It’s damn hard to give a death notification. No policeman, chaplain, or doctor looks forward to telling a family that their loved one has passed away. And yet, there is a solemn nobility that accompanies this grave task in that it furthers the cause of truth. Only by speaking the worst news imaginable can a family find occasion to gather, mourn, and begin the journey toward peace. It would in fact be cruel to withhold tragic news or insinuate that a deceased person is alive simply to avoid causing pain. Deception may provide comfort in the short run, but it prevents people from adjusting to reality.
Truth that hurts is the most important kind.
2020 witnessed a sobering level of human loss. Approximately 1.8 million deaths have been attributed to COVID-19, and the corresponding global shutdown will prove even more costly. The disruption of the world's economy will cause millions to die from starvation, suicide, addiction, and untreated disease.
Along with this onslaught of human death, we can also acknowledge the THINGS that died in 2020, particularly the social structures and institutions which brought about their own demise as they responded to or took advantage of geopolitical events.
So in the spirit of brutal honesty, here are four THINGS that died in 2020:
1. Science
The World Wars of the 20th Century gave rise to our Postmodern culture’s growing mistrust of science. We had until then naively believed that scientific and technological advancement would only improve the human condition, but such hopes were betrayed by the invention of terrifying weaponry and gruesome methods of torture and mass-execution. We began to realize that science is amoral at best and will be used for destructive ends when not guided by a moral compass.
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated many trends, including the growing mistrust in scientific institutions. In late January, the World Health Organization praised China’s efforts toward containing the Coronavirus and its transparency toward the world, all while Beijing restricted domestic travel and ramped up international flights. A global scientific organization created to protect health was parroting pure propaganda from the Chinese Communist Party’s teleprompter.
At home, American citizens were ridiculed as reckless for protesting lockdowns but praised for the public health benefits of protesting racism, while contact-tracers in some states were forbidden from asking if an infected citizen had attended a race-related protest. The same officials who told us not to bother with masks later demanded government mandates of the same. Citizens were routinely told by authorities to “follow the science” in order to mask up and stay home, only to watch those same leaders smugly ignore their own rules for travel, mask-wearing, dining out, or patronizing hair salons that were closed to the masses.
Somehow, the public narrative switched from flatten the curve to prevent every death, which left citizens in a logical limpo that questions about the human toll that would result from such a myopic approach. It became politically correct to ignore warnings about the massive scale of global death and poverty that would likely result from shutting down--and politically risky to talk about it--and the scientific establishment was eagerly willing to play by these shifting cultural rules.
While erratic policy decisions were rationalized on the basis of science, the very science that we were supposed to "follow" was accused of racism by organizations like Black Lives Matter and the Smithsonian, which declared that logic, linear thinking, objectivity, and the scientific method are oppressive, white values.
This constant barrage of politically motivated and contradictory nonsense eroded trust in the health profession itself, which was unfair to the heroic healthcare employees working overtime on the frontlines to battle COVID-19. A year of hypocrisy and incompetence shattered any remaining faith in science, at a time when we needed it most—during a global pandemic.
Science died in 2020.
2. Media/Social Media
News media played a key role in this trust-erosion, serving as a willing accessory to the politicization of science. Most outlets seemed to be reading from the same script as they covered topics ranging from COVID-19, the Presidential election, and racism. Rather than looking to news stations for informative updates on current events, we increasingly turned to our news-narrative of choice to hear a carefully-distilled interpretation of reality.
Fox News and other conservative news outlets cast skepticism on nearly every proposed restriction on public activity, while the rest of our left-of-center media celebrated each reduction in freedom as virtuous, with no regard for the social and economic fallout.
Perhaps the best illustration of the media’s demise was a news anchor standing in front of what looked like a war zone, the vivid result of the wanton violence and looting from one of many riots that charred America’s urban landscape. To avoid offending the gods of Wok-ism, he described the riot as “Fiery, but mostly peaceful.” Reasonable Americans saw such reporting as sadly typical, blatantly partisan, and utterly devoid of credibility.
Or you may recall a group of conservative voters screaming “Fox News sucks” on election night after the station's election team called the state of Arizona for Joe Biden, a sign that media outlets from across the political spectrum were being viewed with growing suspicion.
