How Coronavirus kills Capitalism and gives rise to Metamodernism

Spanish Flu helped create Sweden modern-welfare state. Let’s see what Coronavirus can do.

1. Turns out we can survive without all these flights. And without schools. All this time you were right, Greta. Big part of our technology is an extra, not an absolute necessity. And we do have a climate emergency.
   (Exit modernist)
2. Truth matters.
   (Exit postmodernist)
3. We live in a global world now. We’re in this together. No issue is parochial.
   (Exit parochialist)
4. Nation states are obsolete. National scale is rudimentary and unhelpful, while global scale and regional scale are crucial.
   (Exit nationalist)
5. Capitalism is archaic. We need free healthcare because we’re in this (whatever it is from now on) together. It’s disgraceful that private healthcare companies are making a profit out of the Coronavirus. And what gives hope is that the people who are now starting to talk about the Universal Basic Income are the people who’d you least expect to do so.
   (Exit capitalist)
6. Now we have a proof that Capitalist Realism is idiotic. Turns out we can work from home and have all these meetings on Skype. There are things more important than economic growth and prosperity. Billions of people stopped working and, guess what, the world goes on. We live in a society, not in an economy. And we don’t have to bail out all these companies. It’s time to slaughter the Sacred Cow of capitalism.
   (Exit capitalist realist)
7. We are now confined and made to keep up with the Dunbar number. Small regional scale. The tribes.
   (Enter metamodern Gemeinschaft politics)
8. Anxiety, loneliness and alienation are really big issues. I know a new word was coined since the beginning of the outbreak — “caremongering”. This is what metamodernis cultivation is about. By the way, rich people are more likely to get the virus because they are more active within their ultra-broad social network. Now it is time for everybody’s “30 days in the desert”, we are now forced to live like of monastery monks. What a time to be an introvert!
   (Enter metamodern secular monasteries)
9. Virus is an organism. This makes us think on a biological scale.
   (Enter metamodern developmental thinking)
10. Self-isolation. The behaviour that is now required of us is giving space to other. Creating a space between us that belongs to no one. Giving room to other, because we can have virus that is dangerous to others. This is how Christianity works: it is about sacrificial self-removal for the sake of communal thriving. The kind of anti-parasitic behaviour that is now paramount is exemplified by Christ.
    (Enter metamodern Christianity)

Saint Symeon. Social distancing way before it was cool.

And yes, there’s actually a St. Corona! She’s considered a patron saint of pandemics. And her remains are in Northern Italy.

A side note. I was inspired to write this little rambling thanks to
Brent Cooper’s brilliant Solidarity in the Darkness.