Solidaristic, social and sensible--reflections on progressivism for today and when tomorrow comes

The future of social democracy has been a perennial debate but the coronavirus crisis has provided a shock: progressive politics will not be the same again.

The coronavirus crisis is a profoundly transformative experience. Hardly anyone (outside of epidemiologists) had predicted the catastrophe coming the way it did. Thousands of pages had been written about globalisation and modernity. A great many featured terrifying, doomsday scenarios. But what has happened has gone beyond anything ever imagined. Now there is no way of knowing how long this will all take, how many lives will be claimed and what kind of world will emerge. So resorting to comfortable intellectual templates by way of explanation would prove treacherous. It is time humbly to admit that not only will the world be different—and it will simply be impossible to pick up where we left off—but also it isn’t an option to revisit essays on previous crises and replace ‘economic’ with ‘coronavirus’. Never before has the saying ‘the future is unknown’ been more true.

Put to the test

If there is therefore a need to turn the page, there is also a need to understand what this confinement has done to ordinary lives. It has put individuals to the test. They have had to revise what they consider essential and inessential, in both materialistic and non-materialistic senses. It has put households too to the test, making individuals acquire a new closeness by default. Those within confinement together have had to learn a great deal about one another, while those at a distance have started communicating more frequently. Some perhaps have never called their parents and grandparents as often as during these days.

Moreover, a new kind of responsibility has been emerging within communities, whereby the younger would volunteer to bring groceries or go to the pharmacy for those elders, the first to be advised to stay home. And the courage and devotion of so many has made others realise superheroes live among them. These are not only the doctors and nurses but also the shop assistant in the grocery around the corner, the teacher from the nursery that wasn’t closed to provide care for those ensuring continuity of vital services, the refuse collector, the post-office clerks, the lorry drivers … With white flags hung on so many buildings and at 8 pm people opening their windows to cheer and applaud, a sense of gratitude, solidarity and a new admiration for others has been born. Paradoxically then, people may feel themselves closer as a result of the lockdown—more connected and more respectful towards other—than they have been in decades. This would, if sustained, be a reversal of years of atomisation of contemporary societies.

Issues foregrounded

Furthermore, confinement foregrounded issues that had been known and talked about at length, for at least two decades, but had not been given the priority they should. Appropriate elderly care, alongside the need to invest more and equip adequately institutions providing healthcare, is evidently top of the list. But it includes many other, less obvious, matters. Lockdown left many imprisoned, alone, within their own houses, questioning the adequacy of existing support mechanisms. For the impoverished, it raised again the question of what minimum standards are, especially when shops had to limit their offer to essential goods. The tragedy also exposed the absolute necessity to do more to fight children’s poverty, as nobody could guarantee during the lockdown that each and every child had even one warm meal a day.

Mental health and care for patients suffering from chronic disease—for whom human contact has a therapeutic relevance and who were from one day to another left to a potential decline—were also at issue. As was the quest to fight domestic violence: it pains even to think how much more suffering there has been in conditions of confinement. Finally, the continuing lack of provision in many places for same-sex marriage presented an incredibly cruel obstacle to partners remaining together in challenging moments in hospitals and elsewhere.

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