| James Wallbank on Thu, 12 Mar 2020 14:45:16 +0100 (CET) |
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| Re: <nettime> coronavirus questions |
Thanks Felix!I'd just started to compile a response which you've eclipsed with one that's far more eloquent!
Coronavirus sends a powerful message about the importance of collective response.
Neoliberal populists are struggling to avoid praising the value of collective action. They're also struggling with the evident value of transnational cooperation.
Dialogue about masks seems to focus the political problem for the individualistic right. I've seen postings saying, "Masks don't protect you well - so they're useless!", entirely refusing to acknowledge the value of protecting other people from your own infection.
I suggest that public responses across the world to the pandemic may be very interesting as a barometer of trust. The prevalence of panic buying and stockpiling measures the level of trust that a population has in its leadership. Less trusted leaders will tend to prompt more panic buying.
Eric's musing about Coronavirus as Gaia's response to humanity may be located in language, or a conceptual framework that not everyone accepts - but it's hard to argue that viruses like Covid-19 aren't typical, natural phenomena that will tend to happen when interacting, interbreeding populations of a single species becomes huge.
Just as an afterthought, perhaps (and I very much hope it is) Covid-19 will become a prompt for the traditional, socialist left to start getting to grips with complex systems. I have posted before that I believe the Green movement has already made this conceptual change, but traditional socialist parties haven't.
Stay healthy Nettimers! James ===== # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected] # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: