While the Corona virus pandemic is and has been catastrophic in ways that we have yet to even begin to come to terms with – and indeed may yet never fully come to terms with – it reveals some important and surprising truths about our shared world.
For example, it shows the way in which neo-liberal capitalism is riddled with myriad “pre-existing conditions” (I thank Derrick O’Keefe for this formulation), conditions that, were society to be understood as an individual seeking new private coverage from a health insurance company – without question, she would be denied coverage.
The pandemic shows us, as well, that what we may think of as individual freedoms are closely bound up with the larger context of social relationships and institutions that make them possible.
