Description
Book SynopsisCOVID provoked a multi-dimensional crisis that overwhelmed existing concepts of social resilience that focus on a singular crisis. This volume proposes an alternative. In The Coronavirus Crisis and Its Teachings: Steps towards Multi-Resilience Roland Benedikter and Karim Fathi first describe the pluri-dimensional characteristics of the Coronavirus crisis. Then they draw the pillars for a more "multi-resilient" Post-Corona world including socio-political recommendations on how to generate it. The Coronavirus crisis has proven to be a bundle crisis consisting of multiple, interconnected crisis dimensions. Before Corona, most concepts of a "resilient society" implied a rather isolated focus on only one crisis at a time. Future preparedness in the 21st century will require a multi- and transdisciplinary risk-management concept that the authors call "multi-resilience". "Multi-resilience" means to systematically enhance the universal resilience competencies of societies, such as collective intelligence or overall responsiveness, making them appliable to pluri-dimensional crisis contexts. If the Coronavirus crisis in retrospect will have contributed to implementing multi-resilience, then it will ultimately have contributed to progress. This volume includes a Foreword by Jan Nederveen Pieterse and an Afterword by Manfred B. Steger.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Figures Overview and Summary part 1 The Coronavirus Crisis 1 Introduction "Do Nothing" or, an Epochal Crisis 2 Systemic Unpreparedness Inducing a Variety of Psychological Reactions 3 The Branches and Social Strata Hardest Hit A List to Be Carefully Remembered for the Next Systemic Rupture 4 Were Nature and the Environment "Winners" of the Crisis? Disputed "Improvements" and Their Flip Sides 5 Children and Relationships 6 Labour and the Economy "Generation Corona" 7 Corona and Re-Globalisation 1 Sharpening Awareness about the Differences between Political Systems and Their Growing Asymmetries 8 A Battle for Values and Transformation Not Confined to Bilateral Competition, but Spanning the Globe 9 Unprecedented Penetrative Depth Uplifting Technology, Changing Sexuality, Questioning Science? 10 Corona and Re-Globalisation 2 Creating Conscience for National and International Reforms 11 Intellectual Rhetoric between Cheap "Humanistic" Appeal and Kitsch 12 "Humanised" Technology Instead of a New Humanism? 13 A Boost to "Post-human Hybrid Intelligence" Such as Biological Espionage and Sentiment Analysis? 14 Striking a Balance Was Corona a Watershed for Western Humanism and the Basic Rationality of the Enlightenment? 15 The Vast Variety of Political Instrumentalisations 16 Three More Far-reaching Aspects within Global Democracies and Open Societies Confirmation Bias, "Republican" Turn and Re-Globalisation Drive part 2 The Simultaneousness of Local, National and Global Effects 17 An Unprecedented Crisis Accelerating the (Temporary?) Rupture of Advanced Life Patterns - Including Gender Role Models in Democracies 18 "Unsocial Sociability" and the Re-shaping of the Global Order Anthropology and Politics Intertwined 19 Medical Diplomacy, or: The Great Divide of Principles over and after Corona More "Do It Alone" - or More Cooperation? 20 Don't Forget the Bizarre, the Surreal and the Perfidious From Mona Lisa to Sharon Stone and Global Terror 21 Coronavirus Crisis Social Psychology Between Disorientation, Infodemic and the Need to Understand 22 Conspiracy Theories Misusing the Crisis for Legitimating the Absurd in Times of "Fake News" 23 The Perspective The Real Question is Not about covid-19, but about "the World after" part 3 The Corona Challenge: Multi-Resilience for an Interconnected World Ridden by Crisis Bundles 24 In Search of Examples of Efficient Resilience From the Evolutionary Teachings of Bats to Regional Self-administration within Political Autonomies to a "Flexible" Handling of Constitutions 25 Crisis Resistance in the Face of Corona and in Anticipation of Potential Future Pandemics A Short Overview of Different Options of Socio-political Responses 26 The Primordial Path to Follow Enhancing Resilience. Basic Philosophical Assumptions and Their Implications for Crisis-policy Design 27 Revisioning the Concept of Resilience A Necessary Step (Not Only) after Corona 28 Progressing from Resilience to Multi-resilience Two Basic Approaches 28.1 Prerequisites: Relevant Criteria 28.2 Complexify: Multi-resilience in a Systemic Perspective 28.3 Simplify: Multi-resilience in an Action-oriented Perspective 29 Five Principles of Multi-resilience 29.1 Principle 1: Fostering Individual Resilience 29.2 Principle 2: Integrating Centralised and Decentralised Decision-making and Implementation 29.3 Principle 3: Problem-solving Practices with Knowns and Unknowns 29.4 Principle 4: Supporting and Enhancing Collective Intelligence through Participatory and Cross-sectoral Knowledge Management and Integration 29.5 Principle 5: Fostering "Resilience Culture" by Stimulating and Facilitating Collective Reasoning and Cohesion 30 Summary. Multi-resilience A Crucial Topic to Shape "Globalisation 2.0" part 4 Requirements for a Post-Corona World 31 The Corona Effect and "Diseasescape" Towards Weaker, but More Realistic Globalisation and Transnationalisation? 