.

And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again? Archilochus

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Social Distance

-Slavoj Zizek, "To Touch or Not to Touch: On Distance and Love"
“Touch me not,” according to John 20:17, is what Jesus said to Mary Magdalene when she recognized him after his resurrection.

How do I, an avowed Christian atheist, understand these words? First, I take them together with Christ’s answer to his disciple’s question as to how we will know that he is returned, resurrected. Christ says he will be there whenever there is love between his believers. He will be there not as a person to touch, but as the bond of love and solidarity between people—so, “do not touch me, touch and deal with other people in the spirit of love.”

Today, however, in the midst of the coronavirus epidemic, we are all bombarded precisely by calls not to touch others but to isolate ourselves, to maintain a proper corporeal distance. What does this mean for the injunction “touch me not?” Hands cannot reach the other person; it is only from within that we can approach one another—and the window onto “within” is our eyes. These days, when you meet someone close to you (or even a stranger) and maintain a proper distance, a deep look into the other’s eyes can disclose more than an intimate touch. In one of his youthful fragments, Hegel wrote:
The beloves is not opposed to us, he is one with our own being; we see us only in him, but then again he is not a we anymore- a riddle, a miracle, one that we cannot grasp.
It is crucial not to read these two claims as opposed, as if the beloved is partially a “we,” part of myself, and partially a riddle. Is not the miracle of love that you are part of my identity precisely insofar as you remain a miracle that I cannot grasp, a riddle not only for me but also for yourself? To quote another well-known passage from young Hegel:
The human being is this night, this empty nothing, that contains everything in its simplicity—an unending wealth of many representations, images, of which none belongs to him—or which are not present. One catches sight of this night when one looks human beings in the eye.
No coronavirus can take this from us. So there is a hope that corporeal distancing will even strengthen the intensity of our link with others. It is only now, when I have to avoid many of those who are close to me, that I fully experience their presence, their importance to me.

I can already hear a cynic’s laughter at this point: Okay, maybe we will get such moments of spiritual proximity, but how will this help us to deal with the ongoing catastrophe? Will we learn anything from it?

Hegel wrote that the only thing we can learn from history is that we learn nothing from history, so I doubt the epidemic will make us any wiser. The only thing that is clear is that the virus will shatter the very foundations of our lives, causing not only an immense amount of suffering but also economic havoc conceivably worse than the Great Recession. There is no return to normal; the new “normal” will have to be constructed on the ruins of our old lives, or we will find ourselves in a new barbarism whose signs are already clearly discernible. It will not be enough to treat the epidemic as an unfortunate accident, to get rid of its consequences and return to the smooth functioning of the old way of doing things, with perhaps some adjustments to our healthcare arrangements. We will have to raise the key question: What is wrong with our system that we were caught unprepared by the catastrophe despite scientists warning us about it for years?

6 comments:

Franco Aragosta said...

It should be interesting to jst how far the birthrate will actually decline during this period of (supposedly) forced isolation.

The increase in frequent use of masturbation must already be formidable, but may never be calculated "scientifically," because of the very nature of this so-called Solitary Vice.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Hey, at least the aabortion rate should slow...

Franco Aragosta said...

I love you positive, upbeat, optimistic worldview!

EXCLSIOR!

Franco Aragosta said...

The best way to get through life
___ is really very droll:
"Keep your eye upon the doughnut,
___ and not upon the hole!"

Franco Aragosta said...

Too bad the Marxist-Collectivist view is dimetrically opposed to positive thinking of ny sort!

I they didn't have anythng to denounce, revile, jeer at or suffer with, they'd have no identity –– no raison d'etre –– whatsoever!

Haven't I ever told you what a dim view I take of Marxism and all its invariably dreary, humorless proponents?

];^}>

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Never...