Roger Chartier has a great article on Covid 19 and the meaning of it as an event. As he states, there has been so much written about Covid from health care advice, origin, debate about responses, debate around interventions, debate around treatment.
There has also been much written about what this portends for the future. Will we build back better or will we descend into a dystopian world? Will lockdowns, masks, remote working be the new normal or will we inexorably move towards a normality that was seen almost two years ago.
He draws on the work of Foucault's famous work, the Birth of the Clinic where an event is "an eruption, an emergence, a birth". In that sense there really is no origin as Covid it is an event that has always been present but has erupted into full consciousness and marks a change in history. From that point of view, the pandemic is a prefigurement of our world.
He does have a contrasting view from another philosopher who is more optimistic and argues that "right decisions and actions will not only be able to tame it, but also to influence or reverse the process that made it possible"
Which of these scenarios will be the one we live with is impossible to know as we are living through it. But this living through it is creating free floating and expressed anxiety and depression.
We need to find a way to come together peacefully, with understanding and with compassion as this pandemic has had profound effects on our collective psyche. But is is interesting to read reflective works of this type that help us think about if differently and perhaps make different choices and enter into constructive dialogue.
Roger Chartier - On Covid 19 - The Meaning of the Event
There has also been much written about what this portends for the future. Will we build back better or will we descend into a dystopian world? Will lockdowns, masks, remote working be the new normal or will we inexorably move towards a normality that was seen almost two years ago.
He draws on the work of Foucault's famous work, the Birth of the Clinic where an event is "an eruption, an emergence, a birth". In that sense there really is no origin as Covid it is an event that has always been present but has erupted into full consciousness and marks a change in history. From that point of view, the pandemic is a prefigurement of our world.
He does have a contrasting view from another philosopher who is more optimistic and argues that "right decisions and actions will not only be able to tame it, but also to influence or reverse the process that made it possible"
Which of these scenarios will be the one we live with is impossible to know as we are living through it. But this living through it is creating free floating and expressed anxiety and depression.
We need to find a way to come together peacefully, with understanding and with compassion as this pandemic has had profound effects on our collective psyche. But is is interesting to read reflective works of this type that help us think about if differently and perhaps make different choices and enter into constructive dialogue.
Roger Chartier - On Covid 19 - The Meaning of the Event
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