By Michael

Polling by Pew Research and Nature indicates that rather than bringing people together against a common threat, the Covid pandemic has deepened and exacerbated division worldwide over the past 14 months.

Whether the subject is masks, distancing, pandemic data or vaccine trust, the divisions are obvious in everyday life. A sense of community (communitas) is difficult to discern during a headlong global rush to achieve its philosophical opposite – immunitas.

With all allowances for the exigencies of an epidemiological emergency, the speed and ease with which a divided public has surrendered core political and human rights while breaking into hostile camps during the Covid pandemic needs deeper scrutiny.

My current Substack newsletter explores these divisions and their pre-Covid origins through philosophy, social psychology and myth in an effort to illuminate a democratic path forward.

Click the Substack icon below to read, subscribe, make a one time donation and/or to share.

Cover image: Lakota medicine man Lame Deer