Chain Reaction: Disasters, Social Inequalities, and Bioethics

Mitrović, Veselin (2023) Chain Reaction: Disasters, Social Inequalities, and Bioethics. In: Social Economic and Political Construction of COVID-19. Institute of Social Sciences, Belgrade, p. 20. ISBN 978-86-7093-263-0

Text apstrakt Mitrović.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Download (43kB)

Abstract

Disasters and Crises are not the same, although they share some similarities. While first are almost unpredictable, sudden, and have their own time frame, crises are more structured issues that may be or tend to become ongoing. A latent social concern that causes cumulative damage is the inter- twining of the terms of crisis and disaster in everyday, public, and scientif- ic speech, which started to spread globally simultaneously with spread of the SARS-CoV 2 virus. Such an epistemological inversion of the pandemic is just one of the causes for the chain reaction which provokes accepting new realities which comprehend disaster as omnipresent and constant. After the virus’ outbreak, the world aimed at normalizing the every- day life, or returning to the pre-pandemic state. However, the general aspiration of returning to normal, which devel- oped during the pandemic, could in fact be a slow disaster, i.e. the pan- demic aftermath, as it may involve returning to everyday discrimination, racism, and social and health inequalities. The general wish would, thus, in fact belong to the privileged, rather than marginalized and vulnerable groups. This inverse nostalgia triggers one of the fundamental questions in Bioethics. What is the primary concern of turning the miserable survival of the most endangered, marginalized, and discriminated groups into something acceptable? Alternatively, how to prevent firstly the epistemological reductionism and inversions during the pandemics and, secondly, to prevent bioethics from falling into the trap of turning into an omniscient and contingent discipline with aspirations to become a worldview.

Actions (login required)

View Item