The social challenge left by the pandemic
Forty years of economic, social and cultural neoliberalism have resulted in a clearly unnatural ideology and way of seeing and understanding the world predominating in current societies: each person, individually, must assume responsibility for their successes and failures.
It's the idea that each individual must fend for themselves without asking for or expecting anything from anyone. In this way, poor, unemployed, or vulnerable people are in those situations because they haven't tried hard enough, haven't been competitive or innovative as and when they should have been, or simply because of bad luck. Conversely, successful people deserve everything they have, and their success is always the result of their undeniable effort or audacity (not their family name) or, simply, good fortune.
Anything that smacks of "collective" is unsettling. Anything that removes barriers or obstacles preventing unlimited individual enrichment is welcome, whether it's taxes to fund healthcare or regulations that limit market activity.
If we say that this ultra-individualistic ideology is clearly unnatural, it is because we know that if anything characterizes human nature, it is precisely its social condition. We are and have social beings through others.
What can we learn from the pandemic as a society?
We are living through a time of change and major emergencies, and many voices are predicting far more radical and dramatic future scenarios on a global scale, especially those related to the socio-environmental crisis. Therefore, the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be considered an isolated event.
Will this traumatic experience teach us anything as a society? What is this pandemic teaching us? At a time when neither the answers nor the questions that have dominated the public discourse in recent decades seem to be of any use—questions usually associated with the myth of unlimited progress based on competitiveness, innovation, and growth—perhaps what is being most questioned now is the reliability of the ultra-individualistic thinking we referred to earlier.
Can we continue to rely on answers and solutions based on fierce and ultra-competitive individualism? In fact, the big question currently hanging over us all seems very simple, yet it remains, at the same time, extremely radical and disruptive: compete or collaborate? Me or us? It is now clearer than ever that even " my " health depends on others and that, therefore, it is " us " whom we must care for and protect. This has always been obvious to many of us, but now it is obvious to (almost) everyone.
Addressing social challenges with a collective response
Any notion of " us " outlines a certain community, a group of people who somehow identify with and recognize each other based on what they share. We cannot share everything, of course. We don't have everything in common with the people around us, since the diversity of situations, identities, and interests that exist in complex societies makes this neither possible nor desirable (we continue to assert the right to be different).
But, in order to face the current and future pandemic and post-pandemic challenges, which will not only be health-related, there is an urgent need for what we might call a "community reconstruction" of society, based on the premise that the challenges are social and the responses must be collective.
Individualistic solutions are not useful and, in fact, they do not exist: let us not forget, for example, that behind the COVID-19 vaccines there is a huge investment of public money in scientific research and development.
We will need a critical and self-critical perspective to be able to answer, at a minimum, these two questions:
- What social problems and challenges do I share with other people?
- What solutions or answers can I build with the help, support, or accompaniment of others? In other words, as a community.
It is obvious, for example, that we share challenges and that, therefore, we will have to find collective solutions. This does not mean that each of us should fend for ourselves to cope with the socio-environmental crisis, which is becoming more evident and closer to collapse every day. In this context, our community of reference is all of humanity, since we share a single planet, and the response to the crisis requires, in one way or another, that we change our lifestyles, our consumption and mobility patterns, and so on. Belonging to the "global community" means acting to coexist sustainably on a planet that we share and that, socio-environmentally, is in danger.
We are also part of political communities, which are pluralistic and overlap at various levels, from the most local to the most federal. These communities are characterized by the diverse spheres in which we can participate, such as political decision-making, the election of our representatives, and, in general, everything related to building, defending, and exercising our civic rights. Here, too, much is at stake, since politics builds society and, through public policies, promotes or hinders more or less widespread support and solidarity. A stronger and higher-quality democracy, understood not merely as a formula for calculating majorities and minorities but rather as a form of political coexistence, must always strive to fulfill its promise of achieving a more socially just society.
But perhaps the most important thing is to raise awareness and take action within our local community. We define and build this local community through processes and face-to-face relationships, mostly with the people with whom we participate in organizations, associations, and community projects of all kinds. It is here, too, that we must strengthen ourselves, as this is where we will find the people with whom to share and build collective responses to social challenges through our daily, tangible work.
If we say that this nearby community is perhaps the most important, it is basically for three reasons:
- It is the most tangible and easiest to see and understand. It is where our neighbors, our coworkers, and the people we can interact with directly are.
- Community projects can translate into concrete improvements in our living conditions.
- This community participation should teach us to be active, protagonists in other communities: the world community and political communities.