Social Distancing and the Deficit of Presence (Philosophical Reflection of the Covid-19 Pandemic)

The paper claims that if the COVID-19 pandemic turned out to be a man-made risk (А. Giddens), i.e. an unforeseen consequence of a person’s own behavior and actions, then in order to avoid such fatal contingences that occur so unexpectedly, it is necessary to change the type of behavior and actions that have established in the culture of the Modern Period. During the pandemic people are forced to observe the spatial order. Distancing, self-isolation, the Red Zone and other spatial limitations made people acutely aware of the deficit of presence, the lack of their independent active participation in life. The new virus, on the one hand, returned a person to the awareness of the biological, natural origin of human existence, which has been forgotten by culture (science). On the other hand, the practices of social rationing and restriction revealed the influence of various forms of alienation — social, political, economic, cultural — on the fate of each individual. The introduction of the bioprinciple (the virus) into the social, cultural and political space radically changes the relationship between people and nature. This situation makes one think about the meaning of the notion of culture, which got its definition in the 18th century and is understood as non-nature reflected in the formula culture vs nature. The paper shows that the cultural ideal of human activity, which was established in modern times, became the reason of the alienation of technogenic civilization and social forms of life from nature. By destroying nature, turning it into the material for people’s various techne, people found themselves in conflict with their own life. Culture has lost its inner meaning of the presence of the world and of an individual which dissolved in various interpretations and ideas. Contemporary history is moving towards the establishment of a culture of Presence, where the world is viewed not as a mere material to be used, but an area for humans to engage with. What we see today is the assertion of the right to difference and the right to the presence of diversity — in nature, culture, politics (struggle for a multipolar world), in the personal domain (selfies, blogs, chats, etc.).