Pandemics and Post-Pandemic Times

This essay investigates some of the major pandemics in human history and scrutinizes their sociological, economic, and political pay-offs. To what extent can pandemics transform our society? How do the pandemics in history relate to the current? The Plague of Athens caused disappointment towards Greek gods since the Athenians felt they were not getting enough support from Apollo. The Plague of Justinian brought revolts across the empire and led to the end of Classical Antiquity. The Black Death changed the future vision of Europeans significantly because death was omnipresent. Although the death toll of cholera pandemic was limited, it triggered stigmatization, violence, and racism towards Asian people, especially to Indians. The Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés would never have been able to colonize the Aztec civilization without the smallpox outbreak. After an episode of absurdism and Dadaism, the Spanish flu brought the Roaring Twenties with widespread use of radio, dance-halls, jazz, Harlem Renaissance, gay and lesbian scenes, and women’s suffrage. Coronavirus pandemic shows that society is digitizing at light speed among the art world. This essay also shows that our economy is a positive-sum economy in contrast to the zero-sum economy in times of the Black Death and before. There is also a delicate balance that must be maintained between keeping the pandemic under control and respecting the democratic principles. The essay concludes that each pandemic has an idiosyncratic nature and a pandemic can have different effects in different societies or regions in the world.

Pandémies et temps post-pandémiques Résumé Cette essai examine certaines des principales pandémies de l'histoire humaine et leurs effets sociologiques, économiques et politiques. Dans quelle mesure les pandémies peuvent-elles transformer notre société? Comment les pandémies de l'histoire sont-elles liées aux pandémies courantes? La peste d'Athènes a causé une déception envers les dieux grecs car les Athéniens ont estimé qu'ils ne recevaient pas suffisamment de soutien d'Apollon. La peste de Justinien a provoqué des révoltes dans tout l'empire et a conduit à la fin de l'Antiquité classique. La 'peste noire' a considérablement changé la vision future des Européens car la mort était omniprésente. Bien que le nombre de morts de choléra ait été limité, cette pandémie a déclenché la stigmatisation, la violence et le racisme envers les Asiatiques, en particulier les Indiens. Le conquéreur espagnol Hernán Cortés n'aurait jamais pu coloniser la civilisation aztèque sans l'épidémie de variole. Après un épisode d'absurdisme et de dadaïsme, la grippe espagnole a apporté les années folles avec une généralisation de la radio, des salles de danse, du jazz, de la Harlem Renaissance, des scènes gays et lesbiennes, et du suffrage féminin. La pandémie de coronavirus montre que la société se numérise à la vitesse de la lumière dans le monde des arts. Cet essai montre également que notre économie est une économie à somme positive contrairement à l'économie à somme nulle à l'époque de la peste noire et avant. Il existe également un équilibre délicat qui doit être maintenu entre la maîtrise de la pandémie et le respect des principes démocratiques. L'essai conclut que chaque pandémie a une nature idiosyncratique et qu'une pandémie peut avoir des effets divers dans différentes sociétés ou régions du monde. Hemisphere considering the fact that smallpox was already known in the Eastern Hemisphere since very ancient times. In 1928, Alexander Fleming showed up with his penicillin G, which was a great victory on some of the most dangerous infectious diseases. 5 It is not a secret anymore that penicillin was one of the major advancements in the early twentieth century, however, this "miracle drug" had a considerable impact on population growth. Aware of the fact, Florey was concerned about his role in the development of penicillin: I suppose we're glad now that it works, but then you've got to see the reverse side of the [Nobel] medal, because I'm now accused of being partly responsible for the population explosion, which is one of the most devastating things that the world has got to face for the rest of the century. 6 In 1927, the estimated world population was only 2 billion. At current, the population growth has come to gargantuan numbers, chiefly through the gradual disappearance of plagues and better health services.
The essay at hand has not the aim to follow the thread of developments in medical history, but to make it easier for the reader to follow the thoughts and arguments throughout it, and to provide comprehensive portrait of some of the major pandemics in human history and to scrutinize their sociological, economic, and political pay-offs.
History has endless examples of pandemics, but they need to be compiled and filteredideally through the methods of social science and history. The practice of such a complex task cannot be attained without extensive research with primary sources, in the first place, and, in the second place, with secondary sources or studies of the past in light of criticism of historical accounts. To uphold the zeal of historical study, the research approach is inspired by Fernand Braudel. Accordingly, it will not engage in the great exercise of scrutinizing a short term issue or a historical event, but instead, will focus on the longue durée. 7 The crux of this idea is, as widely known, to examine the long-term effects of the topic and to draw conclusions from historical patterns.

