A new agent. An old paradigm.

With the recent introduction of a novel coronavirus — a nightmare unto the consciousness of a nation's activity — we are once again facing our feared extinction. But not by the manner of a singular virus. Viral diseases come and go, leaving us stronger still within the complexity of immunity, and that of community.

No, the virus is an agent of something else, a reflection of human affliction. What threatens humanity is more our patterned unwillingness to raise our collective consciousness, limiting our capacities with each new contraction of mind, of emotion, of reason and action.

China's reaction to the COVID-19 outbreak that threatens the lives of its people, along with the rest of the world, has been under attack. Every step China has taken has been highly scrutinized and opined upon, as if anyone else could do better. It begs the question: like a virus attacking its host's immune system, are we ever immune to the evil thoughts of our own devising?

Distrust. Mistrust. Poisonous tone and temperament, as negativity begets greater negativity. A cancer upon all humanity.

A virus among us. A cancer between us. One threatens life. The other, all life.

For we are at greater threat in the leveraging of tragedies by an afflictive host than by an infective agent. Viruses emerge. They are then addressed through the innovative and cooperative spirit of man when faced with his own mortality.

This pattern is guided by a higher principle for all mankind. As well, the patterned weaponizing of one's loss for another's gain in the material places at risk the continuity of humanity in the physical.

Weaponize? Or synthesize?

The recent outbreak raises an awareness that we face an epidemic of ignorance greater than the threat of any virus known to mankind. Opinion pieces published with agendas wield a sword for greater discord, cutting at the heart of the human condition and our inherent connections.

Myopic in view, singular in purpose, the concern here is not merely that one is undereducated but that we appear unwilling to become better educated.

Ignorance as not only bliss to some, but blessed by others. When abnormality becomes normalized, humanity dehumanized, tragedies become weaponized. This is a cancer far greater and more reaching than any virus, known or yet to be known.

The days of zero sum are over. We are in the age of the One Sum Game. And our willingness to embrace the new paradigm is paramount not only to humanity's ability to thrive but to survive.

Which direction shall we take through thought and emotion toward action? At times of greatest need, where shall we run? Have we not learned anything from the history of humanity?

Our very nature as cooperative beings has ensured the survival of our species. And here we are, 10,000 years later, turning both toward and away: compassion laced with poisonous rhetoric and age-old racism, an intolerance still tolerated by too many. Mankind is quick to assume the worst of its kind, to turn upon itself — faster even than a virus may turn on its host.

China. The world. A new virus. An old paradigm. With the loss of even one life one too many, we face greater odds still. The survival of an entire species rests in our willingness to adapt, our capacity to adopt. To live beyond the limitations forged by fear and to trust beyond the known and familiar.

Trust. Narrowly defined, it serves the definer. It is elusive, as it is required for the sustainability of the one race above all others — the human race. A race better defined by compassion, tolerance, understanding. For those who seem least deserving are those most in need of serving.

And those most accommodating of our ways are a mere thread within a tapestry designed to move us outward and ever upward. All are our teachers. All students as well upon this level of experience — a classroom until the very end.

Painful is the journey where adversity meets opportunity. And humanity is what it means to be human, no matter how painful that might me. For the shared future we desire … one for all mankind.

David Scott Clegg is the author of The Longest Distance, founder and chief executive of UNITE Education.