The last ten decades have witnessed a great philosophical change. Humanity has moved towards absurdity, fragmentation, and nihilism. Hyper-reality and techno-culture have dominated the scene. The value of life has vanished. Humanity fell in a great depression. Capitalism has the upper hand. The aesthetics of art and literature have been substituted by the visual domination and Para-literary human activities, such as comics, electronic music, and the movies with strong visual effects. Thus, humanity needed a strong shock for restoring its creativity, simplicity, ability to evaluate beauty, and regarding the value of life itself. Here, it was the appearance of what Donald Trump has named the “Chinese virus” which has reconsidered the human mentality and philosophy.
Corona Philosophy
“Coronism Philosophy”
Dr. Mahmoud Moawad Sokar
Lecturer at Science and Culture City, October 6th city
Lecturer at the Higher Institute for Specific Studies in Giza
Almadina Institute for International Languages (2016-18)- Giza
PhD. of English language and literature– Teaching English Educational Diploma – Translation Program, E-A Teacher Program, U.S. Department of State.
Translation Diploma, Notting Hill School of Education, UK.
Member of the Egyptian Translators and Linguists Association
The last ten decades have witnessed a great philosophical change. Humanity has moved towards absurdity, fragmentation, and nihilism. Hyper-reality and techno-culture have dominated the scene. The value of life has vanished. Humanity fell in a great depression. Capitalism has the upper hand. The aesthetics of art and literature have been substituted by the visual domination and Para-literary human activities, such as comics, electronic music, and the movies with strong visual effects. Thus, humanity needed a strong shock for restoring its creativity, simplicity, ability to evaluate beauty, and regarding the value of life itself. Here, it was the appearance of what Donald Trump has named the “Chinese virus” which has reconsidered the human mentality and philosophy.
During few weeks, the human mentality has totally changed. In spite of the feeling of depression caused by the quarantine, humans have begun to look forward to restoring their pre-Corona life. The value of life itself has begun to flourish again after years of despair and disappointment. Coronism has changed many aspects of life such as religious matters, man-technology relationship, Globalization, the value of life, political affairs, and man-nature relationship.
Concerning religious matters in the Corona Age, humans who had likely ignored their religions due to the overwhelming Capitalism and the crucible of financial needs, have begun to miss the spiritual sense of their lives after closing all places of worship due to health procedures. This closing, led to strong sense of spirituality and religion as humans cannot perform their religious rites.
The relation between Corona and technology has two contradictive relations. The first is strongly associated with technology’s ability to cope up with any disaster as appeared in “working from home phenomenon” during Corona crisis, besides the technological role in finding a treatment for the virus. Technology has proved its role as the pillar of Corona-society as it provides safe and fast way to work and communicate. On the other hand, the second feature of human-technology connection in the Corona Age is the state of rejection for technology created by humans who look forward to restoring their real life. Most humans even who deal with technology through “working from home” have tired of this technological isolated life. They want to restore their ordinary human life in which they react peacefully with the outer real world. Here, the sense of nihilism has begun vanishing due to the increasing value of the missing pre-Corona life.
Nihilism is the philosophy that emphasizes the absence of values and that nothing can be known or communicated. Nihilism is strongly connected with pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence (Nishitani, 1990, p. 5). This sense of Nihilism has emerged from inner conflict (inner negative power) which is generated from personal experience or disbelieving on a doctrine, idea, or philosophy. Here, it is worth mentioning that Corona, which strengthens the values of life for some people, is totally responsible for increasing the sense of Nihilism for many people. That is to say, life is too meaningless that a microscopic element can destroy the whole humanity.
On a political level, a conspiracy theory might be taken into consideration on discussing Corona virus spread (Jan-Willem van Prooijen, p.2) - 2018. Firstly, some anti-American views have argued that the virus is a biological weapon which is directed towards China to stop the massive Chinese economic successes and domination. On the contrary some pro-American views have argued that the virus is a Chinese weapon which is artificially created as a plan for dominating and controlling the international economy through destroying the international world economic system and substituting the Western Capitalist system with a new Chinese economic system that can control the international economy. What supports the conspiracy theory is Donald Trump’s use of the term “Chinese Virus” to describe Corona. Moreover, the speedy recovery which is observed in China was a source of doubts.
The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States, the set of ideals (democracy, rights, liberty, opportunity and equality) in which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, wealth, and healthcare. (Albee, 1961). Corona virus raised many doubts about the American dream and the image of “super-country” that rules and controls the world. That is to say, America is not able to stop the virus. As a super-power, America is required to defend the whole world and to protect humanity from these disasters; however, America is not able to produce any medication that helps the country, not the world. Here, an important question emerges: If the US cannot help itself as a super-power, will this leading state can help humanity? In this context, some claims have begun to call for a new leading country that is able to play the role of “the world’s guardian.”
In terms of ecology philosophy, Corona has proven two main principles of ecology: the first of Gaia hypothesis, the second is Nature Wrath. Gaia hypothesis asserts that all living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to make up one complex system (Lovelock, 1990, P.101).This complicated system can be observed in the effect of Corona on nature. Unlike humans who died or infected by the virus, nature has begun to recover again. Due to the drop in air pollution, caused by Corona’ shutting down for factories, the Himalayas are now visible from certain parts in India where they weren't before. Skies have become clearer due to the low proportion of traffic and transportation.
In addition, Corona has reshaped the concept of power-over which has been created in terms of eco-feminist point of view. Power-over refers to the oppression and domination made by males over all subordinate groups including (women, people of color, children, the poor, nature, animals, land, water, air, etc.). (Plant and Willers,1991, p. 213). Thus, it was known that humans, especially males have the ultimate domination over other spices and natural resources. However, Corona has changed this notion to prove that an inanimate microscopic element has the ability to threat the entire human being. Consequently, Corona changed the Pyramid power of the whole universe asserting that humans do not have the ultimate power over the universe.
Globalization is a very important term in the Corona dilemma as the virus has proven the failure of the international contact and co-operation of globalization. For example, WHO and European Union cannot give radical solution for the pandemic, at least at the beginning, with accusations against the international organizations. WHO was accused by the American president for hiding some information about the virus, whereas the European Union was accused for not helping the massive outbreak of the virus in countries such as Italy and Spain that some Italian politicians removed banners of the European Union (EU) and replacing them with the Italian flag. Thus, Corona has redefined the concept of globalization asserting that the international concept is just a fragile cover of a cultural and artistic aspects and it is not able to unify humanity to fight the virus.
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- Quote paper
- Mahmoud Sokar (Author), 2020, Corona Philosophy. Coronism Philosophy, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/974493
