The Social Contract

GEORGE:
Today: the social contract.
Who bears the risk, who gets protected, who gets blamed, and who gets forgotten—
in plague-time England and in COVID-era America.

Quick reminder: my Shakespeare can look back from the present day at his life on earth—films, scholarship, modern claims—
but he cannot predict the future. No prophecy.

WILL:
Memory, yes.
Foresight, no.

GEORGE:
When I say “social contract,” I don’t mean a philosophy seminar.
I mean the unwritten deal we make in a crisis:

Who is asked to sacrifice?
Who is allowed to stay safe?
Who is policed?
Who is believed?

WILL:
And who is… expendable.

Transcript

“The Social Contract: Who Bears the Risk?”

In every epidemic there’s a story people want to believe:
“We’re all in this together.”

And there’s a story the epidemic tells you—whether you like it or not:
Some people get to hide.
Some people have to show up.

WILL (dry): open voice control open voice control folder
And some people are called “heroes” because it is cheaper than paying them.

GEORGE:
Today: the social contract.
Who bears the risk, who gets protected, who gets blamed, and who gets forgotten—
in plague-time England and in COVID-era America.

Quick reminder: my Shakespeare can look back from the present day at his life on earth—films, scholarship, modern claims—
but he cannot predict the future. No prophecy.

WILL:
Memory, yes.
Foresight, no.

GEORGE:
When I say “social contract,” I don’t mean a philosophy seminar.
I mean the unwritten deal we make in a crisis:

Who is asked to sacrifice?
Who is allowed to stay safe?
Who is policed?
Who is believed?

WILL:
And who is… expendable.

GEORGE:
Exactly. Epidemics don’t only expose bodies. They expose values.

GEORGE:
Let’s begin with plague England.
One thing modern people forget is how physically unequal the city was.

Crowded housing. Shared yards. Shared water sources.
And if you were poor, “distance” wasn’t a choice.

WILL:
In my London, the poor lived on top of one another—
not because they loved crowds,
but because crowds were what they could afford.

GEORGE:
And enforcement often landed hardest on the poor.
In early modern plague policy, there were systems for confining infected households—the “shutting up” of houses—watchmen, restrictions, and the moral weight of being marked. Scholarly work on quarantine in early modern England describes how these policies affected far more than just mortality: daily life, mobility, and household survival. 

WILL:
To be “shut up” is not merely to be protected.
It is to be imprisoned by public fear.

GEORGE:
And here’s a sharp detail that makes this concrete: in parish-level research on plague years in London (late 1500s / early 1600s), servants and children show up as heavily impacted groups—people with less power and less control over their living conditions. 


WILL:
Servants.
Yes. They lived where they worked,
and their safety depended on their master’s decisions—or their master’s denial.

GEORGE:
So even when plague struck “everyone,” it did not strike everyone equally.

WILL:
No plague has ever done that.
Only poets pretend it does—when they wish to flatter the world with fairness.

onal—especially for the poor.

GEORGE (reading, narrative tone):
“The room is too small for fear, but fear comes in anyway.
A family sleeps in the same air.
A child coughs.
A mother counts the coughs the way she counts coins—
because both are running out.

In the morning a knock arrives—authorities, a neighbor, a watchman—
and the conversation is not about comfort.
It is about containment.

‘You must stay in.’

‘For how long?’

‘For as long as the city requires.’

Bread is promised.
Help is promised.
Mercy is promised.

But promises are light.
Hunger is heavy.

And the family learns a lesson no one teaches in school:
in plague time, safety is a privilege
and confinement is the price of poverty.”

WILL (soft):
That is true, sir.
And it is ugly.
Which is why people prefer the cleaner story.

2GEORGE:
Now let’s step into our century.

Public-health authorities and researchers have repeatedly emphasized that COVID outcomes were shaped by social determinants—income, housing crowding, access to healthcare, job exposure, and more—often hitting poorer and marginalized groups harder. 

WILL:
So your plague had microscopes—
and still, society arranged the risk.

GEORGE:
Yes.
And the term that defined so much of the lived experience was: essential worker.

Research specifically notes how essential workers often faced higher exposure risk and how structural factors left many communities—especially communities of color—more vulnerable. 

WILL:
“Essential” is a flattering word.
But it can become a trap:
“Essential” means “you must go,”
even when it is dangerous.

GEORGE:
Right.
And multiple studies found disparities in COVID infection and severity connected to race/ethnicity and socioeconomic factors. 

WILL:
So the old truth returned:
risk travels along the lines of power.

GEORGE:
One of the most common pandemic story beats—news reels, documentaries, even social media—was the hero montage:

nurses in masks

delivery drivers

grocery clerks

sanitation workers

Will, what do you notice about that kind of storytelling?

WILL:
The hero montage is sincere—
and it is also convenient.

It allows the comfortable viewer to admire sacrifice
without changing the conditions that require sacrifice.

GEORGE:
So “hero” can become a way of not looking too closely.

WILL:
Yes.
Applause is a kind of payment that costs the listener nothing.

George
Now Here’s the modern claim:
“Epidemics are great equalizers.”
Meaning: disease doesn’t care who you are; it levels society.
Will—your response?

WILL (immediate):
False.

GEORGE:
Tell us why—slowly, clearly.

WILL:
A disease may infect without reading your title, yes.
But the path to infection is built by society.

Who sleeps in crowded rooms?
Who must take public transport?
Who can refuse dangerous work?
Who can buy distance?

In my London, the poor could not purchase safety.
They could only hope.

GEORGE:
And that’s consistent with what we see in evidence from our era too: the WHO has documented that COVID-19 increased inequities and disproportionately affected poorer people and marginalized groups, shaped by social determinants. 

WILL:
So the claim is comforting, but it is a lullaby.

GEORGE:
Let’s sharpen it.
The “equalizer” claim often sneaks in because it’s partly true in a very narrow sense: anyone can get sick.
But the bigger truth is: exposure and outcome are patterned.



WILL:
Exactly.
And epidemics also reveal whose suffering is believed.

GEORGE:
That matters.
Even official U.S. policy analysis has emphasized that race and ethnicity can mark risk because of underlying conditions—occupation exposure, access to healthcare, and socioeconomic factors. 

WILL:
So the honest version is not “equalizer.”
It is “amplifier.”

GEORGE:
Epidemics amplify what was already there.

WILL:
And they test whether a society loves fairness as much as it loves slogans.

GEORGE (reading):
“The hidden message says the same thing it said yesterday:
‘You’re scheduled.’
I wash my hands until my skin feels like paper.
I pack a mask.
I check my temperature like it’s a confession.

At work the signs say:
‘We’re in this together.’
But the break room is too small,
and the customers get to be brave for five minutes and then go home.

I think:
If I don’t go in, I don’t eat.
If I do go in, I might bring something home.
And I realize the truth I didn’t want to learn:
for some people, “choice” is a luxury word.”

WILL (soft):
Yes.
Plague teaches the language of luxury.
It teaches you what words are only for the safe.

GEORGE:
So here’s our conclusion:
Epidemics don’t simply spread disease.
They spread pressure.
And pressure reveals the structure of a society.
The social contract is not what we claim in speeches.
It’s what we do when fear is expensive.

WILL:
And when fear is expensive, sir,
the poor pay first.

GEORGE:
Next episode: “Trust and Betrayal.”
Why misinformation spreads, why institutions lose credibility, why people cling to rumors—
and how truth-telling has to be humane or it fails.

WILL:
Truth without compassion is merely another weapon.

GEORGE:
See you next time.
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