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Yersinia pestis is not fully eradicated yet. The last example is a small outbreak that occurred in July 2020 in the Inner Mongolia region of China. Even though it can be treated with antibiotics, people still die from the consequences of this bacterium. 7 Bringing here an age-old debate among historians. According to Thomas Carlyle, "the history of the world is but the biography of great men," whereas Lev Tolstoy thinks that "kings and generals are the slaves of history".

The Ancient Bubonic Plague
The amount of archival material regarding the Plague of Athens is trivial. We know from Thucydides and archaeological evidence that, starting from the second year of Peloponnesian Wars (430 BCE), the plague killed around 75,000 to 100,000 Athenians, nearly 25% of the city's population. 8 The disease would have entered the city through its sole port of food and supplies: Piraeus. 9 Possibly, Sparta and its allies were less affected by the plague in that Thucydides has recorded the following observation:

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Thucydides witnessed that, "After the purification, the Athenians then instituted and held for the first time the quadrennial Delian festival." It is likely that an important function of the festival was to appease Apollo after the plague because there was an important sanctuary of Apollo in Delos. the land. The land revenue in Constantinople decreased, the price of grain rose, and the army was weakened. Procopius wrote: "All work slackened; craftsmen abandoned all their crafts and every task which any man had in hand." 16 There were revolts across the empire. Justinian's empire collapsed, even though it was at the height of its conquests.
This plague brought most notably the end to Classical Antiquity. The new era brought in turn new world order with the rise of the Franks in Western Europe, the revived Goths in the sphere of influence of Romans, and the emergence of Islam in the Middle East.
The bubonic plague of 1346-52, now famously referred to as the Black Death, was one of the largest pandemics in human history. The memoir of Gabriele de' Mussi is one of the main sources about this huge public health disaster. 17 We know from Mussi that Mongolian Tartar army was devastated by the disease at the ports of Caffa. If the account is true, the Mongolians were throwing infected dead corpses with catapults into the city of Caffa. What seemed like mountains of dead were thrown into the city, and the Genoese tried to dump as many bodies as they could in the Black Sea. But this is hard to believe since human-to-human transmission from the buboes is rare.
According to another hypothesis, which relies more on rational thinking, the bacterium infiltrated the city through black rats or other rodents. 18 Although the origin of the Black Death is dubious, its spread to Europe through fleeing Italians is fairly well documented. 19  could not recover for a very long time. 36 Also in Spain, the Black Death did not have the supposed beneficial effect: according to recent estimates, the level of prosperity suffered such a severe blow that the level of prosperity before 1348 was not equaled anymore until the nineteenth century. 37 Under these circumstances, the aftermath of the plague did not put these countries on the path to modern economic growth.
The bubonic plague outbreaks lasted for more than 300 years. 38   Leopardi owes this to his friend Antonio Ranieri's advocacy with the authorities. The tomb of Leopardi was later moved to Parco Virgiliano -a site that is a tribute to poet Virgil -and proclaimed as a national monument. 50 The Conquer Through Smallpox The Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés would never have been able to colonize the Aztec civilization -an empire of an estimated 16 million people at the timewithout the smallpox outbreak. The origin of smallpox is unknown, but in ancient times, it existed in Egypt, India and China, and came to Europe after the eleventh century's Crusades. It remained endemic in these parts of the world for hundreds of years. When Europeans began to explore other parts of the world, they were vectors of these Variola germs. At that time, the Europeans were possessing natural immunity to this germ, but it was unknown to the Aztecs. Toribio de Benavente (also known as Motolinía), one of the twelve Franciscan friars who accompanied Cortés, provided the following description: As the Indians did not know the remedy of the disease, they died in heaps, like bedbugs. In many places it happened that everyone in a house died, and as it was impossible to bury States was involved in World War I, but it was at the same time dealing with the deadly influenza. One of the hardest choices of president Woodrow Wilson had to make was sending troops to Europe during this outbreak.
It is even believed that the pandemic hindered the major spring offensive of general Erich Ludendorff to Paris. As a matter of fact, the disease is blamed for the failure of Germany: "It was a grievous business having to listen every morning to the The simplicity of steam heat systems made them incredibly durable. They have lasted for generations. Human comfort was prevalent in the twentieth century, and we were little sensitized about the release of excess greenhouse gas emissions. As a consequence, roughly 70% of residential buildings in New York City are at present chronically overheated in winter. 58 Almost 70% of the city's carbon emission is said to come from residential buildings where fossil fuels and hot water are used for heat. women's suffrage. 60 The openly hedonistic culture of young people was possibly shocking for the older generations. 61 Today, there are so many social and sexual subcultures that it is no longer seen as moral decadence in most countries. Thus, a new Roaring Twenties cannot be considered as a trend for the 2020s, since there is already tolerance for this mainstream behavior.
The Coronavirus Pandemic SARS-CoV-2 spreads through human-to-human contact, more specifically by respiratory droplets that are produced during exhalation (e.g., breathing, speaking, singing, coughing, sneezing). There are many different measures governments can take in preventing this kind of germs, but an isolation or lockdown works quite well.
After the announcement of first lockdowns, there was social panic in some circles, shopkeepers feared their shops would be looted, empty streets seemed ominous. The normalization of life seemed far away, and there were speculations about a postapocalyptic world. That was true for an unfortunate minority, as we know from psychologists that some mental disorders are triggered from environmental stressors. 62 Yet, for centuries people have survived hardships: most people will bounce back. 63 The post-pandemic period will likely give expressions to joie de vivre and indulgence, but not to increased joie de vivre and overindulgence. Post-pandemic Wuhan was a case in point for the rest of the world: they have organized a water park music festival in the midst of 2020, and a crowded light show during the New Year's Eve.
As far as art is concerned, we initially thought that there were two trends: 1) demonstration of the sad beauty of streets without people by photographers, and 2) maintaining sexual excitement through sexting because of the low frequency of sexual intercourse, and by consequence nude selfies were considered as high art. 64 More importantly, the crypto art market with the non-fungible token (NFT) technology has shaken the art world. Some artists were selling their artworks for free on the Internet, while the same artists now receive thousands of dollars for similar artworks thanks to this technology.
The economic sequelae 65  The political and economic institutions are not ready for the pending changes. We have seen that the pandemic has deepened the institutional fault lines on the grounds that there is 1) erosion of expertise and autonomy in institutions, and 2) collapse in In countries where information circulates freely, citizens can hold their government accountable. The free media was one of the reasons why the 1918 influenza pandemic was called "the Spanish flu," because it was allowed to circulate news about the influenza in Spain. The media censorship in present-day China might have helped the country to avoid the term "the Chinese virus." Another pitfall of pandemic is that it can lead to the degradation of rule of law.
Democratic states must be able to argue why they are implementing certain measurements, albeit it is to control the pandemic. Measurements not only have to be useful, they also have to be necessary. Some states have circumvented the traditional legislative process to impose lockdown fines. They have to respect the usual process of law making, considering the fact that the current way of working can set a precedent.
Even during a pandemic, the constitution cannot be swept aside.

