The pandemic will not go unpunished for society.
Gerónimo de Sierra1
Analyzing societies convulsed by the Coronavirus from a social science perspective seems, at first glance, quite simple. In fact, countless studies have already been produced with this aim, addressing the threat, fear, discipline and its imposition, the emergence of solidarity, political and price manipulation, its impact on markets, and so on.
Works that look at a specific society and its public policies and the reactions of its people, to very global analyses of the capitalist world "digesting" the coronavirus and its effects as one more of the challenges that this mode of production has periodically faced.
There have also been fewer studies that analyze the functionalist micro-processes and interactions between public and private actors, rich and poor, etc., in one or another society convulsed by the threat of this new "flu," since that is ultimately what it is about.
It is true that it is a flu that spreads very quickly and, since there are no vaccines yet, it infects more people, faster and overwhelms hospitals.
However, we are facing something different from the successive coronavirus infections we have experienced. It is different because of its global and simultaneous impact, the magnitude of the number of those affected, and the location of the epicenters, precisely in some of the countries that wield global economic and political power. It is also different because states have deployed massive amounts of new technologies to guide, control, and track every citizen and every infected person.
From its inception in China, the full force of the digital state's de facto powers was deployed to direct and control events and people. Information and disinformation were combined; command and control were employed alongside functional and practical directives. Large-scale lockdowns and confinements of masses were implemented, a methodology that later spread to several European countries and has now reached our continent. The legal framework varied from country to country, but in almost all, the quarantine measures were radical, with the immediate effect of postponing and paralyzing each and every mobilization, gathering, and mass or even group-based process that was underway.
It is true that confronting the pandemic almost necessarily requires managing human mobility. But it is also true that this methodology simultaneously paralyzes nearly all avenues of autonomous social action, both political and social. We are in the midst of the crisis and we will see what happens in each case; but at least in our region, this has halted hundreds of opposition social and political actions, some of great significance and dramatic impact. From Mexico to Patagonia, including cases in Central America, Chile, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru, etc.
And why is this important? Because in each case, it is precisely the masses of poor and middle-class students, informal or low-wage workers, low-income women and children, unions, feminist movements, and democratic and progressive parties who have agendas full of urgent demands. And it is these demands that are being postponed and exacerbated, since the near-paralysis of regional economies and normal political life is only going to further dramatize the inequalities and poverty of large sectors of the population.
Thus, this suspension of politics and normal democracy tends to favor the implementation of the crudest mechanisms of de facto power. And when things return to normal, countless sectors of the population will have been submerged and will have paid the highest price of the crisis. In other words, the health crisis is and will also be a socioeconomic and material crisis for all of society.
We are therefore facing a true societal tragedy that will leave deep scars on our societies. This includes the normalization of Orwellian control of populations by the state and large big data companies. In a way, we have all been subjected to a vast macrosocial laboratory experiment from which we will emerge changed, as will society itself.
1. Uruguayan, Full Professor of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Emeritus Active Researcher Level 3 of the National System of Researchers, Emeritus Member of the Uruguayan Academy of Sciences, former President of ALAS (Latin American Association of Sociology), former Director of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), former Vice Rector of the University for Latin American Integration (UNILA).
[+] Thinking about the pandemic
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