An event of this scale is like a collision with a comet

Calamitous: the USS Shaw is hit during the Pearl Harbor attack, 1941

So here we are, 18 months into the greatest calamity to have befallen the Australian people since World War II, and it’s reasonable to ask: what have we learnt, how have we changed and what might lie ahead? An event of this scale is like a collision with a comet: it may not destroy life, but it most surely alters our trajectory.

On the other side of the pandemic, hopefully from next year onwards, there will be relief and celebration that the worst is over. We will rebuild, recreate, perhaps even procreate in joyful expectation of better times ahead. And as painful as the current situation in Afghanistan has been, it could turn out to be an event, not unlike Pearl Harbor, that galvanises and unites the West. What could emerge from chaos is a world increasingly divided by tectonic plates with different political systems moving in opposite directions. Australia’s problem is that we have prosperity interests on one plate and security interests on the other.

An aerial view of the Pearl Harbor attack. Picture: US Navy NH 50931

On the home front, Australians have embraced the digital world, from QR codes to online shopping. We’ve accepted the concept of online medical consultations. Streaming services have flourished while we’ve been stuck at home. I suspect many of these learnt behaviours will be carried forward.

The work from home movement wouldn’t have got off the ground without a sustained global pandemic forcing employers to trust their workers and workers to learn new technology. Had the coronavirus landed a decade earlier, the WFH experience would have been a disaster. It succeeded partly because the broadband network had been rolled out and could carry the internet load.

In the pandemic’s aftermath I suspect there will be a reassessment of the relationship between the states and the Commonwealth. After all, we may need to manage more pandemics down the track. And surely we will need to rethink defence strategies based on doubts that the US will come to our aid. A people unused to calamity and threats from abroad will look for safety and security. In a post-Covid world, maybe we’ll be more constrained, less enamoured with the friendships we’ve collected and far more focused on matters of kith and kin amid the cocooned safety of the family home.

Fashion from the 1920s. Picture: Fashion / Dress Australia's First Century Historical

There is an argument that the post-Covid 2020s will replicate the roaring 1920s, when a libertine raciness set the tone in fashion, dance and song. (Maybe in the 2020s more suit-wearing men will go completely and wantonly sockless?) But the 1920s were very different times. The geopolitical setting was assured: to the victors went the spoils, the frivolities, the celebrations of life. There may not be a clear geopolitical winner in the 2020s, and this will deliver to some in the West a pervading sense of insecurity. Suddenly, all that global travel doesn’t look as appealing as it once did.

But then there’s the pent-up demand of the greatest retirement generation in history. Many will downsize, seize the moment, and break free in a burst of bucket-list-ticking activities such as Rhine River or Kimberley cruising. Millennials, on the other hand, are broaching middle age and in the coming decade must deal with relationship breakdowns, the wrangling of teenagers and the anxiety of career frustration.

The 2020s will not deliver restitution of our previous way of life. That is gone forever. The winners will be those who adapt to life’s new constraints and opportunities. The losers will be those sidelined as they wait forlornly for things to return to normal.