The COVID-19 crisis has had the effect of accelerating the virtualization of the world already in motion for a few years. In our digitized universe, the encounter with the other in flesh and blood, epidermal contact, the expression and perception of emotions are becoming increasingly rare and are even sometimes perceived as threatening or sources of anxiety by our weakened souls.
Isolated in our digital monads, we thus try to grasp reality head-on, she who, like Ulysses’ mother whom he tries to embrace when he meets her in the Underworld, takes everything suddenly the form of an evanescent specter.
Dematerialization of the medical profession
To illustrate my point, let’s talk about one of my acquaintances whom I will name here Mr. W. so that his current family doctor, who is also becoming more and more evanescent, does not recognize him if he ever happens to read the following text on his mobile phone.
Phase I. For twenty years, Mr. W. had the same female doctor. The computer hadn’t made its way into his office yet; thus, after all these years of consultations, our patient’s medical file, which was several inches thick, was in such a mess that even this disciple of Hippocrates had trouble navigating through it. And what about his prescriptions! Written by hand, they were illegible to ordinary mortals.
Although always late, she nevertheless took the time to question Mr. W. about his health, his symptoms and his lifestyle. After taking his blood pressure and listening to his heart with her stethoscope, she did not hesitate to touch him everywhere, even in places that Mr. W.’s wife had never dared to inspect, she told me. he recounted with a big smile. But one day, she had to retire.
Stage II. A year later, Mr. W. finds himself with another doctor to whom his predecessor never sent his paper file. Not worth it, since with him almost everything is done by computer and especially accelerated. During their first visit, this doctor makes things clear: he only has a few minutes to devote to his new patient. In this new reality, like a heavy electronic file, time is compressed. It was during this first “contact” that this new doctor dared to touch Mr. W. for the first and last time, with the very specific aim of taking his blood pressure.
During the other meetings, firmly planted behind his computer screen, he will focus above all on entering his data correctly and directing his new patient to laboratories, to deposit his samples, or to various specialists, who will undergo many tests.
Mr. W. is categorical: during all these years, he never had to lower his pants in front of this doctor, and his prescriptions, straight out of the printer, were always very clear. But one day, his trendy doctor decides to leave the clinic. Everything then has to be started over.
Phase III. One morning, the phone rings. It is the secretary of the medical clinic who wants to offer Mr. W. an appointment with his brand new family doctor. “Thank God, the health care system hasn’t let me down,” he said to himself. What he does not yet know, however, is that the first consultation and the others to come will be done by telephone. But don’t worry, he is told. His new doctor has access to all of his medical records thanks to the magic of digital technology.
Moreover, when he has to take tests, he will only have to make an appointment at the local CLSC. As for taking his blood pressure, the privileged medical act he had left to share a fraternal moment with his doctor, the latter suggested that he instead go to Jean Coutu in order to deliver his arm to the machine designed for this feature…
In three years, Mr. W. had the privilege of meeting his doctor in the flesh only once, at the request of his cardiologist to whom he had been referred. At the time of writing these lines, he has absolutely no idea when such a chance will come again…
“The Disarmed Soul”
What was said above about the gradual virtualization of the medical profession could apply to other key sectors of our society such as education, for example, with the omnipresence of screens in classrooms. and distance education. The same is true for government services. As mentioned by the various signatories of a letter published in The dutyhere too we are witnessing, following the overuse of automated call centres, a dematerialization and, by extension, a dehumanization of the relationship between the citizen and the State for the provision of services.
How trivial it might seem to us when cashiers in banks were replaced by ATMs! Today, it is these same counters that are doomed to disappear in turn, while the customers of these financial institutions are asked to carry out their transactions using their own smartphone — an object which, in our society , is in the process of becoming the official and mandatory interface for getting in touch with others, but also with a range of services: restaurant, airport, parking, appointments, etc.
The human soul—spirit, thought, consciousness, or whatever you call it—far from being independent of the body, rather emanates from it. To deny this body, to attempt to circumvent it or to disregard the sensations, emotions, impulses and feelings that inhabit the social mammals that we are by imagining that everything can be mediated by the digital, is to condemn oneself to “spiritual sterility”. , to use Pierre Vadeboncoeur’s expression, and to the dehumanization of our species.
In this sense, the anxiety, psychological distress and existential void that affect a large part of the population and especially young people are probably no strangers to this virtualization of the world to which we submit ourselves in such a careless way.