The modern pandemic and America's response has made me believe in things that I'd previously thought couldn't happen.

In reading Raymond E. Feist's Serpentwar Saga, in particular the book Rage of a Demon King, I realized that current events in our country made me more readily believe the stubborn and ultimately fatal choices people of privilege make. There's a particular example that occurs about midway through the book, Rage of a Demon King, when "The Kingdom" is finally being invaded by an army of ruthless warriors, dark sorcerers and priests, and a demon king at the helm of it all. This army sailed to the shores of the kingdom on about 700 boats (more or less) and has spent months at sea. The Kingdom has been preparing for the invasion for about five years, although much of it in secret so as not to panic the populace. But even with their preparations, an army of this size is like a tidal wave swamping everything in its path. I don't know how many descriptions I read that repeated pretty much this: "the enemy, despite killing so many of them, seemed endless and disappeared over the horizon."

So, in this section of the book I'm talking about, there is a rich, privileged man (named Jacob Easterbrook) who has made his fortune being a merchant with treasonous ties to the Empire of Great Kesh (a rival if not outright enemy of the Kingdom). He's portrayed as cunning, but he does have charisma (although he seems to have no empathy whatsoever, which doesn't surprise me coming from a rich man). However, when it comes to the invaders, he rebuts any attempts to move him off the estate to safety. Rather, he puts forward that his skills at being a diplomat and negotiator will put him in a prime position to negotiate a treaty of trade on behalf of Kesh with the new conquerors. "They will need this and that, etc.," is his reasoning. He doesn't fear the invaders, rather he looks at them as a new business opportunity by which he will profit handsomely. Even when a main character, Rupert Avery, who has been seeing Jacob's daughter for some two years now tells him to flee and cites his own first-hand experiences of what kind of monsters these people are, he refuses to go claiming that Roo knows nothing of what he talks about and that the danger is overblown.

Then Rupert flees with his family and barely makes it out alive. What happens to Jacob Easterbrook is horrifying. Not only do the invaders slaughter him when he tries to negotiate, but they eat him as well and then eat everything that is edible on his lands (chickens, cows, etc.). I think it's this privilege that Easterbrook had that blinded him to facts about the enemy, and I think it's relevant to what we're seeing in the pandemic with the discussions around "masking" and "not masking." It seems to me that the people of privilege in our society are the ones raising the most hell about being forced to mask, and I find that fascinating. In some cases, people of privilege just outright don't believe that it exists. If they do believe it exists, in their minds they've reasoned that masks don't work like everyone else thinks they do and then resolve to "deal with the crisis if it ever affects them." This sounds a lot like what Jacob Easterbrook said to Rupert Avery in this Feist book.

What I haven't puzzled out then is the why. Why does having privilege insulate you from recognizing real danger when it surfaces? Is it because privilege by itself seems to be invisible, and by virtue of it being invisible, one thinks that they are more powerful than they actually are? Shrug. I guess I have more thinking to do. But I will say this, the modern pandemic and America's response to it has made me believe in things that I'd previously thought couldn't happen.

For example, had I read Rage of a Demon King a few years ago, I would have said, "Jacob Easterbrook would never have stuck around like that to be eaten by cannibals! He was a smart merchant. He would have believed Rupert and fled with him to safety." But now I think, "This is totally reasonable. I could see this arrogant douchebag doing exactly that and being eaten by cannibals while ignoring all the evidence that was contrary to his opinion." What an about face! But hey, we learn a little more about the behavior of people every day during this thing. Now some behaviors aren't far-fetched at all.