The enemy doubts others, including everything from the time they have their skin to the way they do what they have been given, have been indicative of a devastating plague from the beginning. Now, perhaps without kindness, doubt is directed at the very people Covid long–symptoms that can affect about one-third of those who survive the first stroke. That’s one doctrine Covid disease The disease boosts the immune system and can leave the body paralyzed by panic attacks, leading to difficulty breathing, extreme fatigue, and fog in the brain. Mu Invisible Kingdom, in her upcoming book on chronic illness, Meghan O’Rourke reports that doctors often dismiss these symptoms as meaningless. When medical tests for these patients are not found, “Western medicine would like to say, ‘You’re fine,’ ‘says Dayna McCarthy, a physician who specializes in Covid long-term care.
This is not surprising. Doubts about serious illness, including post-polio syndrome and fibromyalgia, are very common — and always differentiate patients, exacerbate their suffering, and prevent treatment. Until researchers can find biomarkers that can confirm that long-term Covid is a “real” disease, the best physicians can do and listen to evidence and cure symptoms. But a long-term anti-Covid project can also be helped by a deeper understanding of suffering, that is, an idea of how we believe or suspect the suffering of others.
In his 1985 book Harmful Body: The Making and Not Making of the Earth, Elaine Scarry goes on to explain: “To be in great pain is to have confidence; to suffer is to doubt. Because the statement highlights both pain and knowledge, and because women do not like to include their names in philosophical terms, I would like to, late, call this beautiful idea “Scarry’s axiom.”
Axiom remembered this fall for two reasons: I was trying to help a friend who had a long Covid, and I took part in a ceremony about how journalists deal with racism. It was the second incident that shed light on the first and highlighted Scarry’s views as a way to understand the mistrust that has spread in our multicultural world.
At the meeting, a Socialist and human rights activist lodged a complaint. A Socialist leader noted that the media coverage of racism leaves much to be desired — the struggle of the elite. The libertarian chief said that the media’s views on race are incomprehensible to man, and his deep fears of death and the ambitions for art, money, and success. The soldier shot at frustrated students who put their minds ahead of their thoughts and were always “frustrated” by the lack of “security,” which he said was incompatible with education.
This well-known controversy arose. As far as I know, no one on either side — and I did not agree with the Socialists and libertarians — ever. But it is probably because we were missing the truth before us: that we all just say that in some way less than the pain of others as we exalt ourselves, and of our fellow man, as a hard truth.