me, Me, ME!

Aditya Chakrabortty opines that extreme selfishness makes collective responding to social crises, next to impossible (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/22/covid-climate-crisis-politics-individualism). Chakrabortty notes that sensible scientists and politicians advocated similar responses to the coronavirus pandemic and climate breakdown. In essence, their advice, about interventions, was "to go in early, go big and not to pretend you can strike a special deal with a lethal force". Chakrabortty describes how, in his view, the English pandemic response was compromised by people, maintaining they were concerned about their 'freedoms'. He suggests these folk were actually showing extreme individualism (i.e. selfishness). Chakrabortty notes how quickly talk in relation to both crises switched to there being a trade-off between 'lives and livelihoods'. We have already been told that we must 'learn to live with the Covid19 virus' (probably true). Chakrabortty suggests that the advocates of extreme selfishness, will soon say that we have to 'learn to live with climate change'. I fear he may have a point, as extreme individualism appears to be on the rise.