THE apostles, St. Thomas More, Karl Marx, Dante, Mao, and many other social thinkers have illustrated at one point or another their respective model worlds or ideal society. St. Thomas called it “Utopia”. They dreamed of a society where people live in harmony and unity with one another. Marx taught that the society must have no rich or no poor. He called it his classless society which is achieved through many class struggles and dialectics.
Today, we are faced with what contemporary social thinkers call as the “new normal”. Covid-19 became the catalyst for this new situation. The disease created a new society that made the old traditional ways of interaction as taboo. Man, as a social being, will soon be a cliché and will be changed into man as a “virtual being”.
However, I still believe that sooner or later this “new normal” will simply evaporate and man will once again go back to his old ways and make the norms of the new normal adapt to his ways and not the other way around. Just observe what has happened after downgrading the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) to general community quarantine (GCQ).
Here are some observations I have been pondering upon these past few days. Politics and division are here again. Bacolod City and the Province seem to have different stands as to the situation of the place. It seems that our leaders in both units are not having unity of mind and heart. It is when the city was too concerned for the welfare of the Bacolodnons that the province declared a GCQ last April 30. Later, Bacolod accepted national IATF declaration placing Bacolod and Negros Occidental to low-risk areas and adopted the modified GCQ. The governor appealed to retain the status of GCQ. On May 13, National IATF declared all low-risk areas to GCQ. Specific guidelines were then made by both units and the guidelines seemed to have some conflicts, making most people comment and observe disharmony between the city and the province.
Now, most of us are more concerned with the guidelines and protocols issued, so that we could immediately go back to our old ways. We are no longer concerned about the spread of the virus but we are more concerned with not being late for work. We are tied up with the economic aspect. We are no longer concerned with our welfare but we are concerned with what to bring home after a day’s work. Worst, when malls and stores were allowed to open, people converged and forgot about the real threat of Covid-19. This is similar to the issue of the social amelioration program (SAP), where we were more focused on money than our health.
The essential things in the “new normal” are face masks, face covers, hand gloves, handy alcohol sanitizers, cellphones, Vitamin C, and handkerchiefs, while the essential acts are social distancing, flexible learning, vaccination, on-line shopping and food delivery, virtual classrooms, and virtual world. These are things that we can no longer discharge.
Social Distancing is a new norm. We start to isolate ourselves from one another as mandated. Our talks and conversations are limited and are substituted by virtual conversations or chatting. Public transportation is limited but traffic jams will be too disturbing in the coming days and weeks. People walking and running will be a common sight soon. Worst, schools might no longer function as they used to be. Schooling will become virtual.
My fear is that the new normal might dehumanize us and would transform us to become virtual beings. Do not let evil triumph over good. God has gifted us with intelligence and free will. We still believe that viruses are irrational creatures. Man would always survive because of his faith and reason.
Pope St. John Paul II, pray for us.