(Knights Tale from The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer)
If you are a lover of old English literature you might be familiar with ‘The Canterbury Tales’ by Chaucer (1340 to 1400). Chaucer is reportedly the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and the father of English poetry; his most famous work being The Canterbury Tales.
Relevant to this article is the fact he was the first to coin the phrase ‘each man for himself’. What he meant by this was if you don’t look out for yourself, no one else will. Today we are more likely to use the phrase ‘every man for himself’. The meaning has been adapted a bit since Chaucer’s day and now tends to mean, ‘look after your own interests, not others’.
And that is what we are having to do in this 2020—look after our own interests because it appears no one at a higher level is helping us out. Looking at the mistakes made in the UK and the US we can see how the general population were basically told to ‘get on with it’. Which led to many of them into believing it is their constitutional right to do whatever they pleased. For example we see this in the gun laws of the US—where it is written into the Constitution that citizens have the right to bear arms. Of course this was written in the days where the majority of citizens were pioneer farmers living and hunting off the land. Whereas not many live off the land today. Yet this provision has not been repealed.
This seems to have filtered down in current times to it being a ‘right’ to choose not to wear a mask against Covid-19. Even if that mask could protect both the wearer and others. My choice not to protect myself, for whatever reason, potentially impacts the health of others. But using the ‘every man for himself’ policy, that’s just fine and dandy!
In recent news I read that a bus driver in France was killed by three male passengers when he challenged them for refusing to wear a (government mandated) mask. What the heck? We also saw how some took advantage of protests and peaceful demonstrations to loot shops in the US. These are extreme examples of ‘every man for themselves’. Less obvious is the fact some countries, like England, are leaving their citizens to decide for themselves whether in the face of Covid-19 they take a serious stance by socially distancing, wearing a mask, etc.
In other countries we can see how there has always been a culture of the individual taking care of their immediate family. This in the past included those within the same community. Now with urbanisation, communities are not as strongly linked as they once were. Resulting in every family having to fend for itself. Which is not the best approach in a public health emergency. We can see the success of countries like Scotland (which has taken its public health initiative into its own hands rather than follow Westminster), New Zealand and some other countries where focus has been on the whole, and not the individual.
While not every country or region resorts to violence under the guise of ‘every man for himself’ some have a history of weak authorities and individuals have always had to fend for themselves. And many areas/communities/families manage quite well like this. Perhaps because it is the culture they have been raised to and so expect nothing more than having to take care of their nearest and dearest. But wouldn’t it be so much better if we all pulled together as one team? Being globally in the same ‘2020 boat’ wouldn’t it be great if we all had equal access to life rafts and had a sensible captain to steer us, rather than having ‘every man for himself’?