immanence

As I write, there are two known cases of COVID-19 in my state of Vermont, but there are no tests available to me or to the next person to tell us if either of us could be a carrier. Universities and colleges (including my own) have cancelled classes and moved to online teaching. The air hangs heavy with… something.

Here’s where I reach for my metaphors.

It feels like we are waiting for an ultra slow-motion tidal wave to arrive, and hoping it won’t be a tsunami when it gets here. Life goes on, but in a lower key, with a background awareness that the wave may already be infiltrating amidst us…

Or maybe the better metaphor is that of gathering to watch an eclipse, where what’s being eclipsed is the full-throttle hum of industrial capitalism. For a moment, things are slowing down, and some parts may have to grind to a halt.

Let’s enjoy the slowing down, the quieting, and the moments of darkness as the hole in the sky appears over our heads. It may remind us of what’s important before the valves get turned on again. We might even decide that some don’t really need turning on again. Wouldn’t that be something?

Coronavirus is of course not a new thing in the world, just a new variation on an old thing. Not like climate change, for instance (though the cross-cutting impacts of the two may be weird). It was only a matter of time before something would test the global system — of strangely interdependent states, (mostly neoliberal) political-economic regimes, rapidly evolving media systems, and medical and eco/biological management regimes — that’s been developing unevenly, in fits and starts, over the last thirty or so years since the Cold War system collapsed.

Is it that, then: a test? Or a massive temperature check on a feverish world? Or a tidal wave (that’s at least boding the existence of future tsunamis)? An eclipse? What’s your favorite metaphor?

Hat tip to Gregory Bateson for the meta for metaphor.