Throughout the year and leading up to the election, the news media allied with Silicon Valley to surgically sensor content that could hurt Joe Biden or question the “proper” approach to the pandemic. When a group of doctors launched a website and video campaign to propose alternative medical responses to COVID-19, they were locked out of social media and their website was taken down. In what would have been an October Surprise in a normal world regarding the shocking revelations of a Biden family business associate, named Tony Bobulinski, we witnessed another media blackout. Even America's oldest running newspaper in the New York Post had its stories removed from social media and its Twitter account shut down after posting this story, and many who shared the story found themselves locked out of social media.
Silicon valley and big-tech companies made out like bandits in 2020 while deepening their troublesome alliance with China. The cost of doing business in China is high, after all, and it includes the promotion of Chinese interests abroad. Zoom dutifully began spying on and disrupting calls in which they detected negative conversation about Tiananmen Square, while Facebook employed Chinese nationals to help program the platform for their Orwellian Hate Speech Engineering efforts, which would ensure that the “right” content is seen first and undesirable content appears at the bottom of the newsfeed (if at all).
Even left-of-center Psychologist Robert Epstein concluded that Google was engaged in an orchestrated campaign to shift public perception of presidential candidates through its search algorithms. Pro-Biden voters received reminders to vote, while Pro-Trump voters did not. Internet searches of the two candidates led to positive stories of the former and negative stories of the latter, all of which could amount to a difference of 15 millions votes, said Epstein.
It had been on hospice for years, but in 2020 the notion of an objective news media finally died.
3. Professional Sports
Sporting activities understandably shut down as we tried to sort fact from fiction in the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Athletes from professional to peewee saw their dreams dashed and seasons cancelled. Sports channels played classic reruns and hotdog eating contests to fans who had no other options for sporting entertainment. In the violent aftermath of the George Floyd killing, we longed for the non-positive, public harmony that sports can bring about in society, and we eagerly awaited its return.
In a world coming apart at the seams, professional sports had an unprecedented opportunity to express its key function as a neutral space for people of all backgrounds to celebrate what we have in common. This sacred, non-partisan space could once again be found in every newspaper and newscast, a sort of "ceasefire" where we could enjoy a badly needed break from the bitter conflicts that divide our culture.
It wouldn’t be easy to captivate viewers in empty stadiums, but if sports could fulfill its social contract with fans by honoring its vital role in the communal fabric, it was possible that we would ignore the vacant seats to watch our favorite teams reengaged in competition.
But as sports resumed, this illusion was squashed. Players and coaches began to protest before the first ball was thrown, dragging disappointed fans into yet another partisan display. Ratings plummeted along with the interest of viewers, since few desired to watch overpaid athletes play politics instead of sports.
The sacred bond between athlete and fan was breached this year. When we needed them most, sports died in 2020.
4. Faith in Government
Ever the butt of jokes, government sank to a new low in terms of public confidence. State government responses to COVID-19 and racial tensions varied widely, from the proverbial head-in-sand approach to a heavy-handed erraticism that trended toward overreach.
Some jurisdictions sympathized with racial activists and allowed shocking levels of violence to continue unchecked in cities that will likely suffer for decades. Minneapolis saw hundreds of businesses destroyed while Seattle’s authorities stood by as a whole section of the city was taken over and declared a separate nation.
Numerous mayors, city councils, and governors advocated for the defunding of police rather than the additional resources that may be needed for a better trained and organized police force, seemingly unconcerned by the surge in crime. At the same time they opposed the possession of firearms that many citizens felt was necessary amidst the chaos and unrest.
Government spending rose to alarming levels, with no attention paid to the toll it would take on future generations. Republicans who fell silent about deficit spending with their party in the White House are suddenly concerned about debt as Joe Biden prepares to move in.
And of course, many millions of American voters have serious concerns about our election process, either in terms of voter suppression (Democrats) or election corruption (Republicans).
Our government was under great stress in 2020, and by many accounts, it buckled under the weight.
Our faith in government died this year.
As grim as all these death notifications may sound, there is cause for hope. I’m a man of faith who believes in and teaches about the literal, bodily resurrection of the dead for those who follow Jesus Christ. This amounts to far more than a post-mortem promise, but offers the daily potential for new life in circumstances that appear both lifeless and hopeless on an individual and corporate scale.
I have great hope that young people will read the toe-tags on these four dilapidated structures and learn from our mistakes in 2020, giving rise to a new generation of truth-tellers who work for the regeneration of defunct institutions or for the creation of new ones.
You cannot have wisdom without experience, hope without despair, or reform without honesty. And you cannot have resurrection without death.
So as we turn the page to 2021, let’s take a deep breath of new life and commit ourselves to the loving act of telling the truth—no matter how painful.
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