The Prime Minister has announced that the British public should react to the ongoing Covid epidemic by behaving "fearlessly, but with common sense". An expression that ranks alongside a classic line from another comedy adulterer, in Last of the Summer Wine. Where Howard and Marina are discussing the state of their affair. Howard wants to tell the whole world about it - apart from Pearl, his wife. Marina wants him to throw caution to the wind. Howard agrees that he would love to throw caution to the wind. But carefully.
And in this mood of cautious heroism, so it is that the authors of the New Tory Bible have new paraphrases to introduce.
Joshua 1:9 - "Act fearlessly, but with common sense."
Acts 4:31 - "They were all filled with the Spirit and spoke fearlessly, but with common sense."
2 For 3:12 - "Therefore since we have such great hope, we speak fearlessly but with common sense."
Prov 28:1 - "The foolish flee with no cause. But the wise are fearless, but with common sense."
So the Beaker Band, already a bit shaken after Laurence Fox materialised to them in the night and told them how downtrodden he is, have had to rewrite today's children's song - "Be bold, with common sense, for the Lord your God is with you."
Now the thing is, Johnson kind of has a point. For many people, fear of this virus is not quite the right word. Caution is. Common sense, I believe, is not the right words ever to use. As someone cleverer than me may once have said, the trouble is that common sense isn't all that common, and it's not always sense. There are people alive in this country who grew up at a time when measles parties were regarded as common sense. In the virology and epidemiology of a new virus, common sense is most useful for accepting that when the science changes - as it does - we need to accept it. At the moment, scientific evidence is swaying from contact as a form of transfer to the belief that it's predominantly aerosol and droplet transmission. Well, as St Paul nearly said, let us not give up washing our hands. Because common sense tells us that the science can change again.
But let's carefully consider what we mean when we say a shop, workplace or place of worship is "Covid secure". We don't mean it's 100% safe. We mean the risk is mitigated. And that's fine - we mitigate risk when we put a lightning conductor on the tower, or say you can't go in a building on your own, or wear a seat belt while driving to church, or look both ways when crossing the road. Mitigating risk is what we do instinctively all the time. But we're not very good at understanding the residual risks after those mitigations. And that's why some people are, despite it all, not fearless about this virus. Whereas others are completely so. Each in the belief that it's the others that are wrong.
The problem with fearlessness is that it can look a lot like recklessness. Fear is a handy thing when confronted with a lightning storm when you're outside in flat countryside. It's a natural reaction to a deadly disease. Whereas if you're so fearless you shake hands with people in Covid wards, or meet hundreds of people that are neither distancing nor mask-wearing during a pandemic, that's generally a bad idea. That kind of fearlessness is also uncharitable, as you are also putting other people at harm.
So let us be neither fearful nor reckless, lacking in sense nor under the impression that common sense is all it takes. As St Matt of Lucas said,
let us bake in tents. But do not bake in a tent. It all makes sense. Keep calm and carry on, now.
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