How far have we come? Looking at the Black Death

I was musing on a sentence last night, as writers are prone to do.

And yes, it was political.

It ran summat upon the lines that "Thatcherism was the worst thing to strike the world since the Black Death". I like to be reasonable and reasoned, and that statement is obviously unreasonable and illogical - for one thing, as gruesome and as awful as it was, Thatcherism was not as bad as Nazism or Stalinism, or wharrever Pol Pot and Augusto Pinochet practised - in the 20th century alone.

Behave, don't exaggerate. Think!!!! And move on.

Anyway this morning, the clocks went back. It is the time for moving backwards apparently - taking American foreign policy back to the 1980s, social policy back to the 1950s and economic policy back to the 1920s (as was accurately quoted in a propaganda piece last week - advice that will be ignored by the majority of the American voting public when picking Romney as President next week, but as a foreigner I am not allowed to criticise (cough, splutter)). The UK is meanwhile trying to recall the good old days of the massive deflation of the Thatcher years. I wonder why the German government isn't trying to recreate the boom years of the 1950s and 60s, but that would sound too much like good news. Merkel, unfortunately, tends to look to Kohl rather than to Adenauer.

Time to check out the Black Death.

In its years of devastation in the 14th Century, it wiped out substantial chunks of the population of China, Western Asia, North Africa and Europe (in Europe Poland was spared, the rest of the continent lost 30% of its population, and for the Euro(xeno)phobes, particularly supporters of the EXP (UKIP if you insist), in the UK, the same happened to the UK as in the rest of Europe, as ever!).

That it started in China and spread is almost certain. The cause though is even now subject to controversy. The widely established reasoning created in the 19th century, that it was spread by fleas on the back of black rats in trading ships (hence its widespread impact) is now disputed. Quite what caused it is still then not 100% clear. Its impact though was devastating. What we now accept as sanitation of course did not exist, filth was everywhere, and under such conditions its spread could be very quick and very nasty.

The question as to why its spread suddenly halted, why the disease burned itself out, is also unanswered. It was to reappear in several local instances over the next 500 years though it never repeated its trans-continental spread thankfully.

The political and religious impact of the plague though is both interesting and sadly typical.

Wikipedia has an interesting paragraph called "Persecutions" which I quote chapter and verse without permission with intervening notes by myself in italics:

"Renewed religious fervour and fanaticism bloomed in the wake of the Black Death.

Yes, when you cannot see a rational solution to problems, turn to the irrational. It won't solve anything but you might feel better!

Some Europeans targeted "various groups such as Jews, friars, foreigners, beggars, pilgrims, lepers and Roma, thinking that they were to blame for the crisis.

In fact blame anyone or anything that suits your prejudice. It reminds me of the 2008 crash (if you are a US Republican party supporter ignore this bit, as apparently the events of 2008 IYHO did not actually happen!) when the bankers, international gamblers on Stock Exchanges round the world usw who caused the crash got their money back, while people doing their normal jobs and working as hard as ever (and were in no way responsible for the crash) lost their jobs, maybe their homes and were often placed into huge amounts of debt that they could not afford. Those at the bottom of the heap, who had least to do with it, took most of the flak. Blame the victims not the perpetrators, a common line of economic thinking. The answer of course is to put the lunatics back in charge of the asylum! 

Lepers, and other individuals with skin diseases such as acne or psoriasis,  were singled out and exterminated throughout Europe.

Drastic, but obvious and easy targets. We wanted rid of them anyway, it solved nothing, but did we feel better for doing so!!!

Because 14th-century healers were at a loss to explain the cause, Europeans turned to astrological forces, earthquakes and the poisoning of wells by Jews as possible reasons for the plague's emergence.

See my first note (Saturn must have been in the 12th House and other nonsense) and my comment on Jews below. 

The governments of Europe had no apparent response to the crisis because no one knew its cause or how it spread.

Typical government incompetence (right, left, centre, you name it) - times do not change!

The mechanism of infection and transmission of diseases was little understood in the 14th century; many people believed only God's anger could produce such horrific displays.

Well in Europe at least we have learned some lessons in this respect. Some of the comments from some US politicians who are about to be elected to the US Senate though, persuade me that not everyone there has got the message.

There were many attacks against Jewish communities. In August 1349, the Jewish communities of Mainz and Cologne were exterminated. In February of that same year, the citizens of Strasbourg murdered 2,000 Jews. By 1351, 60 major and 150 smaller Jewish communities were destroyed.

Not just Hitler, was it? This is a ridiculously prejudiced line of thinking going back generations. The lesson - don't be a foreigner or a member of another religious belief, it isn't good for your well-being. And do not believe that this type of thinking still does not exist (to the same or a lesser extent) in different parts of the world with different beliefs or lack of them! Try becoming an atheist in Saudi Arabia.  

The Brotherhood of the Flagellants a movement said to number up to 800,000, reached its peak of popularity".

Intriguing how silly human beings can be at times in trying to resolve issues that they do not understand.

Ask yourself what would happen if something like the Black Death re-emerged tomorrow and started spreading round the world. Do you believe we would react rationally, sensibly and with speed, or would the prejudices above take over? And I ask myself why I tend to believe the latter rather than the former, despite the fact that eventually it would not be in our best interests and would resolve nowt .....

Postscript (December 28th, 2021).

1. OK, OK, my pessimism about Romney being re-elected proved unfounded.

2. Now we are in the era of rampaging Covid-19, which also originated in China (!!!!) check out some of the claims out there from the lunatic fringe about its origins. Fortunately rationality is winning the argument on how to fight it. No auto-da-fes yet thankfully.