COVID-19 exposes the cracks in society and gives us an opportunity to fill them
Micheal Corman is an assistant professor at the University of the Fraser Valley who specializes in medical sociology. Professor Corman taught a course on disasters and pandemics last semester, and he met with me over Zoom to discuss how our society has been impacted by COVID-19 and the ways that we can move forward both during and after this pandemic.
In your opinion, how has COVID-19 exposed the cracks of society?
Pandemics and disasters do expose the cracks in our society. By that I mean they really expose the faultiness of how our society is organized and how the system is designed in ways to benefit some people and not others. Graham Scambler talks about pandemics being a breaching experiment. A breaching experiment is an experiment that kind of calls things that are taken for granted into question. So they tend to expose what was otherwise hidden. You’re absolutely right that pandemics expose things like inequities in society. This is true of COVID-19 as well as past disasters and past pandemics. I mean, think about Hurricane Katrina, the 1918/19 flu, for example; past pandemics and disasters have exposed inequities in society. They expose how society is organized in ways to benefit some people but not others.
… So, [COVID 19 has] exposed a lot of these things. We see it in terms of poverty; we’ve seen it in terms of Black Lives Matter. We’ve seen it in terms of who is more likely to get sick, who has privileges of staying at home and distancing. I mean, we’ve been hearing this discourse… that we’re all in this together. And we really are not all in this together. You know, the saying is we’re in the same storm but not in the same boat. And I think that’s a pretty apt metaphor for how pandemics can perhaps help us think about society in different and nuanced ways.
What are some positive changes that historically have come out of times of crises, that you know of?
First, I want to acknowledge that this pandemic is hard. People are suffering, people are dying, people are alone, isolated, experiencing depression and anxiety. People are alone and loved ones are being lost.
[Historically] we learned, for example, in the 1850s from the cholera epidemic in London, that clean water is connected to health. So, this made us aware of how what many people take for granted, clean water, is in fact really essential to our health and wellness. Keep in mind though that not everybody in Canada has access to clean water. Think about the 60-plus Indigenous reserves that do not have access to clean water. Nevertheless, we learned from pandemics the importance of things like water and access to water.
We also have seen, historically, changes to political and economic contexts, particularly in relation to the workplace and workers’ rights. Thinking about the black death [plague] of the 14th century which led to a shortage of labour. This led to the empowerment of workers, higher wages, better working conditions — and think about how this might have implications today. I really hope this leads to implications today. We must have workplaces that allow people to take a day off of work if they’re sick and not lose pay. This is really important. Think about the workers on the front lines of human and health services. I think there’s ways in which we can try and re-envision our workplaces.
[When it comes to] the 1918/19 flu pandemic — also colloquially known as the Spanish flu — we think about how that experience and previous experiences of pandemics before it shaped public policy and health practices. This idea of illness prevention, that we can improve health and wellness and move to what we call “upstream medicine” really emerged — this desire to examine the cause of causes, or what we call the social determinants of health. So really we saw this 1918/19 flu leading to things like the idea of universal health care, illness prevention, and health promotion. So, historically there’s a lot more, but historically we know that positive things can come out of this discussion and this experience for sure.
So I’m thinking of a quote now, “Never let a crisis go to waste.” What does this quote mean to you?
It’s an awkward way of thinking, but it’s true because crises aren’t natural, aren’t inevitable; they are organized in part. They are inevitably connected to our contexts. And so I think what that quote to me means is we must make change. We must use this as an opportunity to make change. Pandemics and disasters are devastating, but they also provide us opportunities to look at ourselves and to look at our contexts and to really kind of gain meaning and think about things in nuanced ways. So really to me that means [we need to] make meaningful changes in society to fill those cracks. But I also think it’s not just about filling those cracks, because those cracks were caused by something: a faulty foundation — what makes cracks in walls and the floor are faulty foundations. So, I really think we need to think about the metaphor of a foundation, which is our society, and think about ways of redesigning it that benefit everyone. How do we create more just economic systems that don’t just benefit the few and the powerful, that don’t just make the rich richer and the poor poorer but are geared toward more [equity], an equal distribution of resources.
I think about investments in public goods and upstream public health endeavours that address the root of the issue, not just deals with the problem after it occurs. I think medicine is very good at helping people who are sick but not the best at producing healthiness and creating healthiness. We must reconsider and possibly transform how health and long-term care is organized for seniors. This might require a redirecting of monies. So monies away from certain things like policing and traditional health care toward policies and practices that target the social factors that produce health and wellness, not just treat it. So, I’m thinking of addressing inequality, racism, and sexism — things that lead to prejudice and discrimination.
I think there is an opportunity for us to self-reflect as well, as individuals and as families and as communities. One of the positive things that have come out of this crisis is community building … I think that community organizing, [that grassroots] activism is really going to help us lead to some meaningful change. So I think top-down change doesn’t often lead to the best results. I think it usually is the bottom up stuff that is the most powerful and impactful.
Right. So, what positive changes or progress do you see as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic? What would you like to see more of?
