As at each end of December, reviews of the year abound. While some revisit the highlights of the year that is coming to an end, others prefer to dwell on its gray areas. For my part, I remember that 2022 has definitively refuted my naive predictions of March 2020.
At the time, I thought, like many, that at the end of this crisis, we would be entitled to a period of joy similar to the Roaring Twenties.
What to say ?
Obviously, our collective metamorphosis did not conform to my assumptions…
Nevertheless, one thing is clear: the pandemic has profoundly changed us all.
For the better, by refocusing on the essentials and, for the worse, by exacerbating excess and fragmentation.
The many outbursts of violence around sports grounds are among the news of 2022 that we have seen sink into oblivion like so many scattered news items, quickly consumed, quickly rejected.
Like canaries in the mine, the echoes linked to these slippages should have sounded the alarm.
The cheering crowd far too quickly gave way to incivility. Before our incredulous eyes, some local U8 supporters have turned into hooligans.
These incidents demonstrate that the pandemic has reduced our ability to remain composed, to take over our impulses, to control our base instincts.
This can be seen both in the sporting arena and in the public arena. The unbridled resentment between opponents and towards decision-makers bears witness to this.
Furthermore, the algorithms that guide our lives both virtual and real harness and multiply this acrimony.
Result: many, suffering from a form of hubris that the Greeks would have severely condemned, seem convinced that they have the license to act as they wish.
The moral compass is spinning.
These days, no one talks about the cardinal virtues that smell like mothballs. And yet, one of them would undoubtedly benefit from being dusted off and rehabilitated: temperance.
Attention: not temperance understood as moderate consumption of alcohol, although indicated, but rather the ability to temper one’s spirits, to restrain one’s enthusiasm.
Treat others as we would like to be treated… There is nothing magical or revolutionary about the age-old golden rule, but in a secularized world, it is the duty of all of us to embody this principle, to set an example.
In a strange way, this temperance deficit is linked to a second “dramatic social change” revealed in broad daylight in 2022, in this case, the notorious decline in social appetite.
The exultation of reconnecting with social life, which many anticipated, did not materialize.
On the contrary.
The tendency to withdraw into oneself, already present before the pandemic, has become firmly anchored over time.
The social habit has been lost. Human interactions seem more complicated, less natural.
Hence the excessive reactions and the growing attraction of what Bruckner calls renunciation.
Normal.
After all, we’ve sung the praises of bubble and slack so much. Add to that the rise of telecommuting, the endless array of online entertainment, and the ability to do just about anything without leaving home, and we have a perfect storm. Yes, these changes have brought undeniable balance benefits, but something essential has also been lost in the equation.
Isolation hangs over us like a sword of Damocles.
Knowing the major impact that human interactions have on the mental and physical health of an eminently social species like ours, it goes without saying that it is important to act.
On New Year’s Eve, tradition usually dictates that everyone makes individual resolutions. For 2023, why not do something different? Like the Little Prince and the fox, do we want to take the time necessary to reacquaint ourselves.