Post-Corona Hedonism
A projection for a world after the pandemic
As the first western country, the United Kingdom officially approved BioNTech/Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine this week (CW 49/2020). While the pandemic might still be far from over, these news ignite a spark of hope that allows us to fantasize about a post-corona world.
But what will that world look like? My bet is on an episode of post-corona hedonism!
With over 65 million infections and more than 1.5 million deaths as of Friday, December 4th 2020 [1] the pandemic has taken a heavy toll [2]. But it’s not only the infected that have fallen victim to the virus. We all have.
We have had to endure cutbacks in our civil rights constituting the most profound limitation of personal freedom in western countries during my lifetime. We have hidden our smiles behind protective masks and maintained a physical distance that sadly also brings about a kind of social distance that none of us intended. We have missed countless concerts, street festivals and sports events. We have abstained from traveling. We haven’t enjoyed a sorrow-free meal at a restaurant or a cocktail at a bar in months and we haven’t welcomed many guests into our homes lately. Some of us have suffered economic hardships. In many ways, life has actually been quite shitty.
Please don’t get me wrong. I am not criticizing the action we have taken to protect ourselves and others. Most, if not all of these measures and restrictions have been necessary. But humans are also social beings and accepting hard truths from reason doesn’t necessarily make us like them. So with all the pent-up need for joy and all the postponed happiness, I believe people will use the first opportunity they get to compensate — and overcompensate at that!
I think people will place a lot of value on experiences and social occasions. They will want to drink and party and I think those restaurants, bars and clubs that survived the dry spell will have a good time coming. Come to think of it — we might even see a modern reincarnation of the Roaring Twenties.
I myself am probably going to be a candidate for heavy overcompensation and I am actually looking forward to it. Please just let us not forget two things: First, that it’s still a long way to go and that we have to upkeep our vigilance now so we avoid further infection waves that would result in more casualties and delay our return to freedom. And second, that albeit not having been very prominent in the media lately, there is still that little problem called climate change that we shouldn’t forget about when we want to dive into the next excessive adventure!
[1]: Source: Johns Hopkins University
[2]: To get an impression of how much that really is, I took a look at the casualty numbers of World Wars I & II.
World War I caused a total of approximately 22 million deaths (military and civilian) in a period of 5 years so an average of 4.4 million deaths per year. COVID-19 has thus had a kill-rate of more than a third of that of a full-scale world war!(Source: Wikipedia)
By comparison, World War II was even worse than World War I with estimated 70 to 85 million casualties in 6 years. (Source: Wikipedia)
