Autonomies

From the online site, Quodlibet …

Where death waits for us is uncertain; let us look for him everywhere. The premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty; he who has learned to die has unlearned to serve.

Michel de Montaigne

Since history teaches us that every social phenomenon has or may have political implications, it is appropriate to carefully record the new concept that recently made its entry into the political lexicon of the West: “social distancing”. Although the term was probably produced as a euphemism to substitute for the crudeness of the term “confinement” used so far, one must ask oneself what a political order based on it could be. This is all the more urgent, as it concerns not only a theoretical hypothesis. And, if it is true, as many are saying, that the current health emergency can be considered as the laboratory in which new political and social structures that await humanity are being prepared.

From the online site, Quodlibet …

The following thoughts are not about the epidemic, but about what we can understand from the reactions it causes in men. It is therefore a question of reflecting on how easily an entire society has accepted to feel itself contaminated by a plague, to isolate itself at home and to suspend its normal conditions of life, its bonds of work, of friendship, of love, and even its religious and political convictions. Why have there not been, as was nevertheless imaginable and as usually happens in such cases, protests and opposition? The hypothesis I would like to suggest is that, in some way, and yet unconsciously, the plague was already there, that obviously the living conditions of people had become such that a sudden sign was enough for them to appear for what they were – that is, intolerable, just like a plague. And that, in a way, is the only positive thing we can take from the present situation: it is possible that, later on, people will start to wonder if the way of life they had was good.