Abstract
The health emergency caused by the coronavirus and the subsequent economic and social upheaval inexorably throw us into a different era. The pandemic has accelerated a revolution that was already underway, involving sustainability and technological innovations, with disruptive consequences on the economy, society, politics and ethics. Many are the lessons to be learned. However, redefining new equilibria and eliminating the economic and social contagion generated by the pandemic will take much longer than the creation of the vaccine. The coronavirus pandemic marked the beginning of a long and difficult journey through uncharted and stormy waters. Our future largely depends on our ability to navigate through these perilous and treacherous currents. In order to successfully manage this difficult transition, confidence and vision are essential. And so is the ability to learn from the past and adapt to the new reality.
Paraphrase of the famous verse from Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia (Inferno, XXVI, 118–120): “Consider well the seed that gave you birth: you were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge”. These are the words used by Ulysses—who Dante places in Hell as guilty of fraudulent counsel—to urge his men to sail with him past the pillars of Hercules. Ulysses describes how he used his gift with words to convince his somewhat reluctant crew to continue their adventures together. As he recalls his words, Ulysses recognizes that his persuasiveness is a good part of why he is now in Hell, as he led his men to their deaths.
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Notes
- 1.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a scholar of the randomness that governs the world. He is the author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Random House, London 2007.
- 2.
According to the W.H.O. (2020), during the COVID-19 outbreak technology has enabled and amplified an “infodemic”: an overabundance of information, both online and offline, that includes also deliberate attempts to disseminate wrong information. Infodemic has contributed to undermine the public health response and to jeopardize measures to control the pandemic, costing lives—because without the appropriate trust and correct information, diagnostic tests go unused and immunization campaigns do not meet their targets—and polarizing public debate on the topic.
- 3.
On 18 April 2015 at press conference outside the International Monetary Fund (IMF) meetings in Washington, D.C. Mario Draghi said “We are certainly entering into uncharted waters if the crisis were to precipitate”.
- 4.
As Fernando de la Iglesia Viguiristi observes with reference to the origins of the European project, “European agricultural policy arose in the 1970s to ensure a vital supply of food [to all member countries] without triggering very dangerous dependencies” (The Global Economic Crisis, in “La Civiltà Cattolica,” no. 4078, May 16, 2020).
- 5.
Marco Magnani, L’onda perfetta. Cavalcare l’onda senza esserne travolti (The Perfect Wave. Riding Change Without Being Overwhelmed), Luiss University Press, Rome 2020.
- 6.
As Gaël Giraud points out, confinement is an ancient strategy, since as early as 1347 Pierre de Damouzy—the physician of Margaret of France, Countess of Flanders—recommended confinement to the inhabitants of Reims to escape the Black Death.
- 7.
As Serge Morand, a researcher at CNRS-CIRAD, well explains, “in terms of biological evolution, it is much more effective for a virus to infect humans than the Arctic reindeer, which are already endangered by global warming. And this will be increasingly so because the ecological crisis will decimate other living species” (Coronavirus: la disparition du monde sauvage facilite les épidémies, interview given to the French weekly “Marianne” on 17 March 2020).
- 8.
As Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich notes, “the post-World War II reconstruction was important for the formation of new networks of relations, such as the Western one, which brought the United States and a part of Europe closer together” (Europe and the Virus, in “La Civiltà Cattolica”, no. 4076, April 18, 2020).
- 9.
The COVID-19 outbreak has pushed many companies to rethink the workplace and change policies regarding smart working, allowing employees to work in remote even post-pandemic. This is becoming a strong trend, particularly in the Tech sector.
- 10.
The full verse from The Tempest (Act Two, Scene One, 253–254) is “Whereof what’s past is prologue; what to come / in yours and my discharge” also translated as “…the past is prologue and the future / lies in your hands and mine”. It suggests that what has happened up until now only sets the stage for the future, and that we are the creators of our own lives and the authors of our own story.
- 11.
“Ignoranti quem portum petat nullus suus ventus est” (Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, letter 71).
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Magnani, M. (2022). Ye Were not Made to Live with the Virus: Lessons from the Pandemic. In: Making the Global Economy Work for Everyone. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92084-5_8
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