“The world we knew has simply perished,” was the last sentence in Sascha Lobo’s latest column, “From the Ashes of Habit, the New Present Emerges.” Lobo sketched out how society is changing in the Corona crisis, using, among other things, a “to give away” box, which he had encountered on the streets of Berlin.
“The spirit of reduction to the essentials blows through the world, and, I believe, it only begins with the objects,” Lobo wrote, for example: in the post-pandemic society that is moving up, “this corona-minimalism” can change much more than just the back corners of the wardrobes and cellars.
From increasing community building on the Internet to new bicycle and pedestrian zones, Lobo sees changes everywhere that many people could hardly have imagined without the Corona Crisis. Progress has “often begun due to the crisis,” says Lobo, “suddenly a new present emerges from the ashes of the earlier self-evident.”
What is happening these days, for example, could also influence the climate debate, Lobo suggests: because the measures against climate change now seem mau, “where Corona has made it clear what the policy would be able to do”. In a post-pandemic society, what was previously slammed with arguments such as “Don’t go,” “Never accept people” or “inconceivable, unthinkable,” Lobo believes, must and will be possible.
In this podcast, the columnist now responds to comments from his readers.
