Day 13 Friday 3rd April

Today more musings and contemplations inspired by reading philosophy. Have you ever considered what life would be like for you now if you had chosen to pursue a different career, a calling even? What are we drawn to now? If we could rewind our life what sliding door may you have opted for? Could I really have been a livestock officer? Did you design your vocational life or did it just unfurl haphazardly? My father was fortunate to have chosen to work at his passion, radio engineering, and pursued it relentlessly. Is there residual remorse over what you chose? Reading Magee, I have regret over the books I was persuaded to jettison in the interests of decluttering, winning back space. I mourn for history and philosophy of science texts – who knew?

We now have a new normal for both the economy and social interaction. Will the seismic meter ever return to what we have come to regard as normal? We are learning about the architecture of our economy, understanding the interdependence of its constituent parts and retro-fitting solutions to catastrophic change. The language of disruption has morphed to disturbance. The virus has disturbed us. After the public mind denigrating expertise we now know we need people who think rather than merely pose and strut. Will we see the parallels between relying on health expertise in a crisis and the ignorant refusal to believe climate science?

What will you do with your opportunity to hit the reset button and design a new normal? It won’t be the old normal. Political systems will need to retreat from ideology, institutions find meaning in public service, enterprises deliver products and services in novel ways, and as a society critically re-examine our current inequitable wealth distribution to ask why it should remain so. While proposals for a universal basic income and a 15 hour week have been dismissed as coming from the loony left, how different are they from what is being played out now to reclaim people from the long corona night?

Australia now has 217 new cases for a total of 5,350 and now 28 deaths. NSW share is an additional 91 to a total of 2,389 and 11 deaths.

Let’s be thankful for the snugness of our caves while we consider the sufficient principles for design of our new normal. Keep bending curve.

Day 12 Thursday 2nd April

Free child care! New industrial awards! Pandemic leave and double leave on half pay! The announcements from the PM flow like lava for the worried and the wise. He is talking confidence in the Australian way and that we have achieved the metric of one thousand tests per one hundred thousand population.

Yesterday, Arya Crocodilis Muscio had chronic fatigue syndrome, so no walk for the fleecy brown love ball. It was raining most of the day anyway and still is. It was good to get in 45 minutes of human-interface-free walking this morning.

I continue to enjoy the middle chapters of Bryan Magee’s Confessions of a Philosopher: Popper, Russell, Political Philosophy, Search for Meaning and Mid-Life Crisis. I will finish this book in the next few days.

I find to do procrastination well you need a good preliminary set up; the ready-set part of ready-set-go. Accordingly I have my essential resources splashed along the dining table ready for action on Mildred. This talent for procrastination has already been genetically transferred so will not be lost if I am taken by corona.

With great clarity of purpose I have decided which chapter about Mildred I will plunge into next. It will be her contribution as a Royal Commissioner for Child Endowment or Family Allowances in 1929. Against majority opinion, she and John Curtin advocated, in their minority report, for a system of child endowment to provide supplementary assistance to families of more than two children.

A lot of time is absorbed following ABC’s coverage of the virus. NSW monitors and reports daily changes as at 6am whereas national figures come much later at 3pm. Are we connecting yet? My echo chamber is a dialogue free space so far. Why not fill the void with some feedback?

Australia picked up 269 new cases for a total of 5,108 and 24 deaths. NSW found 116 of the new cases for a total of 2,298 and still 10 deaths. The global count has risen to 937,170 cases and 47,235 deaths.

Day 11 Wednesday 1st April

I haven’t detected any April Fools’ jokes about yet. Life is all too serious at present. Donald, we’re about to find out just how great America is. We will see how well a nation of rugged individuals can park their stridently expressed personal rights in the interests of others in their communities.

Alright, it may be time for a little political pique. Our democracy is being pressure-tested while focused on superordinate goals. In last Friday’s Crikey edition (March 27, 2020) Simon Longstaff reminded us about the ethical quagmire of the sports rorts scandal, articulating our suspended judgement of our political leadership:

“A(n) equitable reckoning would say to the whole of the political class that we are sick of your blame-shifting, your evasiveness, your self-serving hair-splitting, your back-stabbing, your blatant lies (large and small), your reckless (no, gutless) refusal to accept responsibility for your errors and wrong-doing, and your loyalty to the machine rather than to the people you are supposed to serve.”

Let’s limit the swerve to the right to coronavirus contagion and plan imaginatively for life at the end of the curve. In the same edition of Crikey, Guy Rundle observed:

“Using the general public’s widespread disenchantment with politics, and relying on a supine mainstream media and parliamentary press corps, the Morrison government has de facto abolished processes of scrutiny, review and contestation.”

