SSCG-Newsletter 03 / October 2021

Editorial

Dear Reader

Disputes over Covid are currently dividing entire families and have already led to death threats against politicians. The deeper reasons for so much tension and division are probably not known even by those involved. Nevertheless, there are a few possible explanations.
First, when we experience suffering and restrictions on freedom, we intuitively look for culprits on whom we can direct our insecurities, fears and aggressions. Because in Covid the perpetrators will probably never be known, we project our emotions onto federal councilors, the media, and vaccination centers, onto employers and partygoers, and onto siblings and friends.
Second, unlike many areas of the world, we in Switzerland are not used to a 20-month crisis mode. Chronic dealings with contradictory scientific statements, pressure from government-backed companies, and official measures based on provisional half-knowledge are gnawing away at trust in our institutions and scratching away at both personal resilience and social cement.
Thirdly, social media as well as TV, radio and press primarily give voice and space to the extreme positions regarding Corona. The silent majority, which has been listlessly vaccinated out of a pragmatic mix of self-interest and public-spiritedness because it is the lesser evil compared to lockdown and intensive care, is completely lost in the shouting.
And fourth, what we experience in the personal realm when grieving for loved ones plays out on the collective level with Covid: At first, we didn't want to acknowledge the virus and repressed the danger. Then came one-sided blame and conspiracy theories. And when the images from hospitals in northern Italy spread fear among the population, we closed the national borders and struggled to find a reasonable middle ground between state coercion and personal responsibility. The final mourning phase is still missing, which would consist of creating a new relationship to ourselves and to the world and beginning to live with the virus in a halfway constructive way.

I wish you a stimulating read

Lukas Niederberger, Director SSCG

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