‘We are all in this together’ feelings are widely shared and awaken long-neglected solidarities. Many are joining new struggles: over incomes, rent, debt or any of the myriad issues that are opening up fissures across society. Many more are realising that neglecting the health and well-being of a section of society, or of the world, is not without consequences for the rest of them and that redressing that neglect will involve action on not only the medical front but also the economic. Moreover, the relative simplicity enforced on the well-to-do by the lockdowns are leading them to discover new joys in it. They are rethinking what life is about: Ever more mindless consumption of unnecessary things that rely on keeping vast swaths of the world’s workforce in poverty? Or advancing civilization and developing human capacities at home and abroad in meaningful ways now that a modicum of prosperity has become technologically feasible for all? New priorities are surely emerging.
This is the first in a seven-part, multi-week series of commentary on the COVID-19 crisis entitled “What is to be done? A Manifesto for Politics amid the Pandemic and Beyond” by Radhika Desai.
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Photo by Thays Orrico on Unsplash