I already had my title, without thinking things into it. The corona fatigue strikes. But as much as I would like it, there is virtually no escape from the total domination of corona in our lives. Dating in times of corona, banking in times of corona, educating in times of corona, business continuity management in times of corona. Corona is everywhere, everything is corona.
So I would like to write about something else, but I just can't. Whichever side I look at, sooner or later the virus infects my mind. It is as if there is a giant squid spread all over the world. With its long slippery tentacles, it sprays corona ink to completely blind us to the vision we had before all of this happened.
Before and after. Isn't that characteristic of a historical event? A breaking point that forces us to say goodbye to the past and enter the present with courage and hope? On the other hand, nothing is more difficult than recognizing history when you are in the middle of it.
And yet, when the Berlin Wall fell and when two planes flew into the World Trade Center twelve years later, everyone immediately understood that there would be a world before and after. Perhaps that is what makes the corona crisis so overwhelming: this is also such a historical moment. Possibly even bigger than the two I just mentioned.
Each generation grows up in the shadow of another. You grow up in a world where your parents and grandparents are busy processing history, you cannot escape it. From whatever angle looked at, you are dependent on major events that determine the spirit of the time.
My father grew up in a world where the older generations were processing the war and especially the Holocaust. Decades later, when I was three, the Berlin Wall fell. History had ended, they said. And that no longer meant a big story, but the small happiness of consumerism.
Not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government. - political scientist Francis Fukuyama who, after the Berlin Wall fell, had the feeling that something very fundamental has happened in world history.
And then came 9/11. Ask certain youth where they were back then and they cannot answer your question. After all, they were only a few years old, or not even born yet. For the post-9/11 generation, a world without terrorism, social unrest, growing geopolitical conflict and populism is only something from the history books.
My son is now almost 4 years old. He will grow up in a post-corona world. What such a world will look like, God knows. I do have my desires, but at the same time realize that the outcome of all this will probably be stranger than we could ever imagine.
We are quickly inclined to project our desires onto these unknown times. We see our human and world view confirmed in the corona crisis. Anyone who keeps their faith in the good in people sees solidarity everywhere. Anyone who thinks the opposite encounters selfishness and hoarding behavior. Critics of globalization see it as the beginning of the end, climate activists see it as a unique opportunity to make the world more sustainable, techno-pessimists as the moment where the surveillance society is gaining ground everywhere.
You get it: this post was ultimately also about corona. Resistance is futile. And so it is. It's all part of 'being in the middle of history'. But the day will come when the heat dies down and the contours of a new world will become visible. In the meantime, there's nothing for us to do but hold on for the ride.
Photo 1 by Joel Filipe on Unsplash
Photo 2 by Aidan Bartos on Unsplash