Analysis of the social context in the 'era of coronavirus': Stupidity is virulent, and knowledge is hard to transmit!

By: Senadin Lavić/Patria

Psychological state, fear, hopelessness. A new drama of humanity is unfolding on the world stage, with coronavirus sowing dread in our hearts and death around us. Fear of infection and unexpected death has prevailed among people. They have panicked and don't know what to do. Irresponsible media reports confuse them, increase their panic, and uncertainty destroys them from within. In a crisis, solidarity among people should prevail. The danger threatens every human being equally. This fosters loyalty to the human community.

This is an ideal situation for the media, fulfilling the "meaning" of their existence! It's important to be first, first, and first! Forever first. It is also disgusting to listen to politicians discussing "ethnