I found this dispatch very useful. It is indeed true that we find the virus tremendously disconcerting; we are lost, we cannot explain it, we cannot wrap our heads around it. And I think that this analysis is on the mark --the entirety of the Modern Project, its most basic foundation (that we are separate from Nature, and that we can control Nature), is shaken by this tiny little thing (if it only were something big, like an asteriod or a black hole swallowing us ... but an invisible little thing?? How humiliating! It would certainly be easier to be able to attribute it to Fortuna --but, it's also true, we wouldn't be here if he still believed in her.
The other thing that makes the virus so scary, at least for those of us who think too much about the health of the planet, is that it feels like a dress rehearsal for the real crisis that awaits us. We have had rains and droughts and hurricanes and extreme temperatures, but all of those have so far been continuous increases or decreases from "the known". Coronavirus (for us, XXIst century people) is a completely new phenomenon, a discontinuity --like the ones we should expect in the future. And it obviously freaks us out --it feels like the First Trumpet, with more to come....
I found this dispatch very useful. It is indeed true that we find the virus tremendously disconcerting; we are lost, we cannot explain it, we cannot wrap our heads around it. And I think that this analysis is on the mark --the entirety of the Modern Project, its most basic foundation (that we are separate from Nature, and that we can control Nature), is shaken by this tiny little thing (if it only were something big, like an asteriod or a black hole swallowing us ... but an invisible little thing?? How humiliating! It would certainly be easier to be able to attribute it to Fortuna --but, it's also true, we wouldn't be here if he still believed in her.
The other thing that makes the virus so scary, at least for those of us who think too much about the health of the planet, is that it feels like a dress rehearsal for the real crisis that awaits us. We have had rains and droughts and hurricanes and extreme temperatures, but all of those have so far been continuous increases or decreases from "the known". Coronavirus (for us, XXIst century people) is a completely new phenomenon, a discontinuity --like the ones we should expect in the future. And it obviously freaks us out --it feels like the First Trumpet, with more to come....
Best dispatch yet -- well done! You should develop this idea for publication.
Thanks for the note, will think about the latter.