For my PhD in philosophy & education, I’ve spent the last 4 years contemplating both the possibility of near-term human extinction in the Anthropocene & how we, as a species, might learn to accept that fate. Here’s one strand of thought regarding the #coronavirus #COVID19. (1/12)

First, let’s be clear: #COVID19 is not itself an extinction-level event. But it is a force multiplier for all other catastrophic risks we face; it is a problem that makes every other problem worse. That’s rather obvious: supply chain disruptions, political repression, war, etc.

But what about how #COVID19 will affect us existentially re: our human nature or condition? How will it change us in ways that make us more dangerous to ourselves? (This is central to my thesis: we should conceptualize human extinction as collective suicide. *We* are the threat.)

One such way this pandemic is changing us is through the sudden mass onset of anomie—a state of anguished normlessness wherein society ceases to provide its members w/ adequate (or even any) moral guidance. This exacerbates uncertainty & reinforces atomistic individualism, which

will lead many to make choices that, in turn, worsen our common circumstances (e.g., hoarding of resources). This terrifyingly dovetails w/ the legitimation crisis we have already been in w/ Trump as President: the cloak of authority cannot conceal incompetence in an emergency.

Indeed, authority evaporates under such conditions. To review, then: morally & politically speaking, we neither know what to do ourselves, nor do we know where or to whom to turn for such knowledge. This is existentially untenable in a crisis & it WILL resolve in one of two ways.

Either we will see a degenerative reduction in complexity that replicates current models of authority & order at lower levels (i.e., the collapse of the federal gov & the Balkanization of the US), or we’ll see a transformative reduction in complexity that establishes new kinds of

authority & order at a higher level (i.e., the emergence of a planetary & postnationalist system of social organization). Put differently, either we will double down on the old, or we will create something new. (Etymologically, ‘crisis’ is ‘turning point b/w death or recovery.’)

To be clear, neither of these will happen overnight or solely bc of #COVID19. But these two paths reflect the fact that we’ve already been ensconced in a state of global crisis that has necessitated such changes for some time: climate breakdown & associated ecological problems.

#Coronavirus, in this sense, can either be a birth pang or a death rattle. This brings me to my final point: #COVID19 has not only made our overarching planetary crisis more acute; it has also made much clearer our *perception* of that crisis. This pandemic is capturing the

attention of egocentric humans as only such personal experiences can (& abstractions like climate breakdown cannot). Our interconnectedness is being forced into our consciousnesses at a time that depatternization is making our consciousnesses more receptive to interconnectedness.

Or at least that’s the hope. Our future as a species hinges on whether or not this crisis becomes a metamorphosis. That which saves us from #COVID19 can also save us from ourselves—from our probable extinction. Do we have what it takes to evolve in real time?