I’m not supposed

to write about this; I have offered this discussion to several online platforms to no avail. I know this blog will make you think that I am totally insane — if you don’t think so already — but please give it a chance. One way to look at it is in the context of Illness as Metaphor — Susan Sontag’s book, which --though no one is quoting it presently — nevertheless has enormous relevance to COVID-19. At the very least we must not forget that COVID-19 is as much a metaphor as it is a real illness, which is what I have always said about AIDS. One gets in trouble for saying this, as those affected by any illness take it very seriously (and well they should!). But nevertheless as an artist and a gay man I can't help thinking a thing might very well be serious and real  — as well as very fantastical and unreal — at the same time. Note: if I suggest a particular illness is a metaphor, I am not suggesting said illness does not exist, or that you cannot suffer or die from it. Sontag wrote Illness as metaphor in the context of her own battle with cancer; she objected to the word ‘battle’ -- and generally objected to the notion that she brought cancer on herself because she couldn’t express anger. She wanted  doctors to deal with her cancer simply as an illness, removing  all the metaphors that infect it. I began writing about her book in the context of AIDS after discovering a gay writer named Casper G. Schmidt. Schmidt served as my inspiration for a novel and a play. He was a trained clinical psychologist with significant scientific credentials -- his essay titled "The Group-Fantasy Origins of AIDS" is a cogent and fascinating analysis of hysterical illnesses. Again, calm down. I am not saying AIDS or COVID-19 do not exist, or that they only exist in our brains. What I am suggesting is that the existence of hysterical illness (and‘mass hysteria') helps us to understand that sometimes we are looking at COVID-19 or AIDS through the veil of myth. Schmidt's findings are these. There have been several documented instances of hysterical illnesses that have led to extensive fatalities. Schmidt speaks of two -- one in Japan and one in North Caroline (as I remember). Both instances involved  a number of women who worked at factories in indescribably oppressive conditions — as kind of slave labour. During a period of particular stress nearly all -- or most -- of the workers got sick with a condition for which there was no discernible medical cause. Some even died. In one case the women all believed they had been bitten by an imaginary insect — which they insisted had made them ill. Let me be clear; people fell ill and died and there was no medical cause. What this means is that their symptons were not only real to them, but to their doctors also. It wasn’t all in their heads,  in other words mass hysteria had actually made them physically ill. This sounds incredibly bizarre, but it has been documented. Schmidt thought that AIDS might be just one such a mass hysteria. And before you dismiss him, consider the context. Schmidt’s thesis was that many who died of AIDS could not possibly have ever imagined aging, there was no model of a possible happy or successful future for them as gay men; they had been inculcated with the idea that they were depraved individuals who if they did not end up 'in the gutter' would probably commit suicide. (Remember there was no concept of ‘gay’ -- as we know it -- until 10 years before AIDS). When the Christian Right told these young men that their illness was punishment for egregious sexual sins, they subsequently became seriously ill and died. Of course these young men had been infected with HIV and had weakened immune systems. But many were also on pharmaceutical drugs (popping antibiotics) and street drugs (uppers/hallucinogens) and  also didn't eat much, as their focus was getting drugged up every day for a night on the town. In addition it’s important to note that there was an extremely homophobic anti-gay movement gaining popularity at precisely the same time. Anita Bryant (the ‘orange juice queen’) launched a campaign against homosexuals called ‘Save Our Children’in 1977. (Incidentally this name was recently appropriated by QAnon to support Donald Trump's campaign for president). Whether you buy it or not -- that’s Schmidt’s point of view. So how does this apply to COVID-19? Again, COVID-19 is a real illness which just happens to be accompanied by a potent metaphor. Whereas cancer was thought to be the result of ‘repressed anger’ and AIDS rumoured to be ‘god’s punishment,' COVID-19 is an illness that has a tendency to effect the ‘marginalized' -- more specifically those we care little about and feel guilty for ignoring, i.e. the old (especially those in seniors' homes), people of colour, and the working classes. It is an illness that makes us guilty and demands selflessness, we must necessarily give up so much for others, only because we care. This is not to challenge the idea that the old, non-white and poor are the most seriously affected by the illness;  but rather to say that COVID-19 is about guilt and victimhood as much as it is about anything. If you are not concerned enough about COVID-19 victims to change your lifestyle, then you are anything from socially unaware to fascist -- and any number of epithets may be hurled against you. This is, after all, the time of the victim. We live in fear of everything — measuring our lives in very fragile, silver spoons — everything gets worse by the minute, and we are in a race to outdo each other -- not only in our own victimhood, but in our devotion to those who need help. All of this has not helped us to deal  -- realistically or efficiently -- with COVID-19. We seem to think that by getting vaccinated we will wipe the world clean of injustice, when what is more likely is that we will become a bunch of vaccinated idiots, confident in our moral superiority, but still blithely committing the same atrocities in the name of class, gender, sexuality, age, and everything else. We cannot see the forest for the trees, and frankly, it’s now somewhat of a jungle.