Rule Bending

Michele Gelfand has written an interesting opinion piece. She suggests that 'tighter' societies (where people show a greater willingness to follow rules and reduced tolerance of rule breaking) have performed better in the Covid-19 pandemic than 'looser' counterparts (https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2021/feb/01/loose-rule-breaking-culture-covid-deaths-societies-pandemic ). Gelfand illustrates this, by contrasting Japan with Mexico. The two countries have very similar population sizes but Mexico has experienced a Covid-19 death toll, thirty times that of Japan. She also points to the US, where some people appeared much more concerned about being required to wear facemasks, than contracting or transmitting the viral infection. She doesn't suggest that 'looser' societies are inferior to 'tighter' (or vice versa) but appeared surprised that the former didn't adapt more quickly (becoming a bit 'tighter' for a period). I am uncertain whether Gelfand's parable of the Dodo is especially helpful. It is certainly true that this flightless pigeon, with no fear of ground-based predators (there weren't any), was wiped out on the island of Mauritius. Extinction occurred, within 100 years, of its coming into contact with hungry sailors. Dodos had, however, nothing to base their change of circumstances on. They were neither intelligent nor could they take any lessons from the experiences of other birds that had had to respond to a sudden change in circumstances. Even if the latter were possible, 100 years would be too short a time for the Dodo to regain flight and the fear response. We humans are in a much better situation, when it comes to reacting to threats (indeed, we can see how other societies have fared). Hopefully, the lessons learned (a phrase I hate- what else can you do with a lesson?) from the Covid-19 pandemic, will help us deal with later threats (such as climate change)!