Corona: Why we suddenly demonize skiers and carnivalists – culture

Anger and hatred can be liberating. Unfortunately, you need enemy images for this, which the inhabitants of the liberal-democratic societies, however, have abandoned over the years. The pandemic winter now provides the resentful among the sensible with a whole range of new objects of hatred, which one can confidently condemn, ban and even insult. This includes skiers, carnivalists, churchgoers, yoga gymnasts, choir singers and team athletes of any gender, skin color or income level. So just those pillars of society, model and petty bourgeoisie who care about health, community and friendships. Sociology and behavioral research will still have to chew on for a while what has turned 180 degrees with the virus. The Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods published in November a first study, which says that trust, cooperation and willingness to help decrease even within families during the pandemic.

The enemy image and loss of trust are self-explanatory, even without scientific research. Anyone looking for social closeness is a threat in the pandemic. Society reacts in the same way. Who loads his skis from the car, must have been shouting along in the après-ski bar beforehand and is looked at as if he was cleaning his crack pipe on the sidewalk. And real? Have you been to the Christmas mass on Christmas Eve? Yoga in a group? It’s all been online for a long time. Didn’t read the newspaper or what? Educational and class arrogance quickly make an impact. In both directions.

All these enemy images and prejudices have existed before. That was last winter. But then came the vaccines, the downward curves in the incidence tables, the glorious summer. Omikron brought them back with their extreme risk of infection. So something has already been learned by a majority that they can call up again immediately. Such collective behavioral changes need to be monitored. Because one thing is clear: the pandemic is changing the world, society, and people. If a phenomenon that has already been overcome, such as the enemy image, creeps in again, that could be a problem. Could. Not have to.

Enemy images are not just a motor for anger and hatred. They can be a means of social self-defense. Even quite deliberately. New York University environmental researcher Jennifer Jacquet published a much discussed book six years ago, which appeared in Germany under the title “Shame: The Political Power of an Underestimated Feeling”. Your research is very American in the approach that public shaming can be an effective tool in politics. Although – and she emphasized this again and again – it must not be about showing the individuals. So, to stay in the pandemic, don’t post pictures of people without masks on the park bench on Twitter. It is about collective measures to shame upwards, i.e. against power blocs in politics and business. Six years ago it was still about the environment and climate. But it can also be necessary to ostracize behavior. Tax evasion, for example. Environmental sins. Or groups that endanger the community with their behavior.

Outlaws have already turned dog poo lefters into outsiders

Sociologically, a path opens up that is as unusual as it is uncomfortable. So if the enemy image and public shame can avert damage as a non-state regulatory element, don’t they get an ethical legitimation that eliminates the moral problem? Isn’t that a kind of meritocracy of hatred and thus a step forward? You have to earn such an enemy role first. Exclusion becomes much more philanthropic than the image of the enemy based on skin color, religion, sexuality and all the other attributes that can make up a person.

After all, behavior that is harmful to the general public can become abnormal behavior in this way. This is a kind of sociological shift in the Overton window, a correction of the framework of social acceptance that can also take place surprisingly quickly in the event of an acute catastrophe like the pandemic. And yes, as a consequence, it raises the hope in many that these mechanisms that society is currently practicing could be applied to the next catastrophes of global warming and inequality. After all, similar outlaws have already made chain smokers, dog poop abandoners and other rowdies to outsiders. Laws and fines have only cemented a new status quo by consensus.

Open detailed view

Of course, it’s not that simple. The risk factor in this simplified image of man are the digital simulations of togetherness, social and other media. They work with the technology of the 21st century, but the social dynamic there is largely an anachronism that real society got behind it sometime in the middle of the 20th century. Any form of hatred and prejudice carries the risk of them is catapulted in directions by the forces of artificial intelligence and inflated to sizes that no one can control. When the smokers and their carcinoma clouds were driven out of the dining and drinking places, Twitter and Facebook were just beginning. There haven’t been any noteworthy digital mobs and shitstorms. Any consideration of changing collective behavior must therefore be reconsidered much more closely today than it was fifteen or sixteen years ago, when the non-smoking protection laws really came into force.

It’s about power. Not about individuals

In the absence of Asian community awareness and corresponding collective measures, the open society is much more quickly faced with the question of what sense and benefit the exclusion can have in the practice of behavior that serves the common good or can even save lives in the omicron winter. You can certainly be responsible for shaming or even rushing upwards. If the mayor of the incidence stronghold of Kitzbühel, Klaus Winkler, is also chairman of the supervisory board of Bergbahn AG, then there is at least a certain conflict of interest for public discussion when it comes to disease control measures in skiing. If the churches regard the pastoral effect of the Mass and the sports clubs regard the spirit of competition as the greatest asset, then the decision-makers have to be brought to rethink. It’s about power. Not about individuals.

Incidentally, the pandemic has not only established the endangered type of person in the middle of society, but also the return of the flail. Since the first lockdown, the number of burps, flatulences and public itching at the increasingly rare dining or other tables has increased enormously, even if this is a purely anecdotal survey that is inevitably limited to a rather narrow circle in the pandemic. But if you are already thinking about driving dangerous behavior out of a society – where are the manners? In the milieu of skiers, churchgoers and yoga gymnasts, they have always been a matter of course. And definitely a much nicer alternative to coercive measures and hate campaigns.