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ABSTRACT
The coronavirus pandemic has sparked a heated debate both in political and academic terms. A dialectic has been revealed between the Left and Right. Progressive governments resort to containment measures which are an expression of a ‘collectivist’ position, while conservative governments adopt policies of tolerance which are an expression of an ‘individualist’ laissez faire orientation. Another dialectic is reflected in a disciplinary difference between the inductive approach of sociologists and the deductive approach of philosophers like Giorgio Agamben. Sociology views the harms provoked by the coronavirus as a matter of fact, without, however, excluding the social construction of the pandemic. It is misleading on the part of governments to present the containment of the disease as a ‘war’ and the virus as an ‘enemy’. The confusion between real threats, (originating in malicious intentionality), and dangers, (unintentional phenomena of natural origin), is being exploited. This is even more true concerning the confusion between threats and risks, i.e. possible harms (as well as possible benefits) coming from ‘our’ decisions. It must be recognised that the pandemic is a danger as regards its origin, but its development is magnified by other processes, such as environmental degradation. It means shifting responsibility from an external agent to the responsibility of an internal decision-maker. This should inspire policies no longer focused on an exaggerated concern with external threats, but aimed at redirecting material and intangible resources towards structural and situational prevention of dangers.
Disclosure statement
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Notes
1 In addition to the political dialectics itself, the intellectual debate involved different objects and perspectives. For those of a social and political nature see Delanty, Citation2021. For others of a philosophical and psychoanalytical nature, see (Castrillón & Marchevsky, Citation2021) collecting contributions by G. Agamben, R. Esposito, J-L. Nancy, J. Kristeva and others, already published on the European Journal of Psychoanalysis.
2 A notable exception is Walby (Citation2021a, Citation2021b), who emphasies the usefulness of replacing the authoritarian vs democratic polarity that prevails in the debate with a neo-liberal vs social democratic polarity.
3 Emblematic in this sense is the ‘Declaration of War against the Americans occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places’ formulated by Osama bin Laden and published in a London newspaper in 1996. ‘These [our] youths love death as you love life’ and ‘they are different from your soldiers’, whom the [American] political leaders will have to ‘convince to fight’, while the problem of the jihadist leaders ‘will be how to restrain our youth to wait for their turn [to be martyrs]’ (www.libraryofsocialscience.com/newsletter/posts/2015/2015-05-20-RAK.html).
4 Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Ireland, ‘Xi Jinping meets with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’, 29 January 2020, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/ce/cei/eng/zgxw/t1737014.htm.
5 ‘Yes, people will die, says Boris – just keep calm and carry on’, Independent, 12 March 2020.
6 The Queen's broadcast to the UK and Commonwealth, published 5 April 2020, https://soww.royaluk/5april2020.
7 lemondefr/politique/article/2020/03/17/nous-sommes-en-guerre-face-au-coronavirus-emmanuel-macron-sonne-la-mo bilisation-generale_603333_823448.html.