No Man Is An Island

Decades ago when I was in high school everyone was ordered to read John Donne's No Man Is An Island. Since I went to high school in red state Texas it seems unlikely to me that my teachers were taking a liberal bent but rather the idea that individual citizens are capable of affecting events. Well today two news items caught my eye: Herman Cain, the pizza chain presidential candidate who touted his own 9-9-9 tax plan, died of Covid 19 after attending Trump's Tulsa rally without a mask; and Louie Gohmert, Texas congressman who refused to wear a mask even when ordered to do so was diagnosed with Covid 19.  While any of us may rage and storm about an unjust world, while any of us may quarrel with rules that restrict our personal freedom, while any of us may complain about government, all of us are subject to the unseen and the unknowable.

Did Herman Cain get the virus during the Tulsa rally where he and others were not wearing masks? That's one of the unknowables. Did Louie Gohmert pass the virus to others when he either refused to wear a mask or was casual in its use? That's another unknowable.

I don't mock Cain's passing any more than I mock Gohmert's diagnosis. What both of those events show is that none of us is safe, none of us is immune, all of us have to be responsible for ourselves, but all of us have to be responsible for others as well. We learned this more than 500 years ago during the plague. It isn't a political choice, it's a choice to be a citizen of the world rather than thinking that we have complete freedom. We also need to prod our government to have the same outlook, because no man is an island.

I have been married more than 50 years. I know I don't have complete freedom because I am responsible for that man I married so long ago in addition to being responsible  for myself. I owe my neighbors the same honor that I give to my husband.