Elysha Dicks is a big fan of the high-five.
At various points in the past, she has claimed to be attempting to “bring back the high-five.”
Not surprising, her efforts have been severely curtailed by the pandemic. When handshaking, fist bumping, and even elbow tapping genuinely frighten people, the possibility of slapping palms with someone other than your immediate family is nil.
Some might believe that thanks to COVID-19, the high-five is dead. The pandemic will cause permanent shifts in human behavior, including the end of handshakes and high-fives.
While this is possible, I also think it’s ridiculous. All one needs to do is read about the 1918 pandemic, which killed more than 50,000,000 people worldwide and 675,000 Americans (one third of those deaths occurring in a single month), to understand that much of what is happening today has happened before.
Back in 1918, as the pandemic raged, people around the world stopped shaking hands, and it was assumed that human beings would never routinely shake hands again. Newspapers and magazine articles argued that the handshake had become a permanent things of the past. A fossil of a bygone time. A casualty of a virus that ravaged the world.
By 1922, people were shaking hands again. By 1940, the 1918 pandemic had been all but forgotten by most Americans.
Mask-wearing was also protested during the 1918 pandemic. Several American cities mandated masks, and in every one of those cities, there were people refusing to wear the mask and organized protests against it. The difference was that in 1918, mask wearing was not politicized. Protests against mask wearing were not aligned to any specific political party because no politician was stupid enough to contradict public health experts and scientists.
Mask protesters were just stupid, selfish people acting stupidly and selfishly.
Those same, stupid, selfish people exist in our country today. Unfortunately, one of them is currently President, and he has managed to politicize the recommendations of public health experts and scientists. As a result, opposition to wearing the mask gained traction in the Republican party, resulting in the needless deaths of tens of thousands of Americans.
Nearly three out of every four politicians who have contracted COVID-19 are Republican.
Not surprising.
But all of this should be good news to Elysha, who still loves the high-five. While its possible that we may never return to handshakes and high-fives, these assertions have been made before and proven incorrect. Human beings are really good at catastrophizing their particular moment in history while forgetting all that has come before. We often assume that we are in the apex of human history – the worst, the best, the most uncertain, the most frightening, the most dangerous of times – when the truth is oftentimes something very different.
2020 has been an exceedingly challenging year. One of the more difficult years of my life.
But has 2020 been worse than 1918 when a far deadlier pandemic paralyzed our country and American soldiers fought overseas in a world war?
Has it been worse than any of the four years of the Civil War?
Or any of the four years of World War II?
Has 2020 been worse than the 89 years of legalized slavery in the United States or the nearly century-long enforcement of Jim Crowe laws in the South for Black Americans?
2020 has been an exceptionally challenging, heartbreaking year for all of us. For many, it has felt like the events of 2020 would never end.
But eventually, they will. Americans will move on. At some point we’ll even forget.
And I suspect that before long, we will shake hands again. And high-five.
In preparation for that glorious time, I suggest you watch this hilarious video on high five etiquette.
Prepare yourself for those days to come when we can once again touch random strangers in meaningful expressions of joy.
