The reality of exponentially increasing infection rates and the threat of overstretching the health care system show that there is no question of a "post-pandemic era" yet.
This is also the opinion of Prof. Dr. Marie-Luisa Frick agrees and says that "at most, the outbreak of the pandemic and the first year and a half of coping with it are behind us." A native of East Tyrol, she teaches and conducts research as an associate professor at the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Innsbruck and has made a name for herself as the author of various publications throughout the German-speaking world. We asked Marie-Luisa Frick what lasting social consequences the Corona crisis could have, why system distrust is so high at the moment, and if or. as philosophy as a science can help people in these difficult times.
Professor Frick, in your essay "Thinking Courageously. Enlightenment as an open process" you deal with the "Enlightenment". What is for you the core of this epoch, which stands at the beginning to the modern modern age??
I try to lead through the history and tense normativity of enlightenment thinking and to work out that "enlightenment" is not a heritage we have always known what it is about or. from which we have learned our lessons. Rather, I see the call to "have the courage to use your own mind" and the never-ending effort to better understand the world around us and, if possible, to make it better, as a common thread that we can still pick up on today. And: Courageous, independent thinking is something we have to work on again and again and discover it anew!
Corona deniers and lateral thinkers in particular claim to be courageous thinkers and to have to defend the truth against an authoritarian mainstream. Where does the enlightenment end there?
Many, who come along under the guise of independent thinking, do not make the slightest effort to familiarize themselves with a topic, but consume, uncritically "second hand", half-truths and/or untruths. But this is the opposite of enlightened thinking! Self-thinking means one thing above all: to question oneself, one's own points of view and one's own ability to judge again and again. This includes critically questioning the way of acquiring one's own knowledge and including the possibility of being wrong. Only if this insight is given as a corrective, there is a justified claim to independent, courageous thinking. A self-thinker is not the one who literally sits in his own tree of knowledge, but the one who also shakes this tree vigorously from time to time!
This means that critical self-thinking is an open process, a movement that does not stop. You have to take time for it – and it means work. Aren't we often already far too comfortable for this??
A certain comfort and a lack of general education certainly play a role in our society and this not only since Corona! We also see that many have never learned to distinguish between what is scientifically generated knowledge and what is not. This is also a problem of education policy – and of course fatal in times like these. Every thinking has as a basis also "dry" knowledge and this should be acquired throughout life. A lot of the pseudo-knowledge and pseudo-information that is currently floating around is often spread deliberately in order to seduce people. But information only becomes knowledge when it can be assessed, weighted and sorted.
Deceiving the impression that many, after decades of a perceived steady development, are overwhelmed by the current crisis?
No, this is undoubtedly the case. The complaints of people who say: "Yesterday it was like this, today it's like that, and tomorrow everything will be completely different again" are getting louder. They express a loss of certainty that I think is currently running through broad segments of the population. Trust in individual institutions, in politics and in the much-vaunted experts has fallen sharply. Many people are wondering where we are heading, looking for stability and a supposedly safe shore.
Is this "system mistrust" a mortgage of pandemic events and management that we will have to learn to deal with??
After a year and a half of the pandemic, it has become clear that it is no longer a phenomenon that is only relevant on the political fringes. Broad strata of the population in our Western societies are not only "tired" but simply discouraged. Some of this discouragement is probably unavoidable in the face of a virus that is always good for nasty surprises. But part of this must also be attributed to those who have given people false hope. I think it cannot be ruled out that the creeping system distrust will persist even when outbreaks of social frustration, such as we are currently experiencing again and again, have long since cooled down.
Why is it so important to maintain communication even with those who no longer see themselves in what the government is presenting??
Blaming and an unwillingness to deal with such positions cannot be the solution! Of course, there are some things that are so hair-raisingly nonsensical that it seems unbearable to bother with them. But beyond the extremes, many people operate in a "gray area," and deserve to be dealt with. If this is not done, it can lead to an even greater polarization in our society – and the middle disappears.
On the one hand, many are rebelling and loudly proclaiming their displeasure, and on the other hand, many are withdrawing into the private sphere, into their own bubble, so to speak. This can also be a danger for our democracy?
In order to be able to decide and act as a political people, we have to participate in social and political life, talk to each other and discuss things. If the attitude prevails that I am no longer interested in the community, "let them do what they think", then it is hardly possible to achieve anything together.
Not only the population, but also politicians have been caught off guard by the incredible time pressure this virus has given and still does. What could be done better in case of possible future crises?
The biggest shortcoming in pandemic management that I see was and still is the unwillingness to communicate openly with the population "without visor" – and this also with regard to errors and mistakes made by the decision makers. If one makes the ways to measures and the reasons for decisions from the outset transparent, one can take the population also in the long run much more strongly than this succeeded.
How can philosophy help people in this crisis?
In times when many things are questionable, philosophy is the discipline of the hour. As a scientific subject, it has the great advantage that it does not deal with itself alone, but is in exchange with other sciences. Of course, she doesn't have a panacea at hand either, but she can help ask the right questions and provide clarity and guidance when exploring the unknown. It's about looking at highly complex topics and issues from different perspectives and working out what makes the difference. Philosophy has the power to enable people to make and act upon self-reflective, wise and calm decisions!
Thank you for the interview!