When this global forum has been convened, we must engage in what Ken and Mary Gergen (2004) describe as social constructive dialogue. This dialogue is required if we are to create a shared narrative (social construction) filled with both reality and hope—with both consideration and compassion. We cannot rely on our individual leaders to solve the virus problems. This would be nothing more than regression to an old (and highly authoritarian) reliance on other people to solve our collective problems. We must avoid other people constructing our collective narrative about the cause and cure of COVID-19 (and other future pandemics). The social construction of a dominant collective narrative that is valid (consideration) and hopeful (compassion) requires that we not leave either the policy formulation or the narrative construction to the designated leaders. We must participate (and encourage our leaders to join us) in the engagement of a polarity-based analysis of not just the various options available to us in coping with the continuing crisis of COVID-19, but also new options available to us in addressing future pandemic challenges.
The Nature of Collaboration: Together and Apart
The challenge of convening a collaborative forum takes on an additional dimension in our COVID-19 saturated world. The challenge resides at the very heart of who we are as caring and collaborating people. The virus has pulled us and our societies in two directions. It has driven us both toward one another and away from one another. A successful convening of policy forums must address this bifurcation. I offer a brief description of this bifurcation, and turn to Robert Sommers, a keen observer of social behavior, as well as Nicholas Christakis, our often-cited physician and sociologist, for insights regarding the tendency of people under conditions of stress and anxiety (brought about by some threatening entity such as COVID-19) to move toward or move away from other people.
Sommers (1969) used the term Sociofugal to describe social spaces that pull us apart. I would suggest that the virus has created sociofugal conditions in many societies. Christakis (2020, Chapter 5) proposes that the anxiety indued by COVID-19 leads us to become suspicious of people who in some way threaten us with disease or social unrest. The “others” in our life leave us alone and fearful—in a state that Christakis (2020, pp. 143-144) equates to mass-hysteria (such as what occurred with the Salem witch-trial). For Christakis, this fear of the “other” relates directly to the anxiety-induced processes of psychogenesis that I identified earlier. When we are fearful and anxious, then we are more vulnerable to disease. And when we are vulnerable to disease, we are likely to be more fearful of other people and are likely to restrict our interaction with other people. As we pull away (taking a sociofugal stance), then we are likely to become even more fearful and we subsequently seek out less interpersonal support. This, in turn, makes us even more vulnerable. We are suddenly trying to survive midst a perfect storm of anxiety, disease and interpersonal isolation.