The latest statistics are boringly consistent but with tempered trajectory. Australia has 303 new cases for a total of 4,860 with 21 deaths and has completed 256,000 tests. The NSW share is 150 new cases to total 2,182 and 10 deaths. Globally 859,000 cases have been reported and 42,300 deaths.

One constant for me during isolation is my Labradoodle puppy Arya who continues to provide unsolicited doses of spontaneous love. I also very much enjoy seeing grandkids on facetime or zoom, which is all the “contact” we can have at present.

Day 10 Tuesday 31st March

Is anyone else surprised that no journalist has picked up on the tenor of Donald Trump’s messaging? He is behaving like Enterprise USA’s chief procurement officer. The virus has not respected his Easter deadline and is proving a stubborn interruption to America’s greatness.

Global infections number 786,608 with 37,832 deaths. Australia now has 4,557 cases with 312 more today and now 19 deaths. NSW has had 2,032 cases identified but ‘only’ 114 new ones since yesterday.

Zoom has enabled contactless grand-parenting. Two sons live and work at the epicenter of non-compliance, and now, not surprisingly, a cluster of infection has emerged there (backpackers suspected). As an indicator of my vulnerability, I now qualify for the Woolworths old fogies provisions. We can’t take flight so might as well stay and fight. Not going anywhere so no need for new clothes, in fact, you can wear the same gear for four consecutive days. Perhaps fashion spring catalogues will bring us out-of-hibernation offerings?

My elder sister Maureen reports from her suburban dugout that she returned on the Sea Princess on the eighteenth of March after completing only 8 of a scheduled 28 day circumnavigation of Oz. She then attended a funeral at a time when you could still have more than 10 in attendance. A notable reflection was that, at 100, she was born into the Spanish flu and went out during the Corona virus. It has been said that, in a similar auspicious bookending to a life, that Mark Twain was born and died at consecutive sightings of Halley’s Comet, 76 years apart.

I have plenty of ‘while in isolation’ reading material now augmented by The Australian Writers’ Centre. I won a competition to write 50 words on where I would like to be transported to. I will receive a copy of Death in the Ladies Goddess Club by Julian Leatherdale, set in 1930s Kings Cross.

Day 9 Monday 30th March

I had never thought of two people talking as a public gathering before. That’s the new limit. Our family has had its first Zoom connection. Puppy walks continue to the satisfaction of all participants. Procrastination is a new enemy now that time is endlessly discretional (sorry Mildred, sorry body, sorry decluttering). Moving well outside my comfort zone, I have made contact with a local music studio to see if I can get some musos and a singer to record my lyrics of a requiem for the voluntarily entombed, From a Distance unleashed.

So what of Mildred one of you said? I was moved to write her story after reading the entry about her in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. An educated, brilliant woman (BA 1901, MA 1905 Sydney University), Mildred married into our family in 1915, joining Bernard Muscio in matrimony, who was later to become Challis Professor of Philosophy at Sydney University. She came to my attention as a feisty feminist, internationalist, philosopher, educator, champion of child endowment with John Curtin and social critic across radio and print media. But more of her another time.

Australia has reached 4,164 cases and 18 deaths from COVID-19. Optimistic movement of the curve is hinted at by a slowing in the rate of increase of new cases (284 since 6am yesterday). NSW has 127 of these newbies for a total of 1,918. The world has suffered 33,968 deaths from 721,817 confirmed cases. Turkey is the new worry as a late entry to the affliction, running an instant high temperature.

This afternoon the Prime Minister and Treasurer announced a gob-smacking, eye-watering, (insert your own hyperbole) $130 billion Job-keeper wage subsidy program to retain employment. Employees are to receive, via their employer, $1,500 per fortnight over the next six months. There is also a moratorium on evictions. Acknowledging that some critics will deem this as still too little and others as too much, the PM could have called this the Goldilocks package. Added to previous fiscal stimulus measures the total unveiled is a staggering $320 billion or 16.4% of GDP. Strange days indeed for the advocates of small government.

Day 8 Sunday 29th March

Nasty stuff first: In Australia, 3,964 cases and now 16 deaths. The world tally is 663,828 cases and 30,822 deaths (how can that report appear so accurate?) At home in NSW, 174 more cases has pushed the state total to 1,971. The Ruby Princess fiasco alone has resulted in 215 cases so far. A total of 209,000 tests have been conducted with thankfully 98% negative. There is cautious optimism about the decline in the rate of daily reported new cases.

Here, as in other countries, we are learning the price of denial. What a difference a day or a week makes. Flippant, dismissive comments of several weeks ago now haunt those who made them, with vested interests to protect, as the media revisits them. Indeed, many politicians could more easily comply with the directive “don’t touch your face”, if they didn’t have to first scrape the egg off those faces.

Today we have announced a further package of $1.1 billion to address medicare, mental health and family violence. This is very welcome, with needs in these areas escalating along with the spread of the virus. Some of our fellow humans are behaving badly, not understanding that the exercise of their liberty is tyranny, and sometimes death, for others.

But let us all cut our politicians some slack, some distance if you will, while they go about learning a new language and how to project it on a bewildered public. They are so used to dissembling and avoiding answering questions asked that they find sincerity and empathy hard to do. Instead of answering the question they wish they were asked, our leaders are constrained to provide a direct answer to a direct question. Nothing less than a totally new set of vocational communication skills is required.

Day 7 Saturday 28th March

It doesn’t feel like a Saturday. None of its characteristic features are present. No football coverage to look forward to. If not for the Saturday edition of the Herald it might be any day. Hibernation is the most recent buzzword to be pressed into service in the fight against COVID-19. Individuals and businesses are to hibernate. Enforced isolation awaits Aussies returning from overseas.

A 45 minute pup walk is the extent of my engagement with the outside world. Watching and listening to ABC TV and vacuuming occupy me inside. Waiting for Godot. I’m reading Bryan Magee’s Confessions of a Philosopher and pondering my next chapter foray into Mildred Muscio’s story. I think about whether a local music studio can suggest how I might get my alternative lyrics to ‘From a Distance’ recorded and released into cyberspace while its subject and ailing vibe is still topical.

The inevitable daily statistics announce 14 deaths in Australia and 3,640 confirmed cases, 212 of these reported today in NSW for a total of 1,617 cases.

Self-Isolating Journal Day 6 Friday 27th March

Day 6 Friday 27th March

Today our nation has 3,166 confirmed cases of COVID-19, a daily rise of 367 cases. We have had 183,834 tests (1.66% positives). NSW reported another 186 for a total of 1,405. World figures have passed 500,000 with over 23,000 deaths. When we reach the point of reporting in hindsight the Ruby Princess fiasco of releasing known contaminants into the community will receive the severest criticism.

For the US, perhaps more will acknowledge their president for the ignorant buffoon he is, dispensing dangerous pharmaceutical advice and demanding an end to special economic provisions by Easter (because it’s a really nice time) as the tally rises. To Trump this virus is an annoying irritant.

It is intriguing in the current context that political leaders show great respect for the 10,000 hours plus of medical training of health experts but have another, contrary view of the expertise of climate change scientists. Our parliament plans not to meet until August and the real potential of bi-partisanship remains untapped.

If you are not a psychopath lacking empathy, consider that some of our Australian citizens may have suffered the four plagues of fire, flood, joblessness and contraction of the virus since Christmas. If such a citizen is also disabled they have probably stepped into the Old Testament book of Job.

While we are trying to flatten the curve of contagion we should pause to think again about the merits of flattening the curve of wealth distribution for a fairer and more sustainable society. More of us should become familiar with the Gini coefficient and say it should not be so. Wealthy people will also die and that is as it should be. Is it not right that we should question the integrity, equity and ethics of our economic model? Why do we passively accept the complicity and duplicity of the Murdoch press?

Channel 7 is currently airing a promotion for a story about Ben Cousins. His story of self-inflicted tragedy seems trivial beside the ongoing story of Corona. The market is behaving contrarily as it has risen for four days amid rapidly rising unemployment and business closures.

Self-isolation constrains one towards reflection. A clear mind is by definition less opaque. I think I like myself more for regarding what is important in life. We might all rediscover conversation free of invective. We are also re-framing for ourselves what we regard as essential.

Self-Isolating in the Age of Corona: David Muscio

A malevolent creeping shadow is passing over our world as we await a dip in reported cases of COVID-19. We are to practice social distancing and self-isolation. Social activities have been curtailed and we are urged to stay in our cave. While there I plan to explore fulfilling pastimes and consider what we’ve lost and perhaps what we’ve found. My journal will trace perceptions of the threat and attempts to prevent the encroaching shadow from reaching my toes.

In the interests of a statistical beginning to measure future scale, the status of the virus as experienced by Australians to 6:30am Sunday morning 22nd March, 2020, is as follows:

1,098 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 224 new cases in the previous 24 hours. 127,000 tests conducted. NSW has 469 of the caseload. To date there have been 7 deaths Australia-wide.

