I have started to read a book by Davies and friends – ‘Unprecedented’. Their argument is that trends in society have been exacerbated and revealed by the pandemic so these trends have become clearer.
In an earlier blog, I talked about authoritarian states and the production of loneliness and I found echoes of this in the opening chapters of this book. This is particularly true of the trends in social media. I notice people constantly looking at the phones on the tube – I used to think that they had loads of friends and were texting them, but as I looked over their shoulders I could see they were immersed in gambling type games – not communicating at all. I try to catch their eye to start a conversation – I have much more success on buses where people are a bit older and happier to talk, perhaps to reduce their loneliness.
As Davies et al. point out Covid domesticated us. The home became a workplace, a school and a shopping hub. We were discouraged from going out to meet friends because of the infection risks so we got food delivered and subscribed to Netflix and other platforms for the latest entertainment. Women have been the losers, expected to add teaching to their already long list of tasks, hardly recompensed for this expansion of their role. Teaching is a gendered profession particularly in the early years, and schools have seen an expansion of their role – they are expected to provide not only educational services but social ones too.
Unlike those working in the financial services who make fairly spurious claims as to their contribution to our economy and therefore their right to be amply recompensed, as a society we seem unwilling to pay for care. Is it too domestic, too private? Is this a girl/boy thing?
The net has invaded our privacy so we have become sources of data, consumed by large anonymous net platforms, increasing our vulnerability to surveillance and propaganda (Morozov, the Net Delusion). Has Covid changed our private lives, making decisions about who we meet and how more difficult?
Davies and co. argue that our public spaces are becoming privatised, with draconian measures to prevent street demonstrations and other signs of solidarity – no more public squares?
I am glad for the strikes even though I am a regular visitor to my local hospital and a train user. I must admit that the strikes have inconvenienced me somewhat. However, more importantly, these workers point out that caring does not pay. And as most carers are women, it seems that the strikers are standing up for women too. The picket lines are not lonely places, workers seem to get on and appear to be chatting on the street, still a public space. Our fragile government’s response is to devise legislation to make striking even harder. They seem to want to punish collective action, both by the workers and the climate activists. I notice in various vox pops that the general public is broadly supportive of the striking workers, perhaps deep down we recognise the value of collective action as an escape from our lonely private lives.
Walking whilst ill 