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PRIVATE AND PUBLIC RISKS OF COVID-19
Risk of catching COVID-19 while going to work is like driving on a public road. You could die, but with observation and caution, it is safe enough and not worth worrying about a homicidal driver.
Probability of transmission to you of COVID-19 virus particles, from infectious persons, has opaque and complex processes too difficult for you to quantify your chances of infection. If you are a risk adverse person, isolation is a logical response to minimise exposure. But you may be expected to go to work, need to earn, or want not to cringe because learned helplessness is bad for your health.
Nietzsche advocated personal fulfilment by taking risks without consideration for others, as taken up by Hitler and Stalin. A propensity for cavalier response to danger resides in your brain’s amygdala, especially if you are male and under 30 years. If you only have yourself to think about, without consequences for your family, friends and colleagues, or for people who you might unknowingly infect, it is easier to face the risk and forget potential consequences.
Simone De Beauvoir wanted the individual to seek their own existential freedom by respecting others’ freedoms. You could risk going out to free yourself but only after anticipating your responsibilities to others if you became infected.
When your calculations would include medical consequences for yourself and for those you care about, you might fear the worst and prefer isolation. If going to work would have consequences for the business and for your employer, you might remember that all business is inherently risky and the terms of your employment require you to sacrifice freedoms. A utilitarian would expect your decision to go to work to be of practical use to you, such as by earning, rather than to exercise freedom.
Analysis of expected risks can clarify the best course of action to take. There could be clear and present danger from going out, but with insufficient likelihood of incurring costs that would exceed the value of certain benefits you expect.
Because employers and employees have different interests, governments may step in with guidance. They may decide responsibly who to lockdown and who to go to work. They may give financial support. Economy-wide, the amount of relief to be paid by the community could be staggering. The contributions of those who take personal risks may be insufficient to ensure economic survival of a community supporting those who avoid risk. Private risk may not be covered by public indemnity. An individual’s best protection is to be forewarned and free to choose what risks they will or will not take.
http://www.martinknox.wordpress.com
COVID-19 risks need careful consideration
If her teasing is misandry, would his philandering be misogyny?
REVIEW EXCERPT BY EDITOR OF NOVEL ‘SHORT OF LOVE’, BY MARTIN KNOX
Another reason you won’t be falling asleep is – well, it’s unconventional. In fact, that’s kind of why Martin brought me in on the task. I think initially there was an idea of my offering a ‘solution’ to the complete incompatibility of the outlook of the novel with any notions of gender equality. This, I have not done. The book in itself cannot have such a ‘solution’. Instead, it is itself a gigantic question, posed in novel form. Now, I think my views and Martin’s views on this are, to this day, not quite on a level. My belief is that we, as societies, still do not have the full page open on the gender equality debate, and a work such as this helps to do so. Those of you who would consider yourselves feminists, read it, and see what it tells you about the motives and insecurities that lead to misogyny, and you’ll be forced to consider what, if anything, might be done to eradicate those. Those of you who consider yourselves non or anti-feminists, read it and see whether this is a vision you would agree with in any way, or not, and why. If you don’t give much of a toss about the gender equality debate one way or the other, read it, because it’s something different, and it’ll make you laugh, and possibly check the prescription of your reading glasses.
Full review here: http://www.martinknox.wordpress.com
CHANGING PARTNERS: JOKE OR VIRTUE?
How to change partners in serial love relationships without vulnerability?
Tom Archer falls for university student Vicki Hillstone, who tricks him to take a lie detector test and finds out he is bedding town girl Barbara. Vicki is distracting Tom from his studies so he reduces his overall vulnerability to love. He ‘shorts’ Vicki for later but he is devastated when she appears to make out with his best friend Richard.
The women counteract Tom’s love commodity investment with tragic consequences. He follows a glittering career in the petroleum industry while trying to take up with Vicki. After the deception of their beginning, can he and Vicki ever become a couple?
Review by Vesna Mcmaster, author and editor.
‘In ‘Short of Love’, Knox has taken the picaresque genre by the cerebrum, presenting a narrative alternately amusing, shocking, and deeply familiar by turns. The unrelenting pace and clean style combine within a paradoxical whole, both epic and microscopic simultaneously. Add to that an author/reader relationship that defies convention, and you have this curious and memorable work, which will present an entertaining challenge to the end.’
‘SHORT OF LOVE’ is a satirical fiction novel by Martin Knox available on Amazon.
http://www.martinknox.wordpress.com
