Supporting Solidarity Over Orthodoxy

In the opening days of the pandemic—amid so much grief, fear, and uncertainty—something profoundly positive emerged. At dusk, apartment blocks became amphitheaters. People stepped onto balconies and stoops, banged pots and pans, clapped into the cold air, and sang across courtyards to honour frontline workers. Neighbours taped hearts in their windows. Teenagers ran groceries to elders. Seamstresses stitched makeshift masks on kitchen tables. None of this was coordinated. People across classes and backgrounds saw each other’s distress and isolation and found diverse ways to express the very same sentiment: I’m right here with you.

Alas, we all know what happened next.

That sense of togetherness unraveled—partly due to stress and exhaustion, and partly due to a series of bitter, mostly online arguments over school closures and masks, over where and when to reopen businesses, over vaccine mandates. Today, half a decade later, our societies continue to relitigate the questions of who got the pandemic policies right—judging based on mortality rates, school achievement, and scores of other factors.

But there’s a question from the legacy of the pandemic that’s even more important to consider:

How do we recover the solidarity that we had and lost?

It’s a question that matters not just for the future of public health but also our capacity to manage the threats posed by climate, AI, and democratic decay.

In a recent conversation with The New York Times columnist Ezra Klein, the physician Rachael Bedard—who served on the front lines of the pandemic—offers a framework for thinking about what really happened. “Solidarity” gave way to “orthodoxy.” Early messaging—“flatten the curve for others”—invited solidarity. It asked people to endure inconvenience for someone they might never meet. But, in time, many came to feel that expectations around public health orders were oversold or under-explained. Mandates arrived without enough attention to questions like: why now, for how long, what changes the rule, and where are individuals and families entitled to autonomy? Online social shaming sometimes became a tool of enforcement.

“Orthodoxy is enforced,” Bedard says. “Solidarity is built.”

I’m a firm believer in the power of collective action, including vaccines and prudent safety orders on public health. At the same time, a lesson of the pandemic is that strict enforcement of rules requires commensurate attention to cultivating feelings of respect and participation. Without this attention, policies can only win compliance at best. They rarely build conviction. And they sometimes backfire, pushing fence‑sitters toward anger or detachment.

Solidarity involves the intellectual humility of explaining “here’s what we know; here’s what we don’t; here’s what will make us change course.” It requires patience. It involves the management of expectations. And it requires deep listening to those bearing disproportionate costs.

I share all of this not as a criticism of public health officials during the pandemic. We were in uncharted waters. Leaders did the best they could in conditions of uncertainty and out of a drive to save lives. But we need to learn some lessons for the sake of other important public policy issues we face.

Consider climate. Several years ago, the French government proposed fuel taxes as an economically sensible solution to the externality of carbon pollution. In response, the “Yellow Vests” movement shut down traffic to protest the costs to working-class people. Something similar happened with Canada’s “Freedom Convoys” in the years that followed. It’s easy to see these movements as simple attacks on prudent environmental policy. But there’s also something more than that. People want to know: Do I count in this economic transition? Are you with me when my commute has no alternative, when my margins are thin? Am I being seen? Climate policy that feels like orthodoxy—laws handed down without active listening and visible reciprocity—can invite revolt. Climate policy with solidarity—like, for example, rebates that reach those most affected, investments in alternatives before penalties, and local voice in design—invites partnership.

Over recent years, I’ve been researching and writing on how belonging is a fundamental precondition for solving the challenges that humanity faces today. Solidarity is a key element of belonging.

Etymologically, solidarity traces to the Latin solidus: solidity, wholeness. In French law, solidarité has traditionally meant a shared obligation among parties—if one party failed, others bore the weight. Over time, it came to mean mutual responsibility among people more generally. That’s the bridge to belonging: to belong is to be held in right relation—to people, to place, to shared power, to purpose. We experience ourselves as part of a whole that’s worth defending. The costs we carry for one another feel meaningful, not externally imposed.

Psychologically, solidarity changes the calculus of sacrifice. When I feel genuinely included—respected, recognized, invited to reciprocate—I’m more willing to accept inconvenience, costs, or risks for the common good. The opposite is also true: When I feel patronized, voiceless, manipulated, or surveilled, the same request can feel like domination.

Health Essential Reads

Shaping Character in the Presidential Fitness Test

The Power of a Correct Diagnosis

Solidarity—like belonging—is about agency. It’s the difference between “you must” and “we can.”

We’re still navigating the many costs of COVID. But we can also learn some valuable lessons that can serve us in the future.

In those first nights of the pandemic, on apartment balconies and neighbourhood stoops, collective action wasn’t enforced; it emerged organically. People built a sense of “we” to traverse a difficult situation. This is what humanity needs in moments of profound challenge. To win that spirit back—as we solve future crises, whether in public health, climate, AI, or democracy—leaders need to adopt an ethos of “with, not for,” putting the work of listening, consultation, and adaptability front and center. This is a moment for investing in technical solutions to serious problems. But today, it’s just as important to invest in the personal work of building solidarity.