When I think of the positives, I think about the revisioning of society. I think about this notion of re-thinking resilience, shifting away from the individual. What produces resilience? I think about things like healthy workplaces, work-life balance, meaningful work, equality, equity, diversity, and inclusion. We really need to rethink health care. We actually really need to rethink public health as well; it’s important that we have a universal health-care system. It’s one of the Canadian ideals and our rights that we get as Canadians. I think it’s so important. How can we reform and perhaps even transform things and make it more effective — to actually make it so it produces health. I think about our mental health system and how that perhaps is quite different from our physical health-care system.
We have industries being run as a for-profit; the long-term care sector is being run oftentimes as a for-profit industry, and it’s highly problematic. I think the pandemic has exposed that, but we’ve known about it for a long time. The pandemic has exposed those cracks, made them more visible. We also need more research. We need to learn from those who experience it, those who work and live and breathe it on the front lines.
Yeah. That’s really interesting. So how can everyday citizens, or even just students, help to reshape a new normal as we come out of COVID-19? Any advice for students who want to use this crisis as an opportunity to make positive change?
This is probably my hardest question. Even though I’m a sociologist and I was talking about change, I think first and foremost I want to mention… if people are in need of help, seek help. This is a challenging time. People are experiencing isolation, loneliness, anxiety, and depression. I think the best thing we can do is reach out and seek help.
But I think on the broader scale, we must advocate for change. We must vote for change and advocate for change. We live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. There is no reason why poverty should be here in Canada or really elsewhere. We can afford to solve the social problems; these are not inevitable. Homelessness is not inevitable. As an academic, we know that research is really important to this discussion. I think collaborating with academia and community members reaching out to academics and academics reaching out to communities — that’s one of the things that I really love about the work that’s going on with CHASI led by Dr. Martha Dow, the Community Health and Social Innovation Hub. They are really geared toward interfacing with the community and really revisioning academic research to be meaningful and impactful, to include the voices of those who are trying to solve wicked problems of our time.
I think learning more sociology and developing our sociological imagination in the everyday is one way of helping us move past this racialization of the everyday and the sexism and patriarchy of the everyday …. By looking at the social forces and trying to understand and change them, that is where meaningful change can come from. I think students at UFV are well positioned because we have students on research projects, and I think a lot of faculty members are open to working with students on research projects. Participating on faculty research projects, [seeking] out faculty, and if you’re in the STEM fields consider taking other social science disciplines. I tell all my students, no matter what you’re taking — whether it’s business, science, technology, psychology — what we do in sociology, media communications, anthropology, and other social sciences is really, really relevant.
So I don’t know how to give any specific advice; for me as a scientist, it’s all about understanding how things work so we can make change. And I know the voice of individuals is really important to that. I think students are our future, and I know that sounds trite, but students are our future, and I think education is key to that.
So, what’s the biggest positive lesson that COVID-19 has taught you, personally? And what lesson do you think society is learning?
I mean, so I’ll give you some context. I would say I became a sociologist around 2005 when I took my first class from Dr. Dorothy Smith in grad school. I’ve been studying and teaching inequality and things like privilege for my entire academic career. But I think probably one of the things that was made visible in my experience of this pandemic was this notion of privilege. I mean, I have taught about privilege for a long, long time. I studied it — I researched it even before 2005. But what I’ve experienced here — and I’ve known this, but I think it’s been compounded through this pandemic — … is [that] privilege makes things a lot easier.
… When I say the word “privilege,” I’m not talking about privilege that comes with hard work. I work hard, but what I’m suggesting here is that privilege bestowed upon me being a white male of privilege; that’s what I’m referring to here. I’ve always been committed to social justice, and I’ve always been into addressing racism, and this pandemic has made me even more compelled and more inspired to foster in my research and my teaching, a Sociology for Changing the World. To address racism, classism, and sexism and really try and make change. So anyway, that’s sort of the big thing for me, is this experience has really exposed my own privilege — not that it’s never been exposed — but it’s just been an embodied experience for me in different ways. If that makes sense.
Yeah, it’s become more tangible.
Yeah. People ask me how I’m doing. And I’m like, you know what? This is really hard. This is really hard, but I am so lucky. I wish it wasn’t that notion of luck and privilege because of course that means not everybody experiences this. So going back to earlier comments, we have to tear down the system that benefits the few.
Yeah. It’s just so hard. You can’t just tear it down, and that’s the wall that we always come to. Even something as simple as transitioning away from oil, it’s like, well, we can’t just do that. It’s this whole process. But, if we can’t even quickly transition from one industry to another, I don’t know how we are supposed to accomplish anything major.
You’re right. Change happens slowly. It’s also really hard when those in positions of power want to maintain the status quo. I think sociology has a huge role to play here, but it can’t just be put on the backs of academics — we need partners. We need communities. It’s a complex issue that requires complex solutions.
Quote Graphic. (The Cascade)
Darien Johnsen is a UFV alumni who obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree with double extended minors in Global Development Studies and Sociology in 2020. She started writing for The Cascade in 2018, taking on the role of features editor shortly after. She’s passionate about justice, sustainable development, and education.
