A year of lockdowns, self-isolation, and social distancing has allowed for much reflection on what it means to live in a globalized, digitally connected society. While the COVID-19 pandemic has turned many countries inward, it also has collapsed the distance between us like never before.
SOFIA – “The first thing that plague brought to our town was exile,” notes the narrator in Albert Camus’s The Plague. These days, we have an acute sense of what he meant. A society in quarantine is literally a “closed society” in which everyone but essential workers puts his or her life on hold. When people are isolated in their homes and haunted by fear, boredom, and paranoia, one of the few activities that does not cease is discussion of the virus and how it might transform the world of tomorrow.
SOFIA – “The first thing that plague brought to our town was exile,” notes the narrator in Albert Camus’s The Plague. These days, we have an acute sense of what he meant. A society in quarantine is literally a “closed society” in which everyone but essential workers puts his or her life on hold. When people are isolated in their homes and haunted by fear, boredom, and paranoia, one of the few activities that does not cease is discussion of the virus and how it might transform the world of tomorrow.