The pandemic and extremism – wicked tests of resilience
HANNA-KAISA PERNAA
01.02.2021
A researcher acting in accordance with the basic philosophical settings of science, gets grey hairs from the notion that the information we receive - and by extension the image we form of reality – is to an increasing extent out of our own hands.
The turn of the year is associated with the beginning of a new chapter. It is associated with the possibility of change and an increased interest for the future, be it based on personal hopes and wishes, new year’s resolutions or societal prospects shaped by the current state of the world.
The human mind is known to protect itself from the future by keeping expectations moderate. If you project your own and your loved ones’ futures 10 years from now, the changes you project follow a fairly safe and often positive path. However, if you 10 years into the future were you to make a full turn and look 10 years into the past, you quickly find that the changes having taken place were much larger and more drastic, both quantitatively and qualitatively, than you could ever have envisioned 10 years prior.
Tammikuun alun uutistulva Washington DC:ssä Yhdysvaltojen keskushallintoon kohdistetuista The news flood of the attacks on the Capitol Building in Washington DC in the beginning of January, and the ever-rising C-numbers makes the visualisation of the upcoming year drastically different from what it would have been a decade or even a year ago. New shades of grey have strengthened in our visions of the future: the unpredictability of the future and the insecurity that comes with it, bring with them new feelings, even those of distress.
Despite the fundamental differences between the pandemic and extremism, they both place society into a test of resilience. The outcome of this test bears with it both communal and global consequences. Unpleasantly, it concretises the concepts of societal crisis resilience and adaptability, and introduces the notion of resilience onto the stage of public societal discourse. The way in which knowledge is gathered, formed and communicated are most prominently present in these discussions.
Knowledge is a commodity with the help of which we build awareness of an ongoing or approaching situation. The Holy Grail of science is to find trustworthy information and thereby construct as truthful a view of any given phenomenon as possible. It is a mythical state shaped by the ages and sought by all, a state made all the harder to reach the bigger and more diverse the amount of knowledge available.
A researcher acting in accordance with the basic philosophical settings of science gets grey hairs from the notion that the information we receive - and by extension the image we form of reality – is increasingly more out of our own hands. The digital neural network, which works with the help of algorithms and are constantly updating the users’ profiles, in addition to feeding us information also acts as a profile editor. As soon as sympathies, for example, with extremism or anti-vaccine sentiments are detected, the sources of information are adapted accordingly.
A fundamental epistemic management tool, besides being a commercial good, is shaping to be a tool for exercising power. By managing information, one can reach a state of being where the foundations of any society can be questioned in a wholly new manner. Scientific knowledge is in for a run for its money when an individual’s control over their own life is heightened and the image of the chaotic world we live in is simplified by the use of different conspiracy theories and ideological inputs; thereby turning all complex things into nice, simple and easily understandable entities. It is easier to express one’s opinion, knowing it is the “right” one.
By thinking about these phenomena and knowledge building from the perspectives of complexity thinking and governance new nuances are brought to the discussion. Does systemic adaptivity as a concept provide enough opportunity for doing so, or should proactive elements that seek to understand the wants and needs of the system be added to the mix? What if the Holy Grail is constructed by focusing our attention on a community’s desired future and by knowingly shifting the societal conversation towards values that support said future. By doing so we might from the grey fog be able to create and opportunity: a desired state of the system and a paved way on how to reach it.
Hanna-Kaisa Pernaa, Doctor of Public Administration
The author works as a Research Doctor at the Departments of Social and Public Health Administration at the University of Vaasa.
