IS AFFLUENCE THE KEY TO EVERYTHING?

"Human nature is potentially aggressive and destructive and potentially orderly and constructive" - Margaret Mead

• All across Europe affluent city dwellers have been decamping epicenters of the crisis to their second homes, putting at greater risk residents of remote islands...
• While Russian health care professionals worry about the exiguous sanitary resources, rich Russians are hoarding ventilators to protect themselves against the coronavirus...
  
• Wealthy Americans are hiring concierge doctors to test them for coronavirus in their homes in order to circumvent the CDC's strict testing criteria and long wait times for results...

While crisis situations can elicit morally enhanced behaviors in some people, engendering a myriad of altruistic deeds, they can also bring out the worst in other people. The novel coronavirus pandemic has been revealing aspects of human nature that usually lurk beneath the complex surface of normal life. Yes! That is true! This pandemic did not create disparities. It has only put the already existent ones, such as wealth inequality, into sharp focus.

However, how come so many people seem to be oblivious to the unity, selflessness and compliance that situations such as the novel coronavirus pandemic require?

The truth is that we have an innate proclivity for letting ourselves driven by fear and frustration in times of crisis. We act congruently with our own beliefs and we tend to callously disregard the possible calamitous consequences of our actions. We become haughty and egocentric and we develop habits of acting in our own best interests, even if by doing so we jeopardize the lives of others.

Many consider that such reprehensible and egregious attitudes are generally displayed by the upper class, namely by people with abundant financial resources. However, in my own humble opinion, it is not wealth that actually engenders behaviours epitomized by selfishness and haughtiness, but our very nature. We endeavor to protect ourselves at any cost, to the extent that we become oblivious to the fact that our actions might be morally unethical and highly detrimental.

However, it is true that during times of crisis prevention is far more accessible for the affluent or people with a high social status. Social distancing, for instance, is more accessible for people with high-paying jobs, as abstaining from public transit and working from home are more feasible. What is prohibited to many is readily available to others. The powerful, such as politicians can leverage their position of influence, while the wealthy can buy their way into faster treatment. Thus, even though everyone is susceptible to falling ill with the novel coronavirus, the unfortunate reality is that this virus may disproportionately hurt the less wealthy.