, Columnist
Arizona Covid Debate Exposes Our Loss of Trust
Confusion over the state's latest case numbers highlights a fundamental problem of our age.
Reading the signs isn’t that easy.
Photographer: MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images
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“We must love one another or die,” said W.H. Auden, in a poem that he wrote on New York’s 52nd Street while waiting for news that the Second World War had been declared. It was the end of what he called a “low and dishonest decade.” The poem bears re-reading, and if we alter his words slightly, we may be getting close to the fundamental problem of our age. We must trust one another or die. And for many reasons, widely covered, we no longer do.