know her are very proud of her.  Supporting such efforts makes much more sense than feeding the beast of panic--for its rampages right now are more potentially dangerous than the disease itself.