LORD ROOT-OF-THE-MATTER OFFERS PERSPECTIVE

By Edwin Cooney

During World War II, Winston Churchill dubbed FDR's roving ambassador Harry Hopkins "Lord Root-of-the-Matter.” Is that you, I asked?

"I'm not the ghost of Mr. Hopkins if that's what you want to know, but Harry possessed a tremendously high capacity to get to the heart of any problem under discussion or even negotiation, thus deserving of Mr. Churchill's admiration and confidence. However, who Harry was is irrelevant today. I'm an entity or a tool designed to strip away superficial factors when someone is seeking the unvarnished truth."

Okay, My Lord, what's at the root of America's dilemma over the effects of the Coronavirus?

“The one word answer to your inquiry is “fear,” the father of all anger, but the components or the antecedents of fear are varied and interrelated. So, to keep it simple, reconsider FDR's famous quote which is germane to both the Great Depression and this latest pandemic, and comprehend the power of his observation beyond the immediate quote itself: ‘...the only thing we have to fear is...fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.’  Of course, in this instance the fear isn't nameless, but fear stultifies our capacity to reason and thus paralyzes our effort to convert our tendency to run away rather than welcoming our capacity to meet the challenge of the current crises.”

Lord Root-of-the-Matter, what are our current national crises?

"Our national crises constitute our inability to see and acknowledge the legitimacy of one another's individual agendas! The common factor in all of our individual agendas is the fear factor. Some people fear the loss of the benefits of employment. Others fear the loss of money. Still others fear the effect that the disease will have on their parents, grandparents and, even worse, their children. Then there are those who fear the challenges of safely accommodating one another in the workplace, at the beach, at the ballpark, and even around the dinner table. To still others, these fears are secondary to the fact that their earning power is diminishing.”

How, My Lord, do you respond to signs you see around the country by those anxious to reopen  society and go back to work? Signs which read “my freedom doesn’t end where your fear begins.”

"It's very simple. Those who choose to be more cautious have no monopoly on fear. After all, those who insist on going back to work hold numerous fears. Since they work for compensation, the loss of that compensation is something they fear greatly! Were they volunteers, they would have a better case for their “bravery," but that assertion is merely reflective of their own set of fears." 

Fair enough, Your Highness, but is this crisis primarily individual or is it societal?

"It's both," said Lord Root-of-the-Matter, tucking his royal robes around his shoulders and moving to the edge of his lordly throne. "Since society is made up of almost numberless individuals, society is invariably collective and is thus infected by all of our germs and viruses or purified by our collective energy and wisdom."

How, I next inquired, can we conquer this pandemic and get back to normal or at least get back to a level of social, economic, inter-relational functionality?

"That depends not only on what we might do, but on what we've got to stop doing,” said Lord Root-of-the-Matter. “In the first place, we ought to stop this business of patting ourselves on the back, believing that we possess the sole answer to the crisis and that everyone else is purely political. Second, we won't become really comfortable until we really and truly understand that COVID-19 is the "new normal" around which we're going to have to function until we find a cure. COVID-19 is the new Depression, the new Cold War, the new 9/11, the new “terror," and we have to live around it until it is conquered. It will take awhile to adjust to that reality!”

How, if at all, is this crisis related to national politics?

“Since the discovery of penicillin, we've become increasingly cocky when it comes to fighting disease and it is disease that is at the heart of this crisis. When your leadership makes fighting disease its top priority rather than fighting humanity, it is possible that there will be changes for the better beyond your capacity to imagine!” said His Wisdom.

But what about President Trump? I cried. Does it all depend on whether or not we re-elect him?

"If COVID-19 was about social economics, it might be essential that he be re-elected, but “the root of the matter” is beyond politics. It's about mastering our fears or perhaps even more to the point, acknowledging rather than beating one another up over our socially conflicting fears. Our tools to that end are social science and medical science, along with our personal determination to adjust to a fact of nature over which we temporarily have little control."

My final question is about you, Sir! As Lord Root-of-the-Matter, do you possess the answers to all matters of importance?

"Certainly not! My job is merely to strip away the chaff so those much smarter than I can work out the solutions to problems!" 

Suddenly, Lord Root-of-the-Matter was gone and, just for an instant, I thought I was alone. Then there was the rustle of skirts and there stood Mother Nature looking powerful and a bit forbidding with her hands on her hips and a rather smug smile on her not unpleasant face. What could I do except meekly smile back at her? After all, even I know better than to angrily surrender to the challenges of Mother Nature! 

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY