For the past month or so, we’ve finally been able to see light at the end of the tunnel as far as the pandemic goes, thanks to the vaccines and the end of winter with more and more people spending time outdoors. India and Brazil are having difficult times at the moment and so we’re not out of the woods yet.  The SARS-CoV-2 virus may continue to be endemic to certain areas after the pandemic ends, but hopefully it will be manageable.  At the moment, thirty-seven states have R₀ values of less than 1.0, which means the virus is on the decline.  However, as I mention elsewhere on this blog, new, more deadly variants are still possible.  Current trends show people younger than forty-five are currently at more risk, perhaps because people over the age of sixty-five have ravished so much, and new, disturbing complications such as heath failure have been documented in people with no prior risks.

Hegel’s dialect (applied)

In the first installment I focused on trends in the workplace, healthcare, and hospitality that have emerged during the pandemic.  In this second part I’d like to focus on education, travel, and entertainment.I often think of major changes in life in terms of Hegel’s dialect.  My first wife died in 2018.  Up till then, my life was moving in a certain positive direction as I cared for her.  When she died, I was “knocked off course.”  She and I met when I was practically a teenager, and when she died, I was almost seventy years old.  Her death forced me to redefine myself, refocus on my goals, etc.  I didn’t regress, nor lose myself in drink or drugs.  I continued through the walk of life, but on a different path, in a different part of the country with a different person.  I think there is a social application to the dialect in this case.

Hegel proposed three components to the dialect; Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis, and If you look at the diagram you’ll see what I mean.  In 2019, the U.S. was on a certain course, or trajectory in terms of economics, politics, culture, health and so on.  This is Hegel’s thesis.  In 2019, we “collided” with the SARS-CoV-2 virus (antithesis) and could no longer proceed on the same track as we did in 2019.  We were “knocked off course” if you will.  We’re still going in the same direction now, but there is a difference from where we were to where we are now (the synthesis.)  All sorts of events (pregnancies, winning the lotto, car crashes, wars, marriage and divorce and so on) can all be illustrated using the dialect, though I have probably misappropriated Hegel’s intention, and to him I can only say “Tut mir leid.”

Changes in education