Day 1 Sunday 22nd March

Armageddon officially arrived today with cancellation of the 2020 AFL season and a total of $189 billion (9.7% of GDP) thrown at the fight by the federal government and the Reserve Bank collectively. No longer referred to as an economic stimulus package but survival for lives and livelihoods. Restrictions mandate personal space while school closures are considered. States are closing borders and partial closure of pubs and bars begins tomorrow, cafes and restaurants offering take-away only.

Over the last week I have scaled back human contact so no gym or Socratic Society meetings. I did get to the chemist for diabetes medication. I visited my daughter with puppy Arya where we could walk on the beach. There was footy to watch on TV, played in front of no crowds, and now extinguished for the year. And the ironing was done.

The discipline has to be maintained and community responsibility accepted. It will be a simple life for an essentially social being. Introverts and nerds should thrive in the digital playground. Nutrition and exercise will be valued, along with reading philosophy and writing biography. I plan to learn more about online tools like Zoom (thanks Lyndal) and develop my WordPress blog Awesomely Astute (thanks Julie). There will also be more training for puppy Arya.

Day 2 Monday 23rd March

For NSW, 141 new cases in the preceding 24 hours for a total of 704. National cases total now 1,709 (313 new cases). 135,000 tests have been conducted. Queensland today joined WA, SA, NT and Tasmania in closing its borders. The Federal Government yesterday announced shutdowns to be enforced to ensure social distancing is observed, effective today. This will now ensnare pubs and clubs, gyms, casinos and cinemas. Restaurants and cafes are restricted to take-away. Indoor sporting venues are shunned and church congregations become an anachronism. Even beaches are closed after flagrant displays of civil disobedience with regard to social distancing.

Schools will remain open but parents are advised to stay at home with their children, confusing many. School holidays will be not as we remember them. Distance learning will now have its time in the pedagogical sun.

Planning is based on a guesstimate of six months to top the rise and possible 12-18 months for a vaccine. Another $100 billion drop on the share market. Breaking news is suspension of the rugby league season. The Tokyo Olympic Games is postponed. Worldwide numbers are now more than 300,700 confirmed cases and 13,900 deaths.

Democracy is challenged by denying the right of assembly. Today saw the beginning of depression style queues along the streets adjacent to Centrelink offices.

Began the morning with a 50 minute puppy walk. Breakfast of egg and bacon. An uneventful day of home chores and errands. Plans advanced for purchase of new lounge room chairs.

Day 3 Tuesday 24 March

NSW, the premier state, has 149 new cases for a progressive total of 818. The canary in the coal mine is Italy, with 600 deaths overnight but with the rate of new cases declining. The metaphor of all in the same boat breaks down when cruise ships provide the most virulent contagion. Our existential wicked conundrum is how do we cohere emotionally but not spacially, to be together but separate? Thematic sentiment is Bryan Ferry’s “Let’s Stick Together” while reality is Bette Midler’s “From a Distance”.

By early evening we hear the share market has risen from its trough somewhat but alas, another death from a cruise ship passenger, bringing total deaths to 8. Australia’s upward trajectory continues its inexorable climb with no bend foreseen. The national total cases now numbers 2,043 (327 new today). The world has seen in excess of 343,000 cases and over 15,000 deaths.

After a quiet day without incident I was moved to write some alternative lyrics to Bette Midler’s wonderful song “From a Distance” (listen on Youtube):

From a Distance (Alternative Lyrics for the Pandemic)

As the nations turn to grey
From a distance our world could end quite soon
From a distance the virus crowns our doom
And the leaders forced to pay
From a distance there is anxiety;
As it filters through the land
It’s the voice of stress
It’s the voice of fear
It’s the voice of every being
From a distance we all can raise the bar
That not one more will fall
There are no more clubs, no gyms, no cinema
No cafes to meet at all
From a distance we are all in this
Waiting for the line to curve
Loving while we may
Pledged to stay away
They are the trials of every being
God is watching us
God is watching us
God is watching us from a distance
From a distance you could be my friend
Even though we are apart
From a distance we can work this through
And move to the other side
From a distance we are isolates
As it moves through our homes
There is space for hope
And the loved of ours
It’s in the heart of everyone
It’s the care of those
We all love so well
A refrain for every being
God is watching us
God is watching us
God is watching us from a distance
God is watching us
God is watching us
God is watching you from a distance

Day 4 Wednesday 25th March

Weddings, parties, anything banned. An extended suite of businesses to close to ensure social distancing. The Prime Minister announced last night that the following activities and businesses will not be allowed to continue:

