Passage Based Questions: Logical Reasoning - 14 | Passage Based Questions for CLAT Preparation PDF Download

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the questions.
A pandemic literally means a disease that stalks all people, but it has visibly unequal effects. The virus exploits our bodily and social vulnerabilities .It reveals our structures of division and our levels of social trust.
The response to Covid-19 prompts a basic-question how do we imagine other people? Are they a problem to be managed with threats and watchful squads, a herd to be corralled, are they “human bombs” of infection? That justifies an authoritarian vision-where states surveille people without their consent, beat them back on the streets without hearing them out, hose tired migrant workers with bleach, suppress information. The aim there is to efficiently control potential mayhem.
A more democratic way is to inform and involve people, respect their intelligence and harness their abilities. We are not mindless “Covidiots” or “go-Corono-go” cheerleaders, we are people with a stake in our own well-being. Nobody wants to wilfully endanger other. Listening to the actual constraints faced by various groups is the best way for administrations to ally with them-provide food and supplies, make room for patients, provide hand washing facilities or whatever is necessary.
Our basic storylines matter. If we are repeatedly told that other humans are untrustworthy, that shapes our reality. In her book about the aftermath of fires, earthquakes, epidemics and the surprising generosity that people show, writer Rebecca Solnit popularised the term ‘elite panic’, used by disaster sociologists. Everyone panics in a disaster, but when fear grips elites and they overreact with all the resources and power at their command, it can dramatically distort the situation.
The worst behaviour, says Solnit, comes from those who expect chaos and viciousness, and act accordingly in advance. Elite panic is fed by the idea that people are selfish and stupid, held in check only by power. That’s what the movies show us too: in a disaster, it takes a few heroes, cops, scientists, to swoop on and save the city which was collapsing in pandemonium. That’s what leads officials to treat people like children, assume they can’t handle full information, tell them what’s strictly necessary, leave the police to command and control.
Solnit describes a smallpox epidemic in 19th century. Milwaukee, where the upper and middle class was allowed to quarantine itself while the poor immigrants on the south side, those the newspaper called the “scum of Milwaukee” were forcibly hauled into isolation hospitals. The immigrants cowered in their homes, didn’t report their illness and felt no stake in the city’s welfare. Meanwhile, in New York in 1947, where officials took a friendly, open tack, people showed up voluntarily to be vaccinated against smallpox.
If you don’t trust people, they won’t trust you .If the state creates an adversarial dynamic, if they criminalise the disease and the media runs with scaremongering stories and communal hashtags like Coronojihad, then people might hide to protect themselves. Some might even prefer to take their chances with Covid if they fear harm to their families and communities.