Goodbye solidarity, hello individualism again | Press

In the spring of 2020, the word “solidarity” was in vogue in the media. We celebrated the gestures of mutual aid, we cared about our neighbors, we gathered in front of the “high mass” at 1 pm. We were all in the same boat against a common enemy: COVID-19. Almost two years later, are we back in the era of individualism? Or have we never even left her?

Catherine handfield
Press

In April 2020, as Quebec confined itself to respond to the very first wave of COVID-19, Press had spent a morning at the MultiCaf community cafeteria, in the Côte-des-Neiges district. The food security organization had just put itself in delivery mode. Demand was exploding.

Faced with the urgent need to act, professional chefs volunteered to help out in the kitchen. City employees were on hand to deliver meals. Trucks full of food were pouring in from all sides. “I wish that it lasts a long time like that”, had slipped the chef of the time, touched by the unity of the troops.

But following the waves of COVID-19, normality has resumed its rights at MultiCaf.

The number of registered volunteers – 292 at the height of the crisis – has returned to the previous level – 83. “The others have opted out because they have started working again, because they are tired, or because is no longer the flavor of the month, ”explains MultiCaf director Jean-Sébastien Patrice, who is now turning to secondary schools to fill evening and weekend shifts. Funding has also returned to its pre-pandemic level, “even slightly lower”.

Only thing that differs – and it is not trivial: the mouths to feed are four times more numerous than before. Because MultiCaf’s services are better known. And because poverty is still there.

For him, managing this decrease is impossible. “I would challenge anyone to come here and say, ‘You can’t be supported from now on.’ I am not able to do it. “

A comeback that is not surprising

At the start of the crisis, the media reported that, in all its darkness, the pandemic highlighted the greatness of human soul, which was expressed in a thousand stories of mutual aid and solidarity.

There were these Facebook groups overflowing with people willing to buy one person’s groceries or walk the other’s dog. There were these people who, from their balconies, applauded the nurses. There were those children who hung rainbows in the windows to brighten up sad cities or who wrote cards to relieve lonely elders. And there were also those smiles exchanged in the street.

Are we back, slowly but surely, in every man for himself? Yes. And the researchers we spoke to were hardly surprised.

“We see this return in the individual, but I do not believe that we should be disappointed: I think it is a normal phenomenon”, says straight away Rémi Thériault, doctoral student in social psychology at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), which is interested in compassion, benevolence and altruism.

In times of crisis, he says, like in natural disasters, people tend to respond well and help each other, but these efforts last only for a while. We get used to it, the situation improves, we let the government take charge and we go back to our routine.

We must also look at what determined the behavior of solidarity. If the causes were external and not internal, “we tend to see a rebound effect when external circumstances change,” explains Rémi Thériault. We are going back to our ways ”. And for behavior to be sustainable, he adds, it must be sustainable.

According to sociologist Marie-Chantal Doucet, solidarity in times of COVID-19 has been expressed a lot through the media and virtually. The 1 p.m. press conference organized by the Quebec authorities put a balm on the loneliness of people, which increased significantly during confinement, she underlines.

And when the crisis subsides, or when we adapt to it, we come back more to every man for himself. “The post-pandemic is not going to erase a process that has been under way for several decades, which is that of the individualization of daily life,” she said.

In the eyes of the philosopher Jocelyne St-Arnaud, being in solidarity is also – and first of all – being vaccinated against COVID-19. Collective immunity is achieved when a high percentage of the population has been immunized, recalls Mr.^me St-Arnaud, associate professor in the department of social and preventive medicine at the University of Montreal. “A person who refuses to be vaccinated, it is as if he relied entirely on others,” she illustrates.

In this sense, the conspiracy movements have harmed solidarity. “In my opinion, it is completely the opposite”, summarizes Jocelyne St-Arnaud.

The conspirators may not have been the only ones to undermine solidarity. According to a survey conducted in the UK in the summer of 2020 by think tank Demos, 14% of respondents who complied with sanitary measures said they ‘hate’ those who did not. This way of thinking – the “good people” on one side, the “bad” on the other – “threatens efforts to build national solidarity,” the study wrote.

Was it solidarity?

When the pandemic broke, the Director General of the World Health Organization called for solidarity with nations around the world. In the process, Russia lent experts to Italy, Cuba sent medical teams to Europe, China gave advice (and soon 1 billion vaccines) to other countries.

The Finnish philosopher Matti Häyry looked at this “solidarity of the coronavirus”, both that of individuals and of countries, in a text published on the issue in the journal Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. He describes solidarity as feeling and acting together for a common goal against a common adversary. And according to him, very few of these examples of “solidarity” correspond to this definition.

In mutual aid between countries, the philosopher sees above all spins policies. In the collaboration between researchers, Matti Häyry first sees the enormous profits made by pharmaceutical companies who refuse to give up their patents. Walking a neighbor’s dog and singing from his balcony are at best acts of sympathy or altruism, he says. It’s nice, congratulate the nurses, but in Finland, nurses are still under pressure and underpaid, he recalls.

In his eyes, the West has remained with its two feet in individualism throughout this health crisis.

“It’s more important for me to go to a concert than to keep the elderly safe,” quips Matti Häyry, whom we have reached by email.

Hope

Still, let’s end this article on a more positive note.

While a good number of people have regained the comfort of individualism, that does not mean that they will never do their neighbor a favor again, that they will no longer write Christmas cards to single people, that they will not will never donate money to food banks again. On the contrary.

“One of the best predictors of behavior is previous behavior,” emphasizes social psychology doctoral student Rémi Thériault. The more we do it, the more chances we have of doing it again in the future, if the circumstances allow it. Moreover, he says, some people have undoubtedly discovered passions that have led to life choices. The government has also taken measures that will remain after the crisis.

At Moisson Montreal, we agree that the support received is less intense than a year ago. That last year, people called to offer help, and that we must now pick up the phone. “But the situation is also less acute than it was last year,” said Moisson Montreal general manager Richard Daneau. This year, the pace remains 20% to 25% higher than before the pandemic, he said.

At Centraide, which last year had a record annual campaign of $ 60 million among the public and workplaces, we hope that the outpouring of generosity will continue this year. “The pandemic has had serious repercussions,” recalls Claude Pinard, President and CEO of Centraide of Greater Montreal.

The MultiCaf community cafeteria, for its part, cherishes its hard core of volunteers.

“The volunteer base is still there,” concludes Irena Khaikin, volunteer cashier at the MultiCaf grocery store.