In his very good column of April 4, 2020 in The duty, Normand Baillargeon explained that stoicism could be of great use in dealing with the pandemic. This philosophical current, which was popular in the Greco-Roman world and which has been coming back in force for several years, is in fact not just a set of abstract ideas; it leads to concrete exercises that can help to better cope with situations. One of these exercises is to look into the future and imagine negative events that may arise. We are then better prepared if these events actually occur.
Our leaders should read or reread the Stoics. At the end of last November, cases of infections with the Omicron variant were detected everywhere. In South Africa, the virus had shown its ability to become dominant. The Stoic leader would then have wondered what the new variant might imply for his society and would have been better able to take the necessary preventive measures. Instead, our leaders put on their rose-colored glasses and dreamed of Christmas festivities for 25 people. They did not see fit to speed up vaccination or adopt measures that could limit the
contacts between people.
What follows are the dramatic events that we are going through. The Stoics remind us that the past is one of the things that does not depend on us and must therefore be accepted. We can, however, learn some good lessons and move forward better prepared. Unfortunately, the events of the last few weeks are too similar to those of February and March 2020. Rose-colored glasses have remained in fashion in Quebec.
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