Struggling to abstract
03.18.20
What is ethical relation in the midst of a pandemic? Physical but not social distancing. My hurt to your hurt – my wound to yours – but still, not too close. Can we really pretend that this crisis is any different from others? Cancel everything, black people are being murdered, asylum-seekers are in cages. Zoom offers a replacement to the status quo. But we know all of this. The question is why nothing changes.
03.28.20
In theory, the primary characteristic of a crisis is the moment of decision – the opening. What isn’t clear in that description is the aspect of temporal extension. Just like the slow movement of the horizon as one falls from a great height, the temporality of crisis may indeed be slow, with no clear end. In such a case, it becomes difficult to imagine that only one decision would suddenly close that gap, no matter how much we may wish it. Indeed, each second renews the catastrophe. An opportunity for a new decision and a new failure. That is, even hope carries the shadow of defeat.
*****
I can’t hear the words “I can’t breathe” without thinking of Eric Garner. So, now, is it selfish of me to wonder if the shortage of ventilators will consume and overcast his suffering? Yes, this pandemic is a terror, taking too many before their time – especially those heroes on the front lines. But some of those heroes took Eric’s life and refused to hear, when we asked to breathe.
04.05.20
The difficulty of trying to contain the fear while being told by institutions to maintain a sense of normalcy. We are afraid of what it would mean for us to create in a way that feels and really is most natural. That’s not our fault. We’ve been produced and cultivated to feel that way. And so, I think – maybe the solution is to just read more Adorno or self-servingly produce the minima moralia for my present. The fact is that the world is and has been on fire. Still, I don’t want to pretend that this means we ought to abandon theory. We rely on the possibility to imagine something otherwise just as much as we need the ability to confront the material present. This was true yesterday.
04.14.20
I’ve learned that in a crisis there is still weather. Storms raging at sea, destroying our homes even as they rage within our bodies. There are still sunny days with cool breezes and days overcast by clouds – and doom. These material conditions are also enfolded in our souls. In the fog of the unknown, a new flower still blooms. It doesn’t ask why.
from Jessica Ruffin