Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic Essay Example

The number of COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths increases rapidly worldwide, becoming a global problem. However, mankind must find hope and prepare for the future even though they are in despair. What lessons can we learn from the Corona emergency? What is significant in responding to a global crisis? This paper answers the previous questions as follows. The planetary-scale interconnection between governments, along with civic participation, is critical in solving global problems and is a force to overcome the crisis. Communication, connection, and solidarity always shine in the dark. 

Planetary competence is the notion of going beyond perspectives of private interests and a politically fragmented world, in The Revenge of the Real: Politics for a Post-Pandemic World by Benjamin Bratton. And he empathizes with the worldwide connecting computational model, saying “a call for a biogovernmentality that trains planetary-scale computation and modeling capacities on infrastructures” (Bratton 143). Bratton also claims that this global capability thereby initiates a more inclusive regime of governance, leading to united politics under a shared pursuit of interconnectivity and cooperation. He says, “[the] division of populations into smaller, manageable groups (like countries or cities) is not in itself irrational, but doing so without effective cooperation between those blocks most definitely is” (Bratton 145). Hence, according to Bratton, planetary competence is a concept that avoids the patchwork of split governments, aims for interconnectivity and cooperation on a planetary-scale, and emphasizes the computational model.

Furthermore, Bratton empathizes the role of governments with the concept of biopolitics. Demonstrating comparative governance in the pandemic, he claims this pandemic experience shows positive biopolitics is essential. About his claims on the significance of governments, Bratton also says that “the moment when people's lives and livelihoods are put at risk by the excruciatingly loud void that could have been filled by a rational, competent, comprehensive, coordinated governance should imply the end of empty symbolism taking the place of proper policy” (30, italics in original). Additionally, he also describes what positive biopolitics will look like, through a government that worked well during the pandemic. He claims that the culture of data and government matters, and the best responses will base on both technological and social institutional responses. Hence, Bratton places a positive point of view on governments with biopolitics, showing what this governance looks like. 

I would like to compare pandemic and climate change in terms of civic level. In both pandemic and climate change, I think it is significant for citizens to actively participate in government activities with their knowledge and cooperate in law enforcement. In fact, South Korea has shown its effectiveness in preventing proliferation as citizens actively engage in social distancing policy (Park and Kim 22). Also, citizens’ knowledge related to climate change had a positive effect on policy participation (Chun et al. 19). However, I believe there is a difference between a pandemic and climate change in the degree to which policy exerts control over the daily lives of ordinary citizens. I think pandemic policy has a much stronger compulsion than climate change policy, such as isolating confirmed patients, punishing those who violate the social distancing, and limiting business hours. In my point of view, due to this strong compulsion, pandemic policy plays a positive role in preventing the spread of the pandemic, but it can suppress citizens’ freedom. Conversely, due to relatively weak compulsion, climate change policy doesn’t severely restrict citizens’ daily lives, but I cannot expect huge success in citizens’ contribution to environmental protection because it relies mainly on individual’s conscience. Hence, I am convinced that coercion is like a double-edged sword that can quickly control the problem and at the same time infringe on civil liberties. As Bratton mentioned, there are clear advantages to planetary-scale biopolitics. But this should not lead to the state excluding an individual citizen and controlling everything. Hence, I believe the state should be a government that controls with positive planetary-scale biopolitics, and simultaneously aims for the solidarity of a sustainable society while cooperating with citizens.

So far, I discuss planetary competence and biopolitics that Bratton highlights in his book, The Revenge of the Real. Furthermore, I compare pandemic and climate change at the civic level. And this leads me to believe that the expansion of the role of government with positive world-scale biopolitics must accompany strengthening civic engagement, as biopolitics has big advantages when dealing with the crisis but at the same time it can suppress individual’s freedom. Hence, I am certain that when countering the global crisis, integration between government and citizens, integration between government and government, and thinking of ‘we are in this together’ will be paramount.