Recently, I have felt like the world is ending. My friends have nonchalantly referred to our current times as the “apocalypse” in casual conversation, and this sentiment feels increasingly more true as I scroll through coronavirus related news articles and updates on the rising death toll that litter my social media accounts. Long lines at the grocery store, keeping a six foot distance from others, and attending school on a computer does seem straight out of a dystopian novel. People are also taking to social media to express how they are becoming stir crazy in self isolation; most notably, many celebrities are complaining that they are “bored” as they lounge in their million dollar houses. However, a bit of perspective is necessary here before we deem this our apocalypse.
A global pandemic should not become the Hardship Olympics. It should, however, be a lesson in empathy and human vulnerability.
The consequences of social distancing are very real– loneliness can actually weaken the body’s immune system and increase mortality rates in addition to psychological consequences. And yet this is the grim, everyday reality of the 2.3 million incarcerated people in the United States, only without the home cooked meals, internet access, family, and outdoor availability many stir crazy people have in quarantine. Furthermore, the ability to properly socially distance in prison is nearly impossible, and COVID-19 cases are ravaging some of these most vulnerable populations. So no, Ellen Degeneres, your self isolation is not “like being in jail.”
We as a nation are in the middle of collectively grieving both human lives as well as our normality. Philosopher and theorist Judith Butler posits that grief exposes our relational ties to one another, forcing us to recognize our shared vulnerability while understanding that this vulnerability is dispersed unequally amongst various people (1). Rather than become hardened or rendered powerless by this grief, Butler insists that we mobilize this feeling to reimagine community and return to a fundamental belief in our “dependency and ethical responsibility” to one another (1).
One of the most anxiety-provoking things about this pandemic is that no one knows exactly when it will be over. The future is uncertain and everyday is precarious. However, for many populations– such as undocumented people, the housing insecure, and victims of environmental racism— these feelings of heightened anxiety, precarity, and lack of agency are not new.
The United States is responsible for the mass genocide of innumerable Indigenous and African people in the name of settler colonial expansion. Hundreds of thousands of people, largely gay men of color, died during the AIDS epidemic in the late 1900s in part due to a grossly negligant government. Even before COVID-19 hit the United States, China had been grappling with the tens of thousands of cases of the virus for months while many in the U.S. carried on with their lives. Are these not all examples of potentially apocalyptic scenarios? Whose world are we referring to when we claim that the world is ending?
We’ve all been rattled by this pandemic in various ways; our norms have been shaken and turned on their heads. Workers we once deemed “unskilled laborers” are now “heroes,” the privilege of internet access is required for most human interactions, and leaving the house can turn into a death sentence. What can we gain from this dislocation?
This virus ripped the shower curtain off of many aspects of our contemporary life, leaving us all naked and exposed, shivering as we stare at one another and the systems that brought us here. Some people did not need a global pandemic to recognize these inherent flaws in our system and the relational ties we have to one another; for others, a crisis may have been necessary.
One person has the ability to harm you through disease transmission as easily as they can help you by ensuring that your grocery store stays stocked. The image of humans as completely separate and individual agents is a fallacy that crumbles in times of crises. As Butler states, grief and loss “challenge the very notion of ourselves as autonomous and in control” (1).
Lean in and hold on to the moments of compassion that you may feel as a result of this global crisis, and don’t let go once this moment has passed. Let this moment radicalize you. We cannot afford to wait until we are in crisis to decide to care for one another.
Photo by Edwin Hooper on Unsplash
(1) Butler, Judith. “Violence, Mourning, Politics.” Studies in Gender and Sexuality, vol. 4, no.1, 2003, pp. 9-37, DOI: 10.1080/15240650409349213.
I think the question “Whose world are we referring to when we claim that the world is ending?” really gets to the heart of a lot of things I’m interested in, both in the context of coronavirus and beyond. Thinking about colonialism as an apocalypse-like event is really useful, I think: it helps us talk seriously about the lives lost, and the complete loss of countless ways of life. Under coronavirus, it’s interesting to look at whose lives stay the same, and your point on bored celebs is well taken: if you’ve really got everything you want, being told to stay inside and hang out for a couple months really must feel apocalyptic. Some humility is needed, I think.