Spinning Solitude: Coronavirus and the Philosopher

This fictionalized script (fictional dialogue between Coronavirus and the Philosopher) traces the contours of the conversation that seeks to fathom the crisis unleashed by the outbreak and global spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19 pandemic) and the ensuing anxieties created in our current social living. The scenario of deepened isolation of the self from the other (social distancing and ‘stay-at-home’ or various lockdowns) is considered, and it is proposed (by the philosopher, I presume) that isolation, while an unavoidable requirement, does not mean it is some mental lassitude but rather may be seen as an enthusiastic concern toward recovering physical and mental wellbeing of the larger communities concerned to control the possible avenues of transmission of the contagion. The conversation meanders around the issue of quarantine, its attraction or otherwise, and who benefits from this restriction, its effects on one’s mental constitution, etc. Philosophers have been known to isolate themselves in other contexts and situations (Yājñavalkya and the Buddha withdrawing to the forest; the Jain mendicants crossing “the ford”; the Stoics withdrawing from society, Nietzsche’s retreating regularly to the sanatorium; Heidegger to the Black Forest; Kant’s unsocial sociability and Wittgenstein living lonesome lives, etc.) give us a taste of what is to come in the dialogue to resist the calamity of the coronavirus and its grim effects that engulf the entire humanity.