Planet under Pressure

RESILIENCE
Professor Rosa, in your books you write about
social acceleration in the modern age. What
effect is the coronavirus pandemic having here?
The virus is the most radical decelerator
that we have experienced in the past
200 years. There have been moments
like this from time to time in the past,
for example after September 11, or after
the volcanic eruption in Iceland. In both
cases, air travel came to a halt temporarily.
They were partial decelerators. Public
life was not affected.
It is historically unprecedented for the
modern age, which constantly feeds off
of acceleration, to decelerate as radically
as it has now. It’s as if it had stomped on
the brakes. What’s fascinating about it,
in fact, is that we are the ones stomping
on the brakes. It’s not as if the virus were
eating up our airplanes. We are placing
restrictions on ourselves as a precautionary
measure, which is remarkable indeed.
What are these restrictions doing to people?
For us, many things that were a matter of
course until just recently are now out of
reach: Businesses are closed, events are
canceled. As a result, our global reach
has grown much, much narrower, both
physically and in terms of time.
My theory is that we are always looking
to broaden our global reach, move faster,
go further. Right now, the physical reach
for most people is dwindling down to
their own four walls. And when it comes
to time, no one knows what things are
going to look like a week or two from
now. The virus is the epitome of a monstrous
unavailability.
Care to elaborate?
We try to make our world fully controllable,
predictable, reachable. Strangely
enough, these attempts tend to make
unavailability return in a monstrous way.
We’re experiencing that right now with
the virus. It’s new; we don’t know exactly
where it comes from, how it acts, or how
we can get it under control medically.
We can’t control it politically or regulate
it legally, and it has incalculable consequences
economically. We can’t see
it, hear it, or smell it. It is beyond our
everyday grasp. And society is acting as
one might expect: It’s trying to frantically
restore availability.
How do you mean?
We absolutely want to get the virus under
control. To do so, society is even
accepting massive restrictions. It’s fascinating
to watch, and we can all see it
in ourselves. I believe we are currently
in the midst of a huge experiment. It is
narrowing the global reach of the physical
world in a totally unforeseen way.
Is the widespread panic buying an attempt to
maintain our global reach?
You could say that. By setting our global
reach a certain way, we want things to
be available. Now people see a threat. So
they want to make sure that basic things
are available in case something happens.
Up to now, we’ve been sure that there
will be enough toilet paper in stores.
Now there’s this uncertainty that the
store might be closed tomorrow. We’re
finding out that not everything is available,
and now we have to learn to live
with it. But right now, we’re still in the
mode that we’re used to.
What do you mean by that?
You could call it “rat race mode,” where
we constantly need to check items off
our to-do lists. In this crisis, we can no
longer physically live out this habit of
“I need to go here real quick right now,
I need to go there real quick right now.”
But we can digitally. We’re saying, “I
need to post something here and post
something there, what’s in the news,
what are the stats?” We’re continuing
to accelerate in the digital world, with
even greater strength.
What impact is this shift in acceleration to the
digital world having? Are we going to miss
having contact with people in the long run?
I would say so. The big question is: Can
video conferencing or social media replace
real contact? I think it’s important
to have such options. But this kind of
communication doesn’t seem to have
the same quality as physical contact. >>
Global Goals Yearbook 2020
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