COVID-19: This pandemic is an opportunity for radical simplification | The Business Standard
Skip to main content
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Friday
January 27, 2023

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 2023
This pandemic is an opportunity for radical simplification

Thoughts

Andreas Kluth
26 April, 2020, 12:15 pm
Last modified: 26 April, 2020, 12:55 pm

Related News

  • Genome sequencing reports of Chinese nationals infected with Covid by Sunday: IEDCR
  • Govt issues 8-point guidelines for Eid-ul-Azha prayers
  • Covid deaths, cases again on the rise
  • Who managed Covid-19 best, and why?
  • Omicron 'stealth' Covid variant BA.2 now dominant globally

This pandemic is an opportunity for radical simplification

Our lives and our societies have been getting far too complex. What better time to push the reset button than now?

Andreas Kluth
26 April, 2020, 12:15 pm
Last modified: 26 April, 2020, 12:55 pm
Marie Kondo is a Japanese lifestyle guru who promises to help unclutter your home. Photo: Bloomberg
Marie Kondo is a Japanese lifestyle guru who promises to help unclutter your home. Photo: Bloomberg

Only a few months into the Covid-19 pandemic, its disruption of our lives might still seem to be no more than a giant pause — global in scale and unprecedented, yes, but nonetheless temporary. But what if, as some experts reckon, this pause lasts years? What if there's no return to normality even when it's over? Maybe this pandemic isn't an interlude, but a reset.

A reset to what? My guess is that it'll amount to a great simplification. A simplification of our lives, priorities, schedules, memberships, finances, relationships and maybe even world views. But also a simplification of our societies. That's because one of the side effects of Covid-19 is to expose the accumulation over decades — at least in the wealthy West — of untenable complexity in the individual, political and economic spheres of life.

In the individual context, the symptoms of complexity have been hiding in plain sight for years. One word for it is clutter. During that age of innocence that ended around January 2020, it was just too easy to buy stuff, and too hard not to. So things were piling up faster than we could organize, store or dispose of them, and certainly faster than we could enjoy them.

The proof includes the stunning success of somebody like Marie Kondo, a Japanese lifestyle guru who promises to help unclutter your home. Her approach, she says, is inspired by Shintoism, for who understands simplicity better than the people who also brought you Zen? In practice, Kondo wants you to look at all your stuff and keep asking: "Does it spark joy?" Usually, the answer is no, and out it goes.

The same clutter, until recently, extended to the rest of our middle-class lives. It was becoming hard to manage our calendars and travel, whether for trips overseas or around town. But we put up with the hassles because we were more afraid of missing out on opportunities of all kinds: professional, romantic or social. Double- and triple-booked, those of us fortunate enough to have good incomes have stressed over trade-offs between a gallery opening, a dinner party, a lecture or the gym.

Something similar was happening in the societies of rich countries. We kept adding layers of complication: new bureaucracies, legislation, divisions of labor, tax loopholes, and so forth. The European Union is one example, but the U.S. is arguably worse. According to one influential thesis proposed in 2013, America has become a "kludgeocracy."

"Kludge" is a term from the software world for a clumsy patch that doesn't solve the bigger issue, thereby creating even more complexity and future problems. This is easily observed in America's contemporary governance, or in its systems of health care, education and taxation. Ask, for example, any new visitor to the U.S. what the following gibberish could be about: 401(k), IRA, Roth IRA, Keogh? Nobody would guess it has something to do with retirement saving.

Such byzantine decay is in fact a recurring historical phenomenon, as described in 1988 by the American anthropologist Joseph Tainter in his book "The Collapse of Complex Societies." By his count, complexity and an inability to simplify brought down some two dozen civilizations, from the Mycenaean and Minoan to the Hittite and Mayan, as well as several Chinese dynasties and the Western Roman Empire.

Collapse isn't necessarily as scary as it sounds, by the way. It's merely a society's rapid and involuntary simplification. Yes, some collapses have segued into "dark ages," but they needn't have. The alternative is to embrace simplification and call it innovation, if that helps.

Thanks to Covid-19, we may now be at such a turning point. As a first sign of rapid simplification, global supply chains are dissolving, and often being reassembled in much more rudimentary ways. Simplification may also cause upheaval in our health care, tax and welfare systems, as it becomes clear that those who rely most on medical or financial help cannot even navigate the complexities of getting it. In some countries, the reforms may come through populist revolt; the better way is to do it deliberately and thoughtfully.

Closer to home, many of us have already begun to simplify. If we used to fear missing out, now there's little to miss out on, which is the best excuse for staying home with the family. Frivolous connections are being pruned, while meaningful ones are revived and cultivated during "happy hours" on Zoom. Prodigal and exotic travel is out, so nobody feels bad about "staycations."  In everything from diet to medicine and fashion, "simple is the new black."

What many of us are realizing in this pandemic is that we need much less than we thought we wanted only a few months ago. Does it spark joy? If not, out. We may one day look back at Covid-19 with gratitude.

Andreas Kluth, is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. He was previously editor in chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist.

This article first appeared on Bloomberg.com, and is published by special syndication arrangement.

Top News

Coronavirus Pandemic / Coronavirus impact / Simplification

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  •  Gautam Adani, center.Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg
    What really worries Indians about Adani's empire
  • Representational image. A liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker is tugged towards a thermal power station in Futtsu, east of Tokyo, Japan November 13, 2017. REUTERS/Issei Kato
    Bangladesh seeks spot LNG cargo for first time in 8 months
  • Infograph: TBS
    State banks spend 80% of their forex for govt imports in H1

MOST VIEWED

  • Dr Ahsan H Mansur, Executive Director, Policy Research Institute. Illustration: TBS
    Twin shocks call for stronger domestic policy response
  • Sketch:TBS
    Why we need consumer education for consumer wellbeing
  • Sketch: TBS
    'Amrit Kaal' of the Indian economy
  • Illustration: TBS
    Australia Day 2023: The past, present and future of Australia-Bangladesh relations
  • Sketch:TBS
    The power of nonverbal behaviour in classroom education
  • Big tech helps big oil spread subtle climate denialism
    Big tech helps big oil spread subtle climate denialism

Related News

  • Genome sequencing reports of Chinese nationals infected with Covid by Sunday: IEDCR
  • Govt issues 8-point guidelines for Eid-ul-Azha prayers
  • Covid deaths, cases again on the rise
  • Who managed Covid-19 best, and why?
  • Omicron 'stealth' Covid variant BA.2 now dominant globally

Features

Sketch:TBS

Why we need consumer education for consumer wellbeing

11h | Thoughts
Dr Ahsan H Mansur, Executive Director, Policy Research Institute. Illustration: TBS

Twin shocks call for stronger domestic policy response

12h | Thoughts
December-er shohor, taxi taken for airport and the Park Street bathed in lights. Photo: Jannatul Naym Pieal

Exploring Kolkata on foot, empowered by Google Maps

12h | Explorer
Island hopping in Bangladesh?

Island hopping in Bangladesh?

14h | Panorama

More Videos from TBS

Kajol’s road paintings bring change in Gafargaon

Kajol’s road paintings bring change in Gafargaon

1d | TBS Stories
Carew & Company witnessed a remarkable growth

Carew & Company witnessed a remarkable growth

1d | TBS Stories
Gavi may have to leave Camp Nou

Gavi may have to leave Camp Nou

1h | TBS SPORTS
After all the controversies, how is Shah Rukh Khan's ‘Pathaan’?

After all the controversies, how is Shah Rukh Khan's ‘Pathaan’?

3h | TBS Entertainment

Most Read

1
Picture: Collected
Bangladesh

US Embassy condemns recent incidents of visa fraud

2
Four top bankers arrested in DSA case filed by S Alam group 
Bangladesh

Four top bankers arrested in DSA case filed by S Alam group 

3
Illustration: TBS
Banking

16 banks at risk of capital shortfall if top 3 borrowers default

4
Photo: Collected
Splash

Hansal Mehta responds as Twitter user calls him 'shameless' for making Faraaz

5
A frozen Beyond Burger plant-based patty. Photographer: AKIRA for Bloomberg Businessweek
Bloomberg Special

Fake meat was supposed to save the world. It became just another fad

6
Representational Image
Banking

Cash-strapped Islami, Al-Arafah and National turn to Sonali Bank for costly fund

EMAIL US
[email protected]
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2023
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - [email protected]

For advertisement- [email protected]