In, Against, beyond Corona

POSTED ON August 24, 2020 BY admin

PADKOS NO 102

One portion of this padkos serving is from us at CLP, and is part of our ongoing thinking in and through the midst of the corona crisis. There’s been quite a delay getting this piece out, and it still feels like a work-in-progress that might be updated and extended later too. It is framed by the question: What does living through the corona crisis in South Africa reveal to us?

We reckon that “it’s important to see what is revealed to be wrong and toxic- in ourselves, in our relations with others, and in our relation with the rest of non-human nature. But it’s also terribly important to listen for and to seek out what is revealed that is good and life-affirming. Both are vital. During the period we were developing this reflection, we were most likely only at the beginning of the catastrophe that is/was coming according to the most influential models predicting the course of the pandemic. So we need to sustain ourselves through what is coming and to recognise, expand and nurture all the good things for a future where we’re working together, refusing to re-create what was wrong and toxic before”

Towards the end of the piece, we open the question as to what points beyond the crisis? We suggest looking to the places where new and old ways of doing/ being/ relating break with the logic of money and capital- “We should orient ourselves to finding and celebrating the good; to noting and nurturing the thinking and doing that rejects the logic of power-over, of competition or profit, of exploitation and humiliation. By expanding the spaces of life where we refuse to continue hurtful practices, we undo a broader web that has trapped us into patterns of death”.

Another padkos portion we’re dishing up for you is a recent editorial from New Frame. It’s a great short piece that’s well worth reading in itself. We’ve included it here specifically because there’s a kind of parallel with an underlying theme of our own “In, Against, Beyond” piece in arguing that: “It is urgent and necessary for us to take full measure of just how bad things are. … But at the same time as we face all the horrors of reality, we need an equal awareness of the seeds of a different future that are sprouting in the present” (New Frame, 2020. “Amid despair, ground for hope”).

In, against, beyond corona virus final Aug

Amid despair grounds for new hope New Frame