32 The Uncertainty about the Future of covid-19 Short-term Scenarios versus Big-picture Trends 33 Technological Requirements Six Trends 33.1 Remote Working 33.2 eLearning 33.3 Telehealth 33.4 E-commerce and On-demand Economy 33.5 Automatisation 33.6 Increasing Use of Immersive Technologies 34 Towards a Post-Corona World Seven Upcoming Conflict Lines Open Societies Should Prepare for 34.1 Nationalism versus Globalism 34.2 Freedom versus Safety 34.3 Professionalism versus Populism 34.4 Class: Rich versus Poor 34.5 Ethnicity (Racism) 34.6 Gender 34.7 Generation: Young versus Old 35 The Post-Corona World Potentials and Visions for a "Better Globalised" International System 35.1 Idea Potentials: Policy-relevant Contributions by Intellectuals, Ecologists and Futurists 35.2 Universal Basic Income as a Driver towards Better Socio-economic Resilience? 35.3 Post-Growth and Degrowth as Responses to the Economic and Ecological Challenges in a Post-Corona World? part 5 Post-Corona Policy Design 36 Chances and Limits of Resilience The Development Paradox and the Increasing Danger of Man-made Disasters with Multi-sectoral Side Effects 37 Towards a Broader and More Integrated Policy of Future Preparedness Contributions from Selected Guiding Concepts 37.1 A Brief Outline of Three Contemporary Coping Concepts: Development, Sustainability, Resilience 37.2 Development versus Sustainability versus Resilience: Similarities, Fault Lines and Potential (Realistic) Complementarities 37.3 Collective Wisdom as the Missing Connecting Principle towards Multi-Resilience? 38 Fostering Local, National and International Paths towards Multi-resilience Leverage Points for Interrelated Social Change Bottom-up and Top-down 38.1 Education Programs for Individual Resilience 38.2 Bottom-up Transformational Impulses via Building Critical Masses for Positive Change 38.3 Experimental Prototyping Projects 38.4 Building Bridges between Subsystems 38.5 Methods of Communicative Complexity Management 38.6 Towards the Integration of Standards? part 6 Recommendations for a Multi-Resilient Post-Corona World 39 "Health Terror"? Towards an Adequate Framework for a Post-Corona Socio-political Philosophy "Resistance" and Power Critique Will Not Suffice 40 Seven Strategic Recommendations for Pro-positive Multi-resilient Policymaking in the Post-Corona World of Open Societies 40.1 Recommendation 1: Include Competency Development to Become a Crucial Part of the Education System 40.2 Recommendation 2: Strengthen European-Western Simulation Methodology and Strategic Foresight 40.3 Recommendation 3: Strengthen Future Anticipation Capacities and (Potentially) Their Integration. From the Futures Cone and the Futures Diamond to Futures Literacy 40.4 Recommendation 4: Improve Communication through "Complexity Workers" 40.5 Recommendation 5: Refine Multi-level Governance 40.6 Recommendation 6: Expand and Improve International Cooperation 40.7 Recommendation 7: Sharpen Global "Crisis Automatisms" and Interconnected Responsibility Patterns on the Way to Global Governance 41 Recommendations for Global Post-Corona Policymaking in an Increasingly Multipolar World 41.1 Five Policy Trajectories Proposed by the University of the United Nations - Leading to the Key Concept of "Futures Literacy" 41.2 The Forgotten Perspective: Instilling a More Encompassing and Trans-systemic Concept of Health and Healing? part 7 Outlook. The Coronavirus Legacy: A "New World" Ahead - or back to Business as Usual? 42 The (Productively) Ambiguous Post-Corona Vision A "New World" Ahead? 43 "Corona Positivism" The Global Pandemic as an Unprecedented "Chance" for Radical Transformation - or Even as the Epochal Example for What (Social) Art Should Achieve? 44 Corona as a Driver of Re-globalisation towards Post-Corona Globalisation 45 A Post-Corona Core Task Re-positioning the Open Systems of Europe and the West by the Means of Multi-resilience 46 An End to Geopolitical Rivalry? Not Likely - Despite Some Positive Signals 47 Back to Business as Usual - Systemic Improvements at the "Evo-devo" Interface? 48 Integrating the Obvious Post-Corona, Multi-Resilience and "Futures Literacy": "Bring Together What belongs Together" 49 Corona and Emerging New Responsibility Patterns 50 Outlook: A Post-Corona World in the Making Towards Difficult, but Feasible Innovation - for the Sake of a More Pro-positive Re-globalisation Afterword Manfred B. Steger Bibliographic References Index
