With hindsight, it is more than a little surprising that, glaring and reckless transgressions notwithstanding, large sections of the Guyana population still comply with the unprecedented strictures and encumbrances required of us on account of the most alarming malady that we have ever had to confront, the Coronavirus.
Face masks, for example, are a high-priority recommendation for people in public spaces as is the practice of social distancing. Both, to varying degrees, are frowned upon, deemed by the more recalcitrant to be inconveniences. Never mind the fact that things of that nature are thrust upon us by the compelling force of circumstances and that the mindfulness of that reality should always supersede any inclination towards pushback. Put simply, decisions on compliance should be driven by a sense of the possible terminal consequences of non-compliance.
What is loosely defined as ‘the new normal’ is about a compulsory replacement of old axioms with new ones. COVID-19 has brought that on and in that sense it is an important juncture in our contemporary existence. It has caused to be fashioned a new global discourse on some of the fundamentals of the way we live. It begins at the level of the individual and the family. It is an acknowledgement of the likely significance of the virus for the continuity of life as we know it and a message about the need for us to reinvent much of the way we live. This is where the idea of a ‘new normal’ comes in.
The circumstances demand that we ‘change gears’ in fundamental ways. Once that change begins it is enormously unlikely that there can be any going back to the status quo ante. Too much of what we leave behind would have become unusable and our continuity will then become hinged to the dictates of the new axioms that we have set down.
The novelty, the newness (of the ‘new normal’) will doubtless encroach on the preceding prerogatives to which we had grown accustomed. Eventually, however, we will embrace the new, or else, run the risk of a perilous existence or perhaps even no existence at all.
Adapting to those axioms that will comprise this ‘new norm’ will, of necessity, be preceded by that incurable human inclination to debate things to death. That will run its course and afterwards compliance will become a response to inevitability…when we come to understand that change is a matter of survival.
Here, some local examples come to mind. Take education, for example. Surely, the further disfigurement of what had already been a fragile education system by the intervention of COVID-19 has left us needing, in all sorts of ways, to put the pieces together again. But that is not all. It has put before us a message about the compulsoriness of a fundamental change for our education system that embrace both the techniques and the tools. We ignore this reality at our own peril.
And is it not the same for our national health service, caught short of even the most basic facility for COVID-19 treatment responses to a virus that has the capability to devastate and up until now still trying to put one together? Other examples of the frailty of what one might call the ‘old normal’ are by no means too difficult to find.
Permanent (or at least significantly long-term) change is what this ‘new normal’ bespeaks. Humans are not, generally, kindly inclined to unexpected disruptions to long-held and long-cherished routines. The novelty, the newness of this ‘new normal’ will not, in many instances, be welcomed. In fact, what is almost certain is that those of us who are enduring what, by the standards of our patience, has become the protracted ‘presence of COVID-19 are beginning to clamour for the restoration of the status quo ante. By contrast, the global discourse points unerringly in a different direction. It sends clear signals that in a great many respects, we may well be preparing for the interment of much of what went before.
More than sketchy outlines of a ‘new normal’ are already beginning to materialize. Futurists are already beginning to assemble (virtually at this stage) to ‘chew on’ what are still the fairly sketchy ends of a vision for a ‘new normal.’ They are coming from a broad spectrum of disciplines, casting around for as far-sighted a collective vision as they can muster and into which they can fit the concept of the ‘new normal.’ What they are seeking to do is to turn the world inside out, no less, to take a searching look at ‘our world’ as it is and to ponder whether the significance of COVID-19 does not repose in (perhaps above all else) the poignant message that it brings which is that a ‘new normal’ is a compelling inevitability and that we must either comply or else find ourselves removed from the equation of existence.
Living on the cusp of the historic change which a ‘new normal’ implies is, perhaps, as much a privilege as it is a burden. The world is pretty much set in its ways and newness is, to a greater extent much more of a burden than we sometimes think. It is, frequently, not welcome. Here in Guyana, for example, a great many of us continue to fret over the social restraints, not appearing to be at all mindful of the fact that perched as we may well be on the edge of an inexorable ‘new normal,’ much more will be demanded of us, quite possibly, in the very near future.
