COVID-19: Anxiety vs Fear and the Dangers of Future Global Problems

Abstract

My aim in this paper is to ask whether anxiety or fear would incentivise change when facing global problems. In the context of the SARS-CoV-2, I shall analyze the pandemic in the context of the ontological in structural, institutional and behavioral settings. Given that pandemics occur sparsely I have employed analytical theoretical construction, some statistical comparison and transcendental arguments in a logical nest of analytic inferences. I should note that I am not interested in what the wake of the pandemic looks like. This paper is about is to do so I appeal, in general terms on the philosophy or Martin Heidegger. Along the same lines, this time following Anthony Giddens, I argue, contrary to what many ascertain, that anxiety is a force which pushes people to want to return to normalcy; and fear to change. For example, Agamben argues that emergencies [fear] push for a return to normalcy and a state of exception is there to change in a systemic order. Again, I disagree, I posit that COVID-19 showed that fear is a more powerful engine of change. Anxiety which is stronger than fear to the contrary is that the strongest force to element to propel a return to normalcy is anxiety not fear. This paradox is what this paper’s primoradial wants to contribute. Ontological dissonance or existential threats put into question our ability to be-in the world. What I would posit is that emergencies may lead to change while anxiety leads to stagnation and useless attempts to return to a pre-pandemic world.