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Wang Qing: Tired, extremely tired! The epidemic has repeatedly dispelled the beliefs of European intellectuals.
On July 6, 2020, local time, dozens of people wearing masks and holding handsMona LisaPortrait of a Parisian tour guide protesting in front of the Louvre in Paris, France, calling on the government to provide more support to help them weather the crisis of the new corona pneumonia epidemic and the shortage of tourists. source:Visual china
Article 丨 Wang Qing (Interface News correspondent in Europe)
On the night of October 28, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Macron made two-way television speeches, announcing the new stricter crown lockdown policy between Germany and France since the summer. Overnight, the shadow of the second wave of the epidemic engulfed Europe.
Let me talk about my observation of the subtle changes in European public opinion.
Since the beginning of autumn, the number of confirmed cases in European countries has risen sharply, and the daily increase in major countries has exceeded 10,000. The blocking measures are adding little by little: restricting meetings, introducing mask obligations, closing restaurants, imposing curfews … People do not stop having expectations. With psychological preparation, the stressful behavior of accumulating toilet paper in the first wave is not expected to reoccur, but it is still not easy for people to fully accept that “the carefree summer is over. In those days when there were only new double-digit cases in a single day, Europeans briefly regained the freedom to travel and socialize, and even gave birth to the illusion that “life will return to normal soon” – ” Look, China didn’t just do it. “
Life can eventually return to normal, but not now. So what does Europe have now? A mood of extreme fatigue is spreading. Not just the fatigue of meeting epidemic prevention standards, but also cognitive fatigue.
The scientific community is still constantly expanding its understanding of this disease, but the public knowledge community and the public seem to have lost the cognitive level of interest in it. The correct way to wash your hands has become popular, and there aren’t many new things to say about wearing masks. Newspaper columnists are racking their brains to find writing topics other than the epidemic, and Zizek Agamben Nancy is no longer fighting. Public power and personal privacy, civic responsibility and personal freedom, what needs to be said has already been said.
When I interviewed British writer McEwan last month, I spoke about the difference between Europe and the United States in fighting the epidemic. In his seventies, he is a high-risk group for the new crown. At the time, he had been “isolated” at his home in the London suburbs for a short half year. The elder mentioned that Trump’s absurd response to the epidemic may provide a steady stream of critical material for American intellectuals, but that object may not be found in Europe. Most European politicians have not made fatal mistakes in fighting the epidemic, although they may not behave well.
The comparison of achievements between countries that excite the media and academia also seems to have lost its meaning; anyway, it’s “ten years in the east and ten years in the west.” The Czech Republic, which was hardly affected in the first wave, became one of the European countries with the highest infection density in the second wave. Italy, which was the first to “succeed” in the first wave, was surprisingly stable at the beginning of the second wave. The media lamented that dumb people are good at learning lessons and learning experiences, but this impression only lasted a few weeks. , Italy’s daily growth exceeded 10,000. Even Germany, which has long been regarded as a “student against the epidemic,” has “fallen” last week.
Perhaps the most mysterious is Sweden, a European country that has never taken the initiative to lock your data, prompting a strong curiosity among intellectuals. Every few days, “The miracle of going to bed: what Sweden did right” and “The evil of going to bed: why Sweden becomes purgatory on Earth”, headlines expressing the opposite position appear alternately in the media.
Why do these similar European countries have different performances on stage? The detection rate, the number of ICU beds, the requirement of masks, the intensity of the confinement, the relationship between the central and local government … After a short half year of fighting the epidemic, everyone seems to be able to say some reasons, but they are not clear.
A mysterious thing tends to give rise to mystical explanations. At a seminar in Amsterdam a few days ago, a young Dutch audience said that they had given up on prevention on a personal level, and that not wearing a mask would not reduce exits.
“Why do you want to completely change your lifestyle and give up so much personal freedom for an unclear virus?” He seemed to be joking with a straight face, “Maybe it really was made by Bill Gates. About that.”
In many European countries, followers of conspiracy theories are expanding. The virus was created by laboratory personnel with ulterior motives. The vaccine is just another lie about the body. Angry believers even burned down multiple 5G base stations simply because they believed they would interfere with the human immune system. Spreading misinformation has gained a huge fan base, with a Dutch influencer who was blocked by YouTube a few days ago stated in her influential video that she hoped the current prime minister would die.
There is still no way to explain and digest these phenomena. It’s just a faint feeling that what an entire generation of Europeans once believed is being accelerated by the epidemic. Science, rationality, democracy, freedom … a large area of spiritual life has started to go blank, requiring old ideas to be rearranged and combined or created. What new things to fill. Because people still need faith, and even more urgently than before, they want to grasp something.
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