Conclusion 71
Contrary to popular belief, no lessons have been learned from history because there are simply no lessons to be learned from it. Friedrich Engels once wrote in a letter to his friend Karl Marx that "everything [is] to be re-enacted twice over, once as grand tragedy and the second time as rotten farce," 72 which is another way to say that history never repeats itself and definitely not in the same way. We have not seen any historical recurrence in this account as well, but the torch of knowledge must remain lit. This essay showed that pandemics have varying but considerable effects on humanity. We have retrospected to the disappointment of Athenians towards their gods in the fifth century BCE, the ending of Classical Era in the fifth century, the transition to another market system in the fifteenth century, the conquer of Latin America in the sixteenth century, a series of misfortunes in China, the Ottoman Empire, France and Spain in the seventeenth century, the rise of Hindu independence movement in the nineteenth 71 Perhaps this subject was not suitable to be explained in quantitative terms as people developed 'corona fatigue,' and numbers became meaningless. Take the example of this numerical delusion: 1 million seconds equals 11 and ½ days, but 1 billion seconds equals 31 and ¾ years. Exponential growth is usually not intuitive and difficult to understand. Even during a pandemic the morbidity and mortality data are being perceived as trite for some people. However, if we compare the general trends of the coronavirus pandemic with the past pandemics, we cannot say that we did not make the grade. Even at a time when population movements were a fraction of what they are today, far more people died during disease outbreaks. In the pre-corona era, considering human overpopulation, virologists were gloomy about the mortality rates of a potential pandemic. Unlike their predictions, the opposite was true. Humanity can look back on what has been achieved and can be proud of it. The production of various effective coronavirus vaccines in less than a year is a case in point. century, the breakthrough in infectiology and new art movements in the twentieth century. Each major outbreak left a different footprint in our world and transformed our societies dramatically in some ways. The twenty-first century will undoubtedly bring many novelties, but let us hope that it does not end in -stated in Hobsbawmian nomenclature -"The Age of Diseases."