Do you think COVID-19 pandemic would deepen the human’s tragic sense of life? And in relation to this, do you think the individualistic and instrumentalist philosophy of European culture marks its eventual end, bearing in mind that on the deprivation of “agony” and care for the “other” any culture could not survive?
The twentieth century has become the age of great tragedies, and it seems that the twenty-first century is not at all exempt from such a tragedy. Witnessing tragedy reveals two emotional states in a lethal contradiction with one another; apathy and attachment. In the first one, in the comfort of his own fictional self, the self is buried in an uncanniness, and in the second, he is drawn into a pathetic showdown accompanied by a deep agony. In the first, a pathos deprivation that triggers a hug with a blind passion to life characterizes the self, and in the second, the self is fermented by a pathetic confrontation within deep in the tragedy.
At a time when the extraordinary destructions of the first world war had not yet been witnessed and on the dates where European high intelligentsia was enjoying its most prolific periods, in 1912, Miguel de Unamuno, one of the most influential thinkers of Spain, declared that the reason was the enemy of life in his extraordinary book called “The Tragic Sense of Life”. He, in fact, stressed the vital role spiritual anxiety plays in driving man to live the fullest possible life.
It seems that Miguel had made a tragic prediction based on the inner reality of the human condition before the tragedy had a global appearance. What sort of affectional mood would you predict in the Covid crisis where the feeling of tragedy ever deepens day to day? Does Apathy point to the end of Western philosophy? Or is it an euphoric and ominous humming-up of the death instinct in the Lacanian sense?
My philosophical conclusion is that a more human species-appropiate life-style is required, e.g. mutuality. Rajkumar Rajendram has already hit the nail on its head.
I do not think that academic phlilosophy will be affected by this global health 'event'. Western philosophy is dominated by Aristotelian eternal matter assumptions and the early Kalamists were right to refute this assumption as they opted for 'created matter' (=creator, creation, creatures, creativity).
Covid-19 has revealed the true nature of human relationships. The vast majority have demonstrated selfishness. This demonstrated by individuals who have ignored calls for social distancing and governments who have outbid others for shipments of face masks. The rest of Europe has watched whilst Italy has essentially been devastated by Covid-19. Individual states are being left to fend for themselves whilst the Trump administration hoards a stock pile of medical equipment.
I would not be surprised if world war 3 was fought over face masks and ventilators.
My philosophical conclusion is that a more human species-appropiate life-style is required, e.g. mutuality. Rajkumar Rajendram has already hit the nail on its head.
I do not think that academic phlilosophy will be affected by this global health 'event'. Western philosophy is dominated by Aristotelian eternal matter assumptions and the early Kalamists were right to refute this assumption as they opted for 'created matter' (=creator, creation, creatures, creativity).
Are you people really sane? COVID-19 is a bit more "effective" than usual flue, and you already tragic? Is humanity now is a bunch of loosers? Whining little things?
I must have been totally misunderstood. We are not making a “looser” or a “loser” philosophy here. Suppose that Vladimir Dusevich is totally right in his assertion that COVID-19 is a bit more "effective" than usual flue, and it is really needless to be so tragic? However, my point is not to claim that humankind should happen to feel the tragedy deep in his soul by witnessing the global outbreak of COVID-19. Rather to claim that if we are to remove the tragic sense of life from our civilisation, we inevitably become more doomed to witness the global tragedies against which most people strive to remain indifferent.
Tragic sense of life is not a death principle; it is just a life principle. So we are not whining little things, we are busy with the life itself. “Agony” and “caring for others” are main pillars of life; they are not instruments of necrophilia. To my view, COVID-19 crisis may be regarded as a spiritual opportunity to think over the core principles of our civilisation and it may also provide us more consciousness on the very base of our co-existence which is already blended with the tragic sense of life throughout the history of mankind.
Living things cannot survive without a sense of tragedy. Adorno, in his magnificent work called Minima Morolia, once argued that “after all the animals had matured, they all covered up with a sadness”. This argument shows us how a plain mating act itself, which is a pure and unmediated expression of the reproduction of life, is intertwined with agony and death instinct. In another fragment, Adorno makes the following extraordinary assertion: Psychology well knows that those who dream of disasters in fact desire them.
In short, the death instinct is intertwined directly with life, not the death itself, so it is a vital principle, not a lethal one. Actually, we owe our “ability to live” to “our ability to die”. I kindly suggest you read some Lacan.
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