New online at Friends Jour­nal, Philip Hard­en on the mil­i­taris­tic ter­mi­nol­o­gy we use for pandemics:

I’m remind­ed of this as the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic con­tin­ues to unfold, and so many in our coun­try turn to words of war­fare to describe their response: Fight. Bat­tle. Defeat. Com­bat. Ene­my. Doc­tors and nurs­es on the front lines. The gov­er­nor of my own state, address­ing an assem­bly of nation­al guard sol­diers acti­vat­ed in response to the pan­dem­ic, urged them to “kick coronavirus’s ass.” Per­haps such lan­guage aris­es eas­i­ly in a high­ly mil­i­ta­rized soci­ety that has waged “war” on every­thing from pover­ty to infla­tion to terror.

Quak­er Lan­guage in a Pandemic 

Why use terms of war to describe our response to COVID-19?

Friends Journal