The uneasy mirror of a virus

Abstract

This paper unfolds as a questioning of the Covid-19 global crisis, trying to uncover what our societies’ reactions to the pandemic signify. Using Rafael Capurro’s connection between the two concepts of pandemia and infodemia, the paper asserts that the Covid-19 crisis reveals a much older and deeper crisis of our democracies. It is about a gradual waning of the role humanities are playing, that eventually has thrown us into a situation in which we cannot properly deal with the amount of information flowing through our lives. The paper calls for a general reconsidering of this role as an opportunity offered by this global crisis itself.