The virus not only infects individuals, but the entire society. We are getting used to the state of emergency - and it will continue. With what consequences.
"A society that lives in a constant state of emergency cannot be a free society": For the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, dealing with the corona crisis exposes the foundations of our coexistence.
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Giorgio Agamben, March 18, 2020, 10:00 a.m.
Leonardo Cendamo: "Fear is a bad advisor. But it makes many things visible that one usually refuses to see."
First of all, the panic wave that brought all of Italy to a standstill clearly showed that our society no longer believes in anything other than bare life. Obviously, given the risk of contracting the coronavirus, Italians are ready to sacrifice virtually anything, normal living conditions, social relationships, work, even friendships, feelings, religious and political beliefs. Naked life - and the fear of losing it - is not something that connects people, but what separates and blinds them.
The only value: survival
As in the case of the great plague in Milan, which Alessandro Manzoni describes in his classic "The Bride Men", the other living beings suddenly come into view only as possible ointments (more modern: virus carriers) that must be avoided and to which one should be united Keep a safety distance of at least one meter. The dead - our dead - are not entitled to a funeral, and it is not clear what happens to the bodies of people we love and dear. The fellow human being has been wiped out, and it is strange that the churches are silent on this.
What will happen to human relationships in a country that is getting used to living like this for an indefinite period? And what kind of society is it that has no value other than its own survival?
The epidemic reveals a second, no less disturbing, fact: the state of emergency, which governments have been attuning to us for some time, has become our normal state. There have been worse epidemics in the past than today, but no one had ever thought of declaring a state of emergency like the one we have today, which even prevents us from moving freely.
What happens: war
People have got used to living in conditions of constant crisis and emergency. They do not seem to notice that their lives have been reduced to a purely biological function and that they have lost not only every social or political dimension, but also human or affective dimensions. A society that lives in a constant state of emergency cannot be a free society. Indeed, we live in a society that sacrificed freedom in favor of so-called security reasons and condemned itself to live in a constant state of fear and insecurity.
It is not surprising that one speaks of war in relation to the virus. The emergency measures de facto force us to live under curfew conditions. Only a war with an invisible enemy that can nest in everyone is the most absurd of all wars. It is actually a civil war. The enemy is not outside of us, but within us.
It is not primarily and not only the present that is worrying, but what comes after it. Just as wars leave a number of ominous technologies in peacetime, it is very likely that after public health emergencies, experiments that governments have not been able to conduct will continue. Be it that universities and schools are closed; be it that the lessons only take place online; be it that one finally stops gathering and talking about political or cultural matters, and instead only exchanges digital messages. Be it that machines replace every contact - every infection - among human beings.
Giorgio Agamben is one of the most important contemporary philosophers. Translated from Italian by René Scheu.
