From 9/11 to 2008 and COVID-19: Signs and Wonders of a Collapsing Global (Dis)order

Part 1 of 5 of the COVID-19 Series lasting from April 26 through April 30.

Corona—meaning: a crown. Travelling around the world, as if at full gallop. Firing off arrows into the air: vectors (the arrowheads: the infected) travelling via airplanes (the arrows). But is it the first stage of the apocalypse for which we have been trained to wait? If so, then I missed the three thunderous trumpet blasts that shook the walls. Is this the pestilence that weakens everyone before they are assaulted by war and then famine and death? Having been conditioned either by Christian teaching, or the apocalypse binge in popular culture, is this what you expected? To me it seems far too orderly, regimented, and subject to authority to be a true apocalypse—no scenes of smouldering wrecks of vehicles strewn along broken roads, looted supermarkets standing dark and windowless, roaming characters carrying makeshift weapons for who knows what purpose. (Then again, those are images regulated by Hollywood.) Instead we get the daily televised address by the prime minister, or president, and batteries of technocrats engaged in full-spectrum domination of all available bandwidth. Try roaming and you risk getting fined. What adds to the disorientation and confusion marking this crisis is the indeterminate character of this viral crisis itself. Lying closer to an apocalypse than a hiccup, especially when we consider its vast economic devastation and massive casualty count, it is still neither of the two extremes. Widespread confusion and anxiety, about a crisis which in our lifetimes is utterly novel, are possibly the reasons why so many have made bold assertions that sometimes confuse opinion with fact. The reassurance one derives from “sure thinking” is one way to regain a sense of control over the uncontrollable....

For more, please see:
https://zeroanthropology.net/2020/04/26/from-9-11-to-2008-and-covid-19-signs-and-wonders-of-a-collapsing-global-disorder/