Ten Corona Lessons (For Now, and a Better Future)
Eliran Bar-El
- This ‘natural disaster’
is not natural—if anything, it’s social
However tempting and consoling it may be, to think of this pandemic as a
natural occurrence entirely out of our control, this is a gross and dangerous
mistake; in fact, this calamity is not only natural. Recent months have proven
how much and how deep the natural world is intertwined with the social. The
mere variance in death toll, different as it is between the nations, indicates that
what we do, or not do, matters. It is not just that ‘nature’ invaded upon us
from the outside. Rather, ‘nature’ is also within us, and we interact with it,
changing it, creating and destroying it. China’s place-in-the-social-space,
being the world’s factory, must be considered as part of the multiple causes
that created this epidemic; and the globalisation through which the west
consumes what the east produces made this into a pandemic. Therefore, to keep
ignoring our interaction with nature, and its change along the way, would only
mean more destruction, and more death.
- The pandemic exposed our unsustainable way of life…
Looking back, at before the outbreak, all seemed to be well. For many,
especially those whose voices we heard on the media, life consisted of eating
out, dining in, flying away, buying out, buying in and reproducing ourselves
through digital content. The underside of this life, that of slums and grim death,
was pushed out of sight, only to resurface every now and then in order to
remind us that ‘we’ are so lucky and privileged not to be living in constant
war-like situations, as in most places of the global south-east. The division
of the world, back when Corona still meant beer, was clear: the east produces
and desires, while the west consumes and enjoys. This division of labour, by
which material and manual labour is located in the east and intellectual labour,
such as services and content is in the west, must change. This change must start
from within: less prepare-processed-packaged food, less frequent flights and
drives, and much less consumption.
- … And our racist
Eurocentric ideology
As much as it is painful to admit, it is also crucial: Europe, on the
whole, lost its first battle against the virus. To win the war, things must
change, and this change must also begin from within. Europe, and especially the
UK, were so late in responding to the Corona with serious and effective measures,
also because of the presumption that China’s and other ‘oriental’ measures were
inapplicable to ‘us’: ‘we don’t restrict movement; we don’t shut down
businesses’. This is the other side of arguing ‘they’re unfit for our
democracy’. This attitude resulted in weeks of underestimating the outbreak,
and therefore abstaining from seriously facing the facts, which were already
obscured by orientalist, Eurocentric ideology.
- ‘Each to his own’
will kill us all
Another fundamental lesson of this socio-natural pandemic is that it is
a world event. Notwithstanding the numerical variation in casualties caused by
our different national policies, the qualitative effect of change is
over-arching. As people travel, so do viruses; and as travel is global, so is
the pandemic. In this sense, nationalistic logic by which each nation is responsible
only for its citizens is futile. Take the US: their lack of unity and uniform
action against the pandemic translated into more than 50 actors competing over
essential PPE resources on the world market. This, of course, meant the loss of
many American lives. Moreover, lacking any such directed inter-state
coordination, people move around between states and compromise efforts for
isolating outbreaks. The same holds for the world: with no coordinated
emergency policies in place, the very particularistic logic of ‘each to his
own’ will make the virus invincible. Universal measures must be put in place
for such times, to prevent lazy, aggressive, and ignorant leaders from destroying
the world.
- Science will not
save us: we know less than we think …
If something is clear by now, it is that science on its own is
insufficient. In contrast to its common and popular image, science, all of it,
is inexact. In fact, a plurality of models often have diverse predictions and
opposite policy implications. This is normal for scientists. Since science is
opposed to the market logic of competition and self-interest, it relies on
cooperation and collaboration; however, and this also must be said, more
cooperation means more conflict. Hence, arguments in science are normal. Luckily,
scientists don’t kill each other in rebuttal, but produce better and more
consistent arguments. In this sense, science can only bring forth the truths of
different beings: a virus, society, the brain, or atom. For each of them there
are inconsistencies and conflicts. The question then, in such cases where
science must exceed the lab or classroom and be implemented worldwide, is how
to decide from within science which is correct (method, cure, or approach)? Here,
politics and philosophy enter the scene, and with them priorities and interests,
both public and private.
- … But the keyworkers will save us—it’s time to save them
As the world experiences the pandemic, we see what roles are really
important for the healthy functioning of our societies. Surprisingly, these are
not so much the content producers/consumers of the ‘business as usual’ culture,
but more the underpaid, overlooked, and socially repressed: teachers, nurses,
drivers, and social workers—such ‘mundane’ vocational connectors turn out to be
the bolts that keep the machine together. To save our societies, we must save
them. It is best to strike while the iron is hot and memory is fresh. Meaningful,
revolutionary reforms are needed in our socio-national priorities. How could we
have economically and politically ignored the insurmountable role of teachers
and nurses over past decades? While fighting imaginary enemies such as
‘terrorists’, we ignored what is really needed for a healthy, safe and secure
society. This can, and must change, now.
- State intervention
is not necessary; it is a contingent evil
Usually, we don’t like it when states intervene, in economics or
politics. Surely, this ignores the base-level regulation of the state over the
economy. Still, bail-outs and wars seem exceptions, not the rule. However, as
recent decades show, the exception has become the rule. The state intervenes
when it tells us there is no other way: ‘banks will collapse unless we save
them’; either we infiltrate Iraq, or there will be no democracy’. Opposed to
common leftist dogmas of rejecting state interventions (based on either
‘free-market’ fantasies or ‘permanent state of exception’ fears), these happen
all the time, when it suits the state to say such interventions are vital. The
solution is not to throw away the baby with the bathwater. We must reject the
necessity, not the intervention. We all saw recently how states can take
measures that go against pure rationalistic, egoistic, market logic. By directing
factories produce certain products, for instance, states intervene for the good
of the many. We can use this intervention, as it happens, as a platform for
advancing the fundamental values through which we sustain our shared common
existence: health, education, and dignity for all.
- Life will not go back to normal; there's nowhere to return …
The easiest thing to do in trauma is not to think about it. But as every
traumatised person knows, we must talk about it. Not talking about it would
mean succumbing to the drive or injunction ‘go back to normal(!)’. We don’t
have to go back to normal for two reasons: first, there is nowhere to go back
to; second, repetition is impossible. The drive to return to our previous
pre-Covid life, is just that—a drive, not an instinct. As creatures of habit,
our action is guided towards self-preservation not an external goal, just as
states all strive for maintaining their power. Human action, socially driven
and politically organised, is always against real change. We change
everything—leaders, parties, and laws—so as to prevent real change of our form of
action and consumer habits. Akin to the relapse drive of the addict, on the
brink of change anxiety takes over. Courage is needed. To keep pushing through
the change is not to imagine an impossible repetition in a world of change, but
to accept that what repeats is always the impossibility itself. Thus, we take
control of the change in our social habits—economic and political—instead of
being controlled.
- … And this is not necessarily a bad thing
Breaking out of a routine, whether voluntarily or not (as the two are
indistinguishable at an unconscious level) is a rupture. It hurts. But freeing
ourselves of something bad, is not a bad thing. And if our habitual way of life
has at least sped up if not outright generated the current peril, then losing
this way of life, destructive, aliening, and unequal as it is, is a good thing.
This is not meant to be a statement of blind optimism or some crazed
romanticism. Rather, it is the reckoning that there is an openness in the
future of our social life. It is an opportunity for change, not a solution in
itself but an invitation to one. Precisely the halting of our normal activism
and activity is the grounds for genuine thinking about and of the new. As the
(misattributed) Gramscian phrase goes, ‘the old world is dying, and the new
world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters’. Yet, these are only ‘monsters’
from the perspective of the old, ancient routine.
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