The ‘new normal’: A participatory culture

Even if we do have inclinations toward violence, we also have inclination to empathy, to cooperation, to self-control.

Steven Pinker

by Susantha Hewa

Before Covid-19 struck us we scarcely thought that altruism could ever be partnered with selfishness. However, the plague’s deadly path of destruction has shown that you can no longer afford the luxury of considering altruism as a virtue to be summoned ‘at your convenience.’ In the present context, it has become a necessary ingredient in any recipe for survival.

The pandemic has turned the conventional view of altruism on its head by making it synonymous with self-interest; “to protect yourself is to protect the whole society.” If you want to give more punch to it you may rephrase it as, “you are not safe until everybody is safe.” Perhaps this may be the all-compassionate magic slogan which has eluded sapiens for millennia. It is worth being printed on all national flags, one may feel. At least it will make each of them appear an emblem of global solidarity although those who value uniqueness above solidarity may not like the idea much. However, the plague has driven home quite a different message.

Unfortunately, altruism is a rare quality among those who make us believe it to be their mission in life every five years or so. Perhaps the world could have avoided the present catastrophe if we had the spirit of that slogan enshrined in the two most influential social institutions: politics and economics. Incidentally, the powerful few who wield power in these two overarching fields seem to have been persuaded by a less altruistic doctrine. They may profitably quote Ayn Rand, Russian-American writer/philosopher who asserted that “if any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.” You wouldn’t be accused of being pessimistic if you were to say that that those who control politics and economics do firmly believe in creeds like: “you are not safe until all the others are rendered powerless”; “you cannot be content till all the others are deprived”; “you cannot be happy until the earth is plundered to the maximum for optimizing profit!”

Most of us are convinced that the coronavirus has made it necessary for us to shift gear to a “new normal” in which we consider the lurking pathogen as a fact of life in order to ensure everyone’s safety- at least for a couple of years. The longer you take to realize it, the greater your contribution would be to inviting more deadly variants of the virus, and the greater the chances of your experiencing needless bereavements.

The pestilence also has other lessons. For example, it underlines that the dictum, “you are not safe until everybody is safe” can transcend health concerns and serve as a sound principle to ensure the safety of everybody- physically, emotionally and financially. In the present context, we all cooperate in varying degrees to keep the virus at bay. However, can this idea of participation for everybody’s safety be made to outlive the pandemic and extended to combat other insidious social viruses like injustice, discrimination, poverty, bigotry? What about combating the virus of ignorance that makes fertile ground for superstitious beliefs? It is time that somebody unravelled the strange ‘complicity’ between our high literacy rate and the corresponding irrationality rate! The onset of the pandemic has exposed in no small measure the superstitious character of the nation, which received state patronage and media backing. And the damage caused is for everyone to be comprehended according to his or her lights.

“You are not safe until everybody is safe” has relevance in multiple contexts. It is the most eloquent message the deadly plague sends us to help coax people into a participatory culture. It is also highly relevant in every important aspect of modern life: education, livelihood, relationships, social welfare, peace building, poverty alleviation, conflict resolution, environmental issues, economics and politics. In fact, the present catastrophe is to a great extent the cumulative result of lack of opportunities for active mass involvement in many of the above fields. Not in any of the foregoing arenas is there a viable mechanism to address the natural human urge to feel a sense of belonging by contributing towards our collective wellbeing. Instead, you are made to feel that the height wisdom is to mind your own business. Unfortunately, many institutions that ought to work towards the solidarity of people are true to it only in theory. Generally, we are hell-bent on discovering our differences and points of divergence.

George Monbiot, author of a number of books including How did we get into this Mess? and Out of the Wreckage: a new politics for an age of crisis, is a keen advocate of making space for all concerned people to participate in improving all aspects of social life, which he calls “the politics of belonging.” He suggests that people’s sense of belonging can be made more meaningful and pervasive by giving more and more opportunities for larger numbers of people to participate in deciding our ‘collective wellbeing,’ which is now in the hands of a few. Proposing the broadening of democratic space, Monbiot says that in a political system of belonging, “the language of government changes, allowing anyone to understand the issues at stake and the means by which decisions are made.”

Ironically, today in many countries including ours, people get a sense of participation only by way of protesting! The rulers’ notion of ‘the common good’ and that of the majority of the populace happens to be is in constant conflict during the greater part of every five years irrespective of whoever is in power, the election day being the only exception.

At present, the principle “you are not safe until everybody is safe” has no currency except with respect to health. “Success” is the buzzword and it is always personal and never collective success. It is unfortunate that nothing short of a disaster of the magnitude of Covid 19 had to urge us to think of personal wellbeing in terms of collective security. Wouldn’t there be the least chance of moving towards a more participatory culture in which we may seek to make the sense of sharing a more regular experience- a way of life instead of it being restricted to those occasional events of a cultural or familial nature like New Year celebrations, weddings and funerals?

In a society where ‘the market’ is idolized as the ‘supreme natural law,’ it is greed, not collective happiness, which makes people cooperate. Unfortunately, the existing system can only make alienation the rule and cooperation the exception for the vast majority. It only triggers cooperation among politicians, businessmen and vested interests who amass wealth at the expense of the common good. The historian Yuval Noah Harari says “most human cooperation networks have been geared towards oppression and exploitation.” We can only hope that the world leaders would make Harari more optimistic about ‘human cooperation’ after we have put the pandemic behind us.