Corona envy and the violence of the pandemic

Renata, Salecl (2020) Corona envy and the violence of the pandemic. In: Dogot, E. and Rieff, D. (eds.) There Is No Society? Individuals and Community in Pandemic Times. Cologne, Germany: Walther König. ISBN 9783753300467.

Abstract

When dealing with something traumatic, anxiety-provoking, or hard to grasp, people often embrace ignorance and denial, instead of knowledge and facts. Ignorance and denial might be the only way some can deal with the radical changes that are happening in their lives. COVID-19 has changed intersubjective relationships. It has increased feelings of envy, anxiety, while it also opened the doors to new forms of violence. In addition, the pandemic unleashed new forms of denial. Some people behaved as if coronavirus is of no personal relevance and that infections only affect other people. Even when already infected, some denied the urgency of the situation and did not seek medical treatment when their symptoms worsen. Many people who denied that the novel coronavirus can affect them, harboured illusions that they are somehow protected by their healthy lifestyle or even good genes. Some took infection as merely a matter of luck or destiny. The article looked at these issues through the lens of psychoanalytic theory, while also analysing how the neo-liberal ideology contributed to the affects people experienced at the time of the pandemic. Book synopsis: The success of "social distancing" as a cure-all to the COVID-19 pandemic proves that neoliberalism has created an insurmountable distance to the very notion of society itself. This rejection is best embodied in Margaret Thatcher's infamous dictum "There is no society," which supplies the title of this anthology, with a crucial question mark added. How can we deal with the paradoxical mix of solitude and imposed togetherness that the pandemic entails? How can culture and critical discourse even continue when public space has been shut down upon the advice of epidemiologists? How do we grasp the new political constellations arising today? Such are the questions tackled by the authors of this anthology, based on the discussion program of the Paranoia TV edition of the steirischer herbst festival.

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