The Unprecedented Challenge of Grieving 100,000 Americans
The Mother Jones Podcast
Mother Jones
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2020
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
By the time you listen to this episode, COVID-19 will have likely killed more than 100,000 people in the United States—more Americans than the Revolutionary, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan Wars combined. Experts say the real tally is much higher. It's a devastating moment in a crisis that has already destroyed families, pushed nearly 40 million Americans out of work, revealed a government crippled by feeble leadership, and thrown daily life into chaos. How do we recognize that behind each death was a unique human life? How do we honor individual victims amid the tsunami of grief? It's hard. We don't have easy answers for you. But we do have some ideas. Rebecca Makkai, best-selling author of “The Great Believers", an epic about the AIDS crisis, discusses how she depicts the long tail of grief, and outlines lessons from one pandemic for another. Also on the show, scholar Elizabeth Outka, whose book "Viral Modernism: The Influenza Pandemic and Interwar Literature" traces the impact of the 1918 flu on 20th century literature, describes how American culture was utterly altered by that tragedy, and provides cues for how art can help memorialize the dead during this one.
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| 0:00.0 | This is the Mother Jones Podcast. I'm Jimmy L. King in Brooklyn. |
| 0:05.0 | On today's show, 100,000. |
| 0:16.0 | COVID-19 will have killed more Americans than the revolutionary, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars combined. |
| 0:25.0 | As we record, the death toll has very nearly reached this milestone. |
| 0:30.0 | 100,000. |
| 0:32.0 | Experts say the real number is likely much higher. |
| 0:36.0 | It's a devastating moment in a crisis that has destroyed families, |
| 0:41.0 | thrown nearly 40 million Americans out of work, |
| 0:44.8 | revealed a government crippled by feeble leadership, |
| 0:48.1 | and thrown dainly life into chaos. |
| 0:58.8 | As those of us who can hunker down in our homes, traditional mourning rituals have been upended. Each of the 100,000 is an intolerable loss. |
| 1:04.0 | But how do we recognize that behind each death |
| 1:07.4 | is a human life? |
| 1:10.4 | It's hard. |
| 1:11.3 | We don't have easy answers for you, but we do have some ideas. That's today's show. Stick around. |
| 1:18.0 | In a moment, best-selling novelist Rebecca Mackay on making each death count and the long tale of grief. |
| 1:29.0 | But first, how did we get here? |
| 1:32.0 | It's only been a few months, but How did we get here? |
| 1:39.0 | It's only been a few months, but every single part of American life has been touched by loss. It's one person coming in from China. |
| 1:41.0 | We think it's going to have a very good ending. |
| 1:43.6 | You know, a lot of people think that goes away in April |
| 1:46.2 | with the heat. |
... |
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