Coronavirus and the Future of Ethical Imagination
César ‘CJ’ Baldelomar argues for novel forms of meaning making
Photo: Luke Michael
Before the Coronavirus-related disruptions to daily life affecting almost all of us, I was taking a class at Boston College titled “Ethics in Apocalyptic Times” taught by prominent Catholic social ethicist Lisa Sowle Cahill.
The course asks whether “Christians [can] affirm realistic hope for social and political change, given the endurance and victories of historical evil and sin.” When discussing the readings or concepts, almost all participants discussed potential catastrophe––whether environmental, social, economic, or political––as very unlikely or as occurring in a distant future.
Little did Cahill, my classmates, and I know that we would indeed find ourselves in the midst of seemingly apocalyptic times.
Finality and/or eternity
One of the required course readings, The Future of Ethics: Sustainability, Social Justice, and Religious Creativity by Willis Jenkins, is particularly relevant in light of the current coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world. Jenkins is concerned with intergenerational ethics––that is, society’s obligations to future humans without disregarding obligations to current humans, especially the most vulnerable. The spread of COVID-19 has led to questions about whether to prioritize economic growth or the protection of human life (particularly the elderly and infirm), as well as about future disease prevention.
But the contagion’s emergence has also raised questions of whether the current market-driven, production-centered, transaction-frenzied way of life is sustainable or even desirable for the future. What happens when a way of life thought to be eternal begins to break down?
“Cultures do not normally train members to endure their own breakdown,” Jenkins writes. “A culture's concepts and virtues assume the endurance of the field that makes them possible.”
In other words, when trying to “educate” the young, society already takes for granted its own eternity. This assumption is indeed paradoxical when one considers that capitalist societies generally uphold Christian paradigms, one of which is Jesus’ Second Coming. So do Western societies operate under the assumption that its way of life will continue until the Second Coming? Or into eternity? Or a combination of both?
Photo: Mindaugas Petrutis
“Perhaps now is the time to consider ‘letting go’ of superficial concepts of goodness and justice that sustain the current way of life…”
Haves as have nots
The current pandemic––which has essentially brought the world to a halt––presents several obvious physical threats to the poor, elderly, and sick. There are also existential and ontological threats to all humanity, but especially to those beholden to a certain “comfort” in a capitalist-driven way of life. No doubt the Coronavirus is a serious threat to all, but billions already live under the threat of death and of extinction of their communities. A cursory glance at prevailing stories in the mainstream media reveals narratives of “rediscovering” what matters in life, of mortality and the fragility of human life, and of the need to prevent future catastrophes.
But these are all narratives that those living on the peripheries of socioeconomic and gender/sexual systems have already reported to the world. In fact, a countless many such individuals (think, for example, of the immigrants who have died crossing the Rio Grande or of the transgender murder victims across the globe) and communities (the indigenous communities wiped out by colonial genocide) have already met their existential, physical, and ontological extinction.
Further consider so-called environmental migrants, defined as “persons or groups of persons who, for reasons of sudden or progressive changes in the environment that adversely affect their lives or living conditions, are obliged to leave their habitual home, or choose to do so, either temporarily or permanently, and who move either within their territory or abroad.”
Oxfam’s recent data show that, over the past decade, the effects of climate change have forced an average of 20 million people a year to flee their homelands. Unlike other refugees, environmental migrants have no recourse to legal protection under international law, since international refugee law remains silent on climate change. Most of these migrants are poor and remain stateless, their entire existence constantly in peril.
The dangers posed by climate change––recognized and discussed since at least the 1960s––will continue to haunt humanity: sea-level rise, deforestation, melting polar ice caps, extinction of species and plants, and global warming, just to name a few.
Yet, as Al Gore is fond of saying, little political will exists to counter the present and future threats to all life.
I do not think that capitalist (especially neoliberal) and dominant Christian narratives of personal salvation––especially ones that follow a linear timeline––allow humans to see and think beyond an individualist present moment.
Now or never
When privileged humans envision a future, it is most likely an economic future or one focused on how to avert death. Once the coronavirus threat recedes and the capitalist transactional lifestyle resumes, most of those who benefit from or are beholden to the lifestyle will operate as if the current way of life is indeed eternal. The pandemic was just an inconvenience––an aberration to be forgotten as the masses resume consumption of sports and entertainment, all the while forgetting that most of the world’s populations continually confront ontological terror and physical extinction.
Perhaps now is the time to consider “letting go” of superficial concepts of goodness and justice that sustain the current way of life, such as “the common good,” “salvation history,” or simplistic narratives of hope. Indeed, now is as good a time as any to reconsider several—if not all—matters, including what it means to be human; the obligations humans have to each other, to animals, to the earth, and to future generations; and whether societies are truly willing to sacrifice for the “common good” so often spoken and theorized about, but seldom actually practiced.
Jenkins is right when he says that there is a “[n]eed for ethics to engage eschatology.”
Ultimately, ethical formation might include accepting the world as meaningless in order to envision novel forms of meaning making.
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine, goes a chorus from a popular song. With global disaster finally here, it is time to test whether individuals, communities, and nations can see beyond present self-interest.
Or will life continue as usual, with some feeling “fine,” sipping on wine while watching The Bachelor, thinking that both the show and their own existence will continue in perpetuity? Can the collective human imagination finally lose its chains to envision new (more equitable) ways to live? Or will the same scripts continue to dictate ethical action until it really is too late?