  • Amusement parks and arcades
  • Indoor and outdoor play centres
  • Community and recreation centres, health clubs, fitness centres, yoga, barre, spin facilities, saunas, wellness centres
  • Public swimming pools
  • Galleries, museums, national institutions, historic sites, libraries, community centres
  • Auction houses
  • Real estate auctions and open house inspections
  • In-store beauty therapy, tanning, waxing, nail salons and tattoo parlours, spa and massage parlours (excluding allied-health-related services, like physiotherapy)
  • Food courts within shopping centres will only be able to sell takeaway
  • Hairdressers can only have a customer for less than 30 minutes
  • Weddings limited to 5 people, funerals a maximum of 10
  • No groups of 10 can meet outside together

Each morning brings new statistics. Never before have so many people been interested in epidemiology. NSW recorded 211 new cases, the largest intraday increase so far, for a total of 1,029. Australia now has 2,423 confirmed cases, an increase of 287 since yesterday. They include the first children under 10 years old. Over 169,000 tests have been done in Australia. The world now has 400,000 cases and 18,500 deaths.

Elective surgery has been trimmed. Following the ban on overseas travel, domestic travel is now also curtailed. Virgin has cut its domestic fleet by 90% with 125 aircraft grounded and a loss of 8,000 jobs. Tiger no longer operates, Jetstar may follow. Victoria and ACT have closed their schools. Australians are urged to stay home unless absolutely necessary.

US President Donald Trump’s parallel universe is on a collision course with reality as he commands a virus turnaround by Easter. Other world leaders assume about six months. It is unthinkable that America should be less than great.

It’s like we know our future’s history already as we climb the curve that’s not curving enough. Tomorrow will inevitably bring more reported cases. Today we managed another puppy romp on Coniston beach with our daughter. We enquire after neighbors and phone those we spontaneously think of.

Day 5 Thursday 26th March

So it goes still. Life as stasis, a screenplay not marked by rythym, not punctuated by people or events. Waiting for an interruption to geometric progression of the corona curve. Waiting, as in Neville Shute’s On The Beach, for an unseen predator to envelope us all. Virtually reaching out to share the experience.

Thirteen deaths to date from 2,799 cases reported in Australia (376 new today, 178,000 tests). NSW has 1,219 of these this morning, a daily rise of 190 which is a falling rate. The world now reports 460,250 cases and 20,857 deaths. ‘Leading’ the way for reported cases is Italy 74,386; US 68,960; Spain 49,515.

A grounding puppy walk, chores, TV news and coffee. A haircut today feels like a naughty indulgence, a little whimsy among social distancing.

Ethical Imagination and Literacy

My own journey towards developing an ethical imagination and becoming ethically literate has led me to propose, upon critical reflection, the following four underlying principles and four competencies for acquiring ethical literacy:

Four Underlying Principles:

  1. Knowledge is provisional and contextual
  2. Moral judgement is provisional and contextual
  3. The mind is filled with the conceptual furniture of unchallenged assumptions
  4. Respectful dialogue (extrospection) is teachable and learnable (dialectic), and is superior in its interactivity to passive ICT and social media

Four Competencies for Acquiring Ethical Literacy:

  1. Need to break (de-construct) and re-frame (synthesise) implicit and explicit paradigms in use
  2. Tolerate the untidy (fluid border paradigms) while respecting the integrity of efficacious systems
  3. Attenuate doubt and be prepared to jettison, or at least park, conventional paradigms
  4. Develop cognitive tools to analyse public opinion and a cogent language to critique it

Possible Lines of Enquiry to Pursue:

  1. Accept the challenge to find a common trans-disciplinary vocabulary. This will require an appreciative setting in research institutes that reward paradigm promiscuity.
  2. Consider the prospects for diffusion of ethical literacy and will, to find ways of making it more pervasive, at least in the public sector, rather than restricted to an intellectual elite.
  3. In addition to instances of unethical behaviour described as ‘dirty hands’, there is value in also exploring ‘washed hands’ (Pontius Pilate’s defence) as breaches of ethical conduct.
  4. Consider developing an ethical discourse around ‘ethical fitness’ as a companion to ethical imagination. The use of the word eunoia may prove fruitful as its denotation as ‘good will’ by Aristotle seems to have become ‘beautiful thinking’ or a ‘well mind’.
  5. Develop a framework for ethical auditing as an adjunct to existing ‘Social Responsibility Index’ processes.
  6. Monitor the progress of the Ethics Curriculum introduced into NSW schools (partnering with The Ethics Centre).