Just before the Fourth of July, Thomas Sharp, a public-health officer in Monroe County, Ind., exhorted his community to be careful as it entered the next stage of coronavirus-inspired restrictions. “The only way that we can continue forward is for people to take personal responsibility for their health and others,” he said, adding: “Everybody needs to be nice to everybody because everybody’s in the same boat.”There is a long history of such appeals in times of emergency, as Elisabeth Clemens shows in “Civic Gifts: Voluntarism...

Source: Wall Street Journal July 19, 2020 21:22 UTC