A Day in Lockdown

I have sometimes thought, over the past eight months, that it might have been interesting, if I had thought about it at the start, to keep a diary during these exceptional times. But I didn’t – maybe an opportunity missed. Lockdown up till now has not been too bad for us. I consider myself to be very fortunate to have plenty of space in my home, and a large garden. We had a wonderful Spring and Summer, when I revelled in my close connection with my garden, and I didn’t find it at all difficult to find interesting discussions/lectures to follow online, and enjoyed the time I had for catching up on the reading that always seemed to be, prior to lockdown, on the back burner.

But today has not been a good day. We (here in the UK) are now in the second wave of Covid-19. My husband is a quadriplegic, so the first wave has simply merged with the second wave. We haven’t really been out of lockdown since March, apart from the very occasional, weather permitting, bike ride (my husband is a hand cyclist), and visits to doctors, dentists etc.

Today has not been a good day because it has been yet another day of rain and wind, made even worse because the clocks have changed, so the days are shorter, and it feels so much darker.

To be thoroughly self-indulgent, I thought I would record what a day in lockdown entails for me, in this personal, and therefore unique, context, at this particular time.

I got up at 6.00 am, hoping upon hope that the weather would somehow defeat the forecast and be good enough for the decorator to come and complete the painting of the outside of the house. Scaffolding went up in August so that we could have a much needed new roof (the first in more than 100 years), and it seems opportune to make good use of the scaffolding to have the outside of the house painted at the same time. But painting and wet weather don’t go together. The new roof was completed more than a month ago, but the painting is still weather dependent, and the scaffolding is still up, and the house is still dark as a result.

Given that my husband is a quadriplegic and needs 24/7 care, it takes a while to get up in our house, so it was 9.30 before getting up and breakfast was done. Clearly the decorator was not coming. It was throwing it down outside, but we are very dry inside, thanks to the new roof and chimneys.

I have found it very difficult to focus and settle to anything today. At 6.00 am I was on my computer following the BBC news – the terrible events in France, the drownings of migrants in the Channel, the further lockdowns and placing more areas in the UK in Tier 3 restrictions, and the ever anxiety-provoking American election. Please, please, please, Americans vote for Biden, although even then there is no guarantee that this would effect the change the world needs for future generations.

I have felt directionless all day. I started the day by answering emails, I am currently attending a course on ‘But is it art?’ which is considering philosophical theories of art and aesthetics. I replied to two emails from fellow participants. Are Egon Schiele’s self portraits art? What emotions do they evoke? Clive Bell’s theory of significant form tells us that art must evoke an emotional response. Should art evoke a feeling of awe, or a spiritual response? What does it say about me (or you) if it doesn’t, but does in everyone else in the course? Is there something universal about art or is it purely subjective?  One of my correspondents felt really down today. Lockdown is particularly hard on those who live alone.

In the middle of this a district nurse arrived, complete with mask, visor, gloves, apron and hand sanitiser. Since the beginning of lockdown my husband has been ‘discovered’ by the system as being in particular need of ‘observation’ and care, being on the vulnerable end of the spectrum. This is when the NHS and care system in the UK are so impressive. Once they know about you, they can’t do enough. Today it was the delivery of a blow up mattress to prevent pressure sores. There have also been phone calls and emails today about various other aspects of care.

By lunchtime I knew that today was going to be a non-day for me, although my husband has been fully engaged marking assignments for the University and liaising  on the phone with other markers and the health care team. Lunch is our main meal of the day, so that took up a bit of time, but after lunch I was back to feeling aimless.

I tried to read the next Chapter in Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of Hope (Chapter 3). It was a toss up between Freire and Julian Jaynes’ The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, but I decided on Freire. His is the next book to be discussed in the Philosophy of Education Network’s online reading group, but much as I appreciate Freire’s work, especially because, having lived in Brazil for seven years, it resonates on so many levels, I really cannot cope with paragraphs like this:

Although there can be no consciousness-raising (conscientização) without the unveiling, the revelation, of objective reality as the object of the cognition of the subjects involved in process of consciousness-raising, nevertheless that revelation—even granting that a new perception flow from the fact of a reality laying itself bare—is not yet enough to render the consciousness-raising authentic. Just as the gnoseological circle does not end with the step of the acquisition of existing knowledge, but proceeds to the phase of the creation of new knowledge, so neither may consciousness-raising come to a halt at the stage of the revelation of reality. Its authenticity is at hand only when the practice of the revelation of reality constitutes a dynamic and dialectical unity with the practice of transformation of reality.

Do people really speak like this? Did he really write like this, or is it a fault of the translation? Maybe other readers don’t find it a problem and it is my problem.

So I knew I didn’t have the necessary attention to apply to Freire today and fortunately I was distracted by a phone call from one of our sons, who is always entertaining. He was living with us from September 2019 to September of this year, but has necessarily moved on, and now we really miss him, so his call was a light in the day.

Then, after a bit of aimless wandering on the internet, I  decided to do the ironing, which was only made bearable by listening to a Woman’s Hour podcast, which featured, among other things, discussion of Long Covid (which is one of the reasons I am doing everything I can to ensure that we are not infected), women and homelessness, and the US election (this is difficult to avoid at this time).

During this podcast, I decided to write this post, simply to remind me of how I am feeling at this time, but before settling down to write this post, I responded to a friend who has asked me to be a reader for his PhD (which is a joy for me)  and is struggling to identify his contribution to knowledge. I well remember having the same struggle when I did my PhD. I am hoping that by sharing my experience I can be of some help to him, and his PhD subject is fascinating. I will learn a lot.

So that’s, more or less, my lockdown day, although it’s not quite over yet. Our daughter has said she is coming round with a chicken pie which she has baked for us. Our children have been a constant support during this lockdown, which reminds me that even on aimless days, there is a lot to be grateful for. And finally, another light in the day has been an image in my head of Jan van Eyck’s paintings. Last night I attended the second lecture in the National Gallery’s course – Stories of Art – which explores Renaissance Art from 1400 -1500 – From Botticelli to Bellini. The wonderful images from the course have stayed with me all day.

By Jan van Eyck – Web site of National Gallery, London, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11343084

On Politics and Plagues. What can literature do for us?

Like many others during this time, I have turned to literature to try and gain deeper insights into the times we are living through and, in particular, the COVID-19 pandemic. I know I am not alone in reading Albert Camus’, The Plague. Early in the lockdown Stephen Downes linked to a post about it in his newsletter, OLDaily, which contained this video

The Plague was also the first fiction choice for the online platform Quillette’s Quarantine Book Club, where it generated a lot of interesting discussion.

Two other books that have informed my thinking at this time are Iain McGilchrist’s The Master and His Emissary. The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (which I have slowly and carefully re-read, whilst making extensive notes), and William Ophuls’ Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail.

The question of what can literature (in the broader context of the humanities) do for us at times like this, was discussed by Professor Sarah Churchwell, Dr Kate Kirkpatrick and Professor Lyndsey Stonebridge in an excellent online conversation ‘On Politics and Plagues’ at the end of last month. This was organised by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, as a precursor to the Being Human Festival, due to take place on November 12-22^nd November.

Lindsey Stonebridge is currently writing a book about the relevance of Hannah Arendt for today. Arendt is known for her book ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil’. What did she mean by the banality of evil and how does it relate to the idea of infection? Lindsey Stonebridge told us that Arendt did not refer to the banality of evil as a plague, but as a fungus. By banality she did not mean ordinary. She talked of banality as meaning thoughtless (not thinking) and what happens when we are in a bureaucratic, over-socialised system which allows thoughtlessness to happen. The banality of evil is fearsome and thought-defying. In this sense, evil is not demonic, but banal. The problem of modern evil is that it’s not radical, not deep, not profound; it’s like fungus. Fungus is really contagious; it grows rampant all over a surface. In this sense thoughtless, policy-driven bureaucratic evil is like fungus. It is not a plague; it is a moral rot, which grows and rots at the same time, like a fungus.

Kate Kirkpatrick has recently published a well-received biography of Simone de Beauvoir, who was an associate of Camus. She suggested that Camus and Arendt thought in similar terms about moral contagion and the trivial wrongs that result in really morally significant actions. In Camus’ novel, the plague has agency and humans are passively reactive. Simone de Beauvoir thought that in Camus’ writing, the plague gave people an alibi for not being politically engaged and for not being morally responsible; it enabled evasion of individual accountability. de Beauvoir thought that although humans cannot make evil disappear, they can mitigate it. Arendt, in her reference to the banality of evil, wanted to cut it down to size (no matter what the scale, as in the holocaust), to make it recognisable.

Lynsey Stonebridge thought that Arendt and de Beauvoir would have agreed that there is no master plan. When you have a plague (e.g. political evil as a contagion and when politics is out of control) you feel helpless and people rush for the demonic (the big man), but to deal with the morality we need to analyse it. She believes that generally people are trying but failing to do this, because they are not thinking; we can’t think in the policy and administrative systems spaces we have set up, she says. Camus wrote that the plague never dies, you can’t defeat it. Kate Kirkpatrick thought that this might encourage apathy, or it might spur people to different political thought, but what do we do about the habits of thoughtlessness that have led to increased inequalities and oppression? A response to the banality of evil, according to Lynsey Stonebridge is thought, language and writing.

At this point the conversation moved on to a discussion about the relationship between fascism and patriarchy. Kate Kirkpatrick pointed out that this discussion depends on which fascism you are talking about, and that situations and freedoms are different and context dependent. For further information about this discussion see the video of the recording which I have linked to below.

Finally Sarah Churchwell (who hosted this conversation) asked Lindsey to discuss the political and moral question of the COVID-19 pandemic in relation to her recently published article in the New Stateman, What Hannah Arendt can teach us about Work in the Time of Covid-19. In this she argues that the metaphors we choose matter; they do political work. She writes:

The government’s Covid-19 recovery strategy, published on 11 May, states that people will be “eased back into work” as into a dentist chair: carefully, and with face masks.

The reason they need to be coaxed is, of course, the economy. At one point in the document, it reads as though it is the economy, not people, that has been sick: “The longer the virus affects the economy, the greater the risks of longterm scarring.” The economy needs ventilating, and people are its oxygen.

Lindsey Stonebridge’s argument is that the metaphors being used explicitly prevent us from being agents of the economy; we are not working for the economy, we are labouring for the economy, but according to Arendt action requires both labour and work, and it’s action that makes us human. Labouring is simply what we do to survive. Work, on the other hand, gives collective meaning to what we do. We labour by necessity; we work to create a human reality.

This is why debates and policies about how we get back to work matter so much: we are also talking about what kind of human society we are – or want to be.

If taking the human value of work more seriously is key to a better politics, we should also grasp this opportunity to think about what counts as valuable work.

This fascinating conversation ended by returning to the question, What can literature do for us?

As this conversation shows, it gives us ways to think about the world. It also gives us the opportunity to participate in human memory and consider what it means to be human, by listening to a plurality of voices, and aesthetically, it gives us pleasure.

For a recording of this event, where you can get the full details and not just the bits that interested me, here is the video.

A daily bathe in Nature

In this time of almost global lockdown, there has been renewed recognition of the importance of Nature to mental health. The Earth is a source of life, and in a crisis people turn back to it.

Here in the UK, the public (excluding the vulnerable and those with underlying health issues) have been encouraged to leave their houses once a day, to exercise, to walk, or to cycle for a short time, in the vicinity of their homes. City dwellers have been astonished by the traffic-free streets, which now means they can hear the birds. Animals, such as deer, are beginning to wander the traffic-free streets of some towns. The decrease in pollution has led to clear skies and clean air. Spring has been experienced more vividly than usual, particularly since the UK has been bathed in glorious sunshine for about a week now. We have been reminded that the birds, trees, and plants, are completely unperturbed by what is going on.

I live in a very rural area, so the glory of Spring comes as no surprise, but I recognise that my relationship with nature and my garden has grown in recent years, more so since I retired, which has given me more time to work or sit in my garden, to keep watch over it, to become sensitive to its needs. But I think I understand the wonder that some are feeling this year at the beauty of Spring. I remember about 20 years ago getting a new job which required me to travel all over Cumbria, the particularly beautiful county I live in. Before this I had been working flat out as a schoolteacher, going to the same classroom every day for eight in the morning, and rushing home in the evening to my growing family. I scarcely lifted my head. I still remember clearly when I got my new job, which started in the autumn, and was driving all over the county; I was bowled over by the beauty of the countryside. I realised that I hadn’t seen the autumn colours for years. It was an eye-opener. In this current crisis the splendour of Nature is proving to be an eye opener for many.

In this week’s ‘Start the Week’ radio 4 programme, Andrew Marr discusses the hopefulness and beauty of nature with his guests Sue Stuart Smith, author of The Well-Gardened Mind: rediscovering Nature in the Modern World and Jonathan Bate, author of Radical Wordsworth: The Poet who Changed the World. It was Wordsworth who said that a daily bathe in Nature was necessary to his health; he recognised that his health had suffered after prolonged periods of city life. Wordsworth’s famous poem Tintern Abbey emphasises how important this relationship with Nature was to him, and how profoundly stabilising the memory of a place in nature can be. It restores the human spirit.

The Chancel and Crossing of Tintern Abbey, Looking towards the East Window 1794 Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775-1851 Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/D00374

Both Sue Stuart Smith and Jonathan Bate realised that despite their belief in the benefits of developing a relationship with Nature, particularly at this time of COVID-19 lockdown, many people will not have access to open spaces, or gardens. From her research Sue Stuart Smith suggested that even just listening to the sounds of nature, birdsong, or running water, or being able to smell damp earth, or particular plants such as lavender or rosemary, can have deeply calming physical effects on us. A lot of people can probably testify to this from tending their window boxes or balcony plants.

And failing this, Jonathan Bate suggested that we can read our way into Nature. Wordsworth’s poetry can transport us into Nature.

(For the full poem see The Poetry Foundation website)

I have now not left my house/garden for more than four weeks. We fall into the category of people who the Government has advised to self-isolate for 12 weeks. Although I have always loved my garden, I have never been so grateful for it as this year.