Plague or Pandemic: New Normal is the Outcome

So, it's 1352 and the Great Plague is coming to it's horrible, messy, deadly end. Somewhere between 75 and 200 million people are dead and among those who are left alive, you can bet there was some talk about "What wilt beest our new ingraft?', or in today's English, "What will be our new normal?"

Their new normal was staggeringly different. All brought about by what I call a 'creative destroyer'--a person, plague or thing that savaged the world so thoroughly that new structures, systems and culture had to rise up to fill the voids. After the Black Plague, the world saw the rise to modern labor movements/an end to feudalism; attention to and improvement of hygiene and medicine; and finally, a new approach to life. Sound familiar?

Back then, the significant drop in population (because of the massive numbers of deaths) created a labor shortage?that helped end serfdom. Towns and cities grew with the serfs looking for new ways to support themselves and who found a surplus of jobs and a rise in wages--hello working class! Add in a new energy around mass manufacturing and voila, a massive shift to Europe's economy and society. With this came a more structured/practice of medicine, the Italian Renaissance and of course, the classic "Bring Out Yer Dead" scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

But all was not easy. To get to this 'new normal', cities were locked down and quarantine rules introduced while new hospitals were built to try to cope with the overwhelming numbers of sick. And, while the majority of the population pulled together, there was a loud fringe group of deniers and conspiracy theorists. Finally, church and state leadership who don’t just fail to step up to the plate, but completely abandon the field of play. Again, sound familiar?

669-years later, our current and still shifting new normal is coming about not from the massive number of deaths we faced, but rather a focus on who and/or which jobs are suddenly more important in the face of the pandemic; a new lifestyle that almost insists on introspection and retrospection and the influence of extreme religion, narcissism and political ideologues accosting the ideal of the common good.

Not only did we see traditional systems and structures flail and fail, we saw communities and families splintering as well--especially around the vaxx issue.

As Boccaccio puts it in his Introduction to the First Day, "It was not merely a question of one citizen avoiding another, and of people almost invariably neglecting their neighbours and rarely or never visiting their relatives, addressing them only from a distance; this scourge had implanted so great a terror in the hearts of men and women that brothers abandoned brothers, uncles their nephews, sisters their brothers, and in many cases wives deserted their husbands" (Decameron, Introduction to the First Day, p.8-9).

So, will we have a new normal? Will we embrace the new and possibly better? Will it be as staggering as it was starting in 1352? We see signs of it.

The workforce: There are signs that we are regressing to a neo-feudalism, with extreme economic concentration, inequality?and reduced social mobility?becoming even more extreme as the pandemic wears on. The haves have much more and the have-nots have much less as the corporate oligarchy are circling the wagons while the middle class and below are left outside the wagon circle, so to speak, including over 1 million women who have left the workforce because of effects of the pandemic. On the flip side, we have a workforce who are demanding fair pay--which means a livable wage, not to mention those who are purposefully leaving jobs to rethink their lives. According to Forbes, "...estimates predict that gig workers represent around 35 percent of the U.S. workforce in 2020, up from between?14 and 20 percent ?in 2014. That means roughly?57 million ?Americans currently engage in some type of gig work that contributes more than?$1 trillion ?to the U.S. economy annually. Those figures are only expected to grow, with some predicting that freelance workers will make up?more than half ?of the U.S. workforce by 2023."

Our Lifestyle: While we won't see a new Renaissance, as memes are really taking on the role that art did back in the 1300s, we are seeing a return to hands-on art and crafting with a focus on traditional with Shibori dyeing textiles, soap making and woodworking. Quite a few are turning these initial lifestyle induced craft forays into economic drivers for them and their families. We are also seeing a return to gardening and overall self-sufficiency, brought about by a combination of yearning for the health of the earth, economics and fear of the virus. After being locked down, we are scrambling to enjoy the outdoors with record setting numbers visiting our national parks, camping gear is up 97% and freeze-dried food up 135%.

All Things Food: We all have felt the effect of "food fatigue"--tired of planning, shopping, cooking and cleaning up. Of eating the same thing across the same people day after day. Of delivery and drive-by pick-ups. Of ready to cook, ready to eat meals. Microwave popcorn is booming, as snacking is up 25% as people are looking for their food adventures outside the restaurants these days. And it's not just healthy snacks...it's a rise pretty much across the board, salty, sweet, indulgent, healthy. It's all finding its way into our pantries

Larger systems and structures: Changes here remain to be seen in totality, but everything points to a far more tech driving new normal. Which isn't as great as it sounds. Even as we deepen our connection with technology, we will see starker economic inequality due to a lack of access to this technology. Out of this will come a rise in the distribution of misinformation, eroding privacy. At the same time, we hope, we will see a continued action around social and racial justice, reforming systems and structures that were built to serve the privileged. It's clear that the pandemic increased existing inequalities of wealth, gender and race and what needs to happen is to reimagine and reform those that bolster white supremacy and the patriarchy--from our education systems and the armed forces to aisles at Target. In fact, it would be great to see a corporate fiscal and culture shift to "stakeholder capitalism" which is a form of capitalism in which companies seek long-term value creation by considering the needs of all their stakeholders, and society at large”.

So, it will take years for all of this to shake out, to find our "new ingraft", but I hope that all of us keep this history in mind as we work our way through the ongoing pandemic--to think about how you, your company, your brands can reimagine and reshape their roles and responsibilities--to even become a creative destroyer, for the common good. To do this, look to understand your current and potential role in culture, study it, craft it and action it. I'm not saying that your work will end up becoming a cultural stalwart like "Holy Grail", but you should try anyway.