The loss to our social freedom, hopefully temporary, is perhaps the most painful compared to the other setbacks arising from the pandemic, JD Lovrenciear writes.
The world is reeling from the unstoppable ravages of the coronavirus pandemic.
Our staple of daily news updates brings much fear, pain and sadness. While we keep hope afloat, the fear of economic collapse has gripped human beings across the planet. Our overall social wellbeing has been badly affected.
As we learn more about social distancing, the movement restrictions and lockdowns around the world have put humanity in uncharted territory.
The highest price we are paying in the face of this virus attack is the snatching away of the freedom familiar to all of us – our social nature as ordained by creation. For the first time in human history, our social disposition – that which is uniquely characteristic of homo sapiens – is affronted.
How are we going to practise social distancing over long periods of time? What would humanity’s cultural, traditional, religious and social interactions be like? How will the need to lead our daily lives remotely, mainly through online interactions, affect civilisation?
What we once took for granted – our human freedom and beingness – is under attack. The freedom to go anywhere, anytime and to do the many things consistent with our ingrained social nature have been undermined. ,
Today, as one third of the world’s human population are denied this freedom – the freedom that sets us apart from the rest of creation – we need to ponder. Is the journey of humanity moving into a new chapter alien to the thousands of years of our known and cherished beingness on earth? Only time will tell.
In the meantime, governments will face a daunting task of getting citizens used to social distancing and online remote interactions.
God willing, science will give humanity the key to unlock this chain that has robbed us of human freedom and to enable us to return to our original social beingness.
For now, we can appreciate this freedom that perhaps many took for granted. All of us know what it means to be unable to hold hands, to give a hug, to take part in celebrations anywhere we please and to do the countless things out in the open. This, apparently, is the price we have to pay for the “freedom to exist”.
This loss, hopefully temporary, is perhaps the most painful compared to the economic and political setbacks arising from the pandemic.
What the future holds for human existence has suddenly become the greatest mystery and threat. - ALIRAN
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