“Social Distancing”: Good for Coronavirus, Bad for Society
By: Ryan Dirk Young
Tags: Inclusion, Mental Health, 2020 Presidential Race, Bernie Sanders, Politics

“Social distancing” as a prescription in our times is like prescribing HIV to a cancer patient.

We’ve been told by medical authorities that everyone needs to take important steps to slow and stop the growth of the coronavirus pandemic. We’ve been told to prioritize washing our hands, to avoid touching our faces, and to retain some distance between ourselves and others; all wise advice to heed amidst a rapidly spreading disease. Yet, this last strategy, appropriately named “social distancing,” seems like entirely the wrong advice in our times. Across Europe and America we’ve seen the slow disintegration of community as a whole, to the point that social distancing already seems normal.

Mental health issues have become more prevalent and visible, gentrification has made ‘freedom of movement’ into perpetual migration, destabilizing communities in the process, and the nuclear family has begun to implode. Loneliness epidemics have taken a share of the media spotlight, and our busy culture, indicative of a commodified, disconnected, and expendable workforce, has become so severe that “burnout” has been identified by the World Health Organization. Social media, once hailed as a promising, futuristic social convenience, has hilariously left us more isolated than ever. “Deaths of despair,” i.e. the rise of suicides, alcoholism, and overdoses in Midwestern America, are hypothesized to be caused by inequality, financial precarity, and the outsourcing of labor. In Japan, hikikomori is a word for people who resort to extreme social withdrawal and confinement, and it’s attracted enough media attention to be called “a new social issue.”

“Social distancing” as a prescription in our times is like prescribing HIV to a cancer patient. This is not to say that we aren’t essentially forced to adopt this strategy anyway, left with no other choice, but the nonchalance of those giving and receiving this advice reveals just how ignorant and unconcerned we all are. And this lack of concern shows just has how deeply the disease has crept into our psyches, zombifying us like cordyceps.

‘None of my business” and “I don’t want to bother” are common phrases, but they reflect a deeper ethos in modern society. Individualism was a justified reaction to the oppression, repressive conformism, and tyranny of antiquity. Individualism, both ethically and epistemologically (e.g. Cogito, Ergo Sum), were ingenious weapons to combat institutions and ideologies of control. Even to this day there remain ways in which liberty and individualism still arguably require application, such as in feminist issues, racism, police brutality, and perhaps the existence of the State itself. Yet individualism cannot be taken to its logical conclusion without causing a general severance of the individual from the rest of humanity — and a hermit’s death.

We can’t stop coronavirus by huddling together in a mass, but we can’t stop the disintegration of our solidarity and social bonds with this continued politics either. Sanders may very well lose the nomination to the same sort of establishmentarian, ‘same-old’ politician we’re used to, but if change won’t come from top-down, it needs to come from bottom-up. And if change doesn’t occur tomorrow, we need to ensure it occurs next week, or next year — until it does.

Our culture and politics leads us to gravely fear infringing on anyone else, so much so that we avoid crying for help if we’re drowning. But we’re all drowning, and no person is an island. Others are both a means and an end in life. Yes, belonging to others requires sacrifice, and yes authenticity and unity must necessarily compete with one another, but the pendulum has swung so far in one direction that “ghosting,” literally ignoring a romantic interest, has become commonplace. Of course everyone feels they should be able to do as they please and associate or not associate with whoever they want, especially for women who are constantly pressured to appear attractive and available for men (rightly, in this case), but when we ask ourselves “Why is ghosting — or more generally ignoring — wrong?” we can’t answer the question with individualism.

Perhaps it’s wrong, maybe not all of the time but perhaps some of the time, because on some level we do owe something to other people. Dating is it’s own beast with its own nuances, and it must be stated that women are wrongly, disproportionately treated as sexual and romantic property in this sphere, but I think the outrage around a phenomenon like this reveals the longing of modern people to belong, and the need for a politics which reflects this.

During the French Revolution a three-word motto became popularized, espousing familiar values like liberté (Liberty) and égalité (Equality), but also one which, while less resonant, may hold important relevance for today: fraternité (fraternity).