Fear of Contagion

The wonderful Miss Shade has been posting excerpts from John Kelly's The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time on her blog Materies Morbi, and I've been so intrigued that I simply had to buy the book and get in on the action:

The pestilence's magisterial pace also gave Parisans ample time to contemplate the meaning of love and duty and honor in a time of plague. What would they do if a loved one was afflicted? What would the loved one do if they were afflicted? The fear of contagion makes the psychology of plague different from the psychology of war. In plague, fear acts as a solvent on human relationships; it makes everyone an enemy and everyone an isolate. In plague every man becomes an island -- a small, haunted island of suspicion, fear, and despair. (page 177)

Philip Daileader: St. Valentine's Day - A Medieval Origin

Yeah, yeah... it's a month late, but fascinating nonetheless. 

Over-delegation

People often remark on the decline of civilizations with something to the effect of "an empire is never truly destroyed from without, but rather decays from within." I tend to agree with this sentiment. The process of such self-destruction is not always obvious to contemporaries, however. A policy of decay often unfolds in shades of subtlety, where threads of indolence, abandonment, and contraction intertwine. The actors doggedly play out their parts in this grand pratfall, seemingly ignorant to the larger geopolitical context which envelops them. As one historian aptly notes, with regard to Rome:  

What is genuinely striking about the process of the 'Fall of the Roman Empire', to which it is necessary rapidly to add 'in the West', as its eastern half was to survive for another 1000 years, is the haphazard, almost accidental nature of the process. From 410 onwards successive western imperial regimes just gave away or lost control of more and more of the territory of the former Empire. At the same time, it must be appreciated, no emperor or Master of the Soldiers would have thought they were actually abandoning or putting outside the Empire the various provinces that they thus surrendered. In terms of constitutional theory practical authority in areas of administration and defence were being delegated to imperial appointees in the persons of the Germanic kings. These remained in theory subordinate to the higher authority of the emperors, even though the latter ceased to obtain material benefit from or to exercise direct control over the provinces. In this way the western Empire delegated itself out of existence.

~ Colins, Roger. Early Medieval Europe, 300-1000. Palgrave Macmillan: London. 2010.

Le Cholera

   It must be apparent to those who have been at all familiar with cholera, and other epidemic diseases, that the imagination has a large share in producing individual cases. It is a well-known fact that excess of joy will affect the circulation, sorrow will disturb the digestion, passion will inflame the system, and fright will chill; and it is equally true that not only are these transient effects produced through the influence of the mind, but special and positive diseases are, under certain circumstances, the result of mental impressions.

     This fact, illustrated in the history of the epidemics succeeding the fourteenth century, should be borne in mind in treating the great pestilence of the present age. Those who may doubt the truth of the statement that cholera is frequently engendered through fear, will here see the evidence of positive disease produced by no other cause than mental excitement.^[1]

1. Collins, G.T. The Cholera: A familiar treatise on its history, causes, symptoms and treatment, with the most effective remedies, and Proper mode of their administration, without the aid of a physician, the whole in language free from medical terms, especially adapted for the use of the public generally. Also containing a history of the epidemics of the Middle Ages. J.R. Hawley & Company: Cincinnati. 1866.

More Pride

     I believe that ambitious men in democracies are less engrossed than any others with the interests and the judgment of posterity; the present moment alone engages and absorbs them. They are more apt to complete a number of undertakings with rapidity than to raise lasting monuments of their achievements; and they care much more for success than for fame. What they most ask of men is obedience, what they most covet is empire. Their manners have, in almost all cases, remained below their station; the consequence is, that they frequently carry very low tastes into their extraordinary fortunes, and that they seem to have acquired the supreme power only to minister to their coarse or paltry pleasures.

. . .

Moralists are constantly complaining that the ruling vice of the present time is pride. This is true in one sense, for indeed every one thinks that he is better than his neighbor, or refuses to obey his superior; but it is extremely false in another, for the same man who cannot endure subordination or equality, has so contemptible an opinion of himself that he thinks he is born only to indulge in vulgar pleasures. He willingly takes up with low desires, without daring to embark in lofty enterprises, of which he scarcely dreams.

Thus, far from thinking that humility ought to be preached to our contemporaries, I would have endeavors made to give them a more enlarged idea of themselves and of their kind. Humility is unwholesome to them; what they most want is, in my opinion, pride. I would willingly exchange several of our small virtues for this one vice.

~ Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America (Volume II). Sever and Francis: Cambridge. 1862.