AODS- Acquired Outrage Deficiency Syndrome
Almost daily, we are confronted with news of preventable tragedy: Shootings, drug overdoses, motor vehicle accidents, and failure to vaccinate fill the headlines. In many of these cases, the death and suffering could have been prevented by prudent behavior on the part of individuals or society at large. It is not infrequent that we blame the perpetrator, or even the victim, but is rare to hold ourselves accountable.
COVID-19 was third leading cause of death in the United States in both 2020 and 2021 | National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Our lack of reaction is in part due to the numbing effect of repeated news. Many people experience the endless statistics about health disparities as normalizing. Health Equity | CDC Why would we blame ourselves for failure to act? Not infrequently, we can distance ourselves from the experience of blame by thinking that the condition affects some group other than ones own. If you drill down into the health statistics of the United States, you can see strong evidence of implicit bias writ large.
What can be done? The narrative that inspires me the most was written in 1987 by San Francisco Chronicle journalist Randy Shilts: And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic. And the Band Played On - Wikipedia. Let me know what you think.