Passive Politics and Entangled Economics in Pandemic Times
It is difficult to get a coherent conscience on anything these days. It is true that life has come to a standstill. It is not just about the stillness. It is not just about the isolation. It is not just about the meaninglessness of all measures. It is the hidden meanings and musings that disturb my conscience to the core.
Our whole existence has become a quagmire. Is it because of the covid-19 pandemic? Not exactly. More than the vagaries of covid-19 pandemic, our response to the covid-19 pandemic has eroded my belief in the existence of a collective consciousness and cosomopolitan culture.
We have seen a lot of wars, riots, famine, calamities etc. in the history of humanity. In all those times, world was not connected like today. Despite having all the means and methods of convergent and connected networks, our nations, our markets, our industries, and all our collectives are taking incomplete and incompetent measures to protect the people in the event of one of the most powerful pandemic in the recent times. This is passive politics. This is entangled economics.
We were living in a myth of a utopian arena of globalisation. We believed that globalisation of money, trade and commerce had connected the world and carved out a cosmopolitan culture. It was not cosmopolitan culture, it was just convergence of commerce and communication. We have converged commerce and communication and carved out caves of culture around the world. These caves of culture was conveient to stage theatrics of politcs and economics. Thus we have seen the rise of poltical actors and economic magicians.
It is just enough. It is just enough to cover faces. All the forces in power know that passive politics is enough. Passive politics and entangled economics have the order of the day. Decades of discourses of democracy has created an apparent allegory of political praxis in our society that celebrates passive polity. A polity in which we can conveniently ignore our resposnsibilites. When we indulge in our individual lives, a passive polity is pristinly processing our social responsibilities and generating all the comforts of a welfare state. This has created an entangled economy of all sorts. An economy where markets are entwined with political power to create discourses of direct democracy.
On one side, markets have seeded irrationality of all sorts in the society. We have become consumers of cluttered choices and conjugated desires. On the other hand, we have become the preys of passive politics. Thus passive politics, irrational instincts and entangled economics have made us the mute spectators of a mass mayhem in the pandemic times. We are shrunken and shrivelled to swollen state of subservience in this spectre. The world is split wide open. Beneath the clutter of choices what we see is the silence of passive politics and entangled economics.
