Solidarity and stoicism

Call us biased, but SEC Newgate CEO Fiorenzo Tagliabue seems to have the measure of our current strife. He wrote to us all yesterday, describing the new and adversarial ‘framework’ the world faces. “Yet...we are experiencing a great sense of community and belonging,” he rightfully noted. Fiorenzo went onto to quote German philosopher Hannah Arendt: “...crises unveil questions that requires new replies.”

For our part, we dusted off our classics books and found some wisdom from Roman philosopher, Seneca the Younger: “I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent – no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.”

The ‘crisis’, ‘emergency’ or ‘epidemic’ – whatever you may call it – has created a paradigm shift in the way we do business. Whether we like it or not, we need to be more like Seneca and Arendt in accepting it and moving on to find solutions to our problems. Alongside that stoic stance, a bit of worldwide solidarity, as former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown noted on BBC Radio 4 Today this morning, could go a long way.

You can’t make a vaccine out of solidarity, of course, but the good news is that famed AIDS researcher David Ho is on the case with his team at Columbia University. Bloomberg has written a must-read profile of the man here. The technology industry has also offered up some optimism today, with the likes of Apple, Lyft, Uber, Adobe and Twitch still hiring, according to The FT.

With the solidarity, stoicism and optimism flowing, we end on tenacity as Queen Elizabeth II, 93 and 3’4, has put herself in self-isolation as she travelled from Buckingham Palace to Windsor Castle. It goes to show that social distancing is for monarchs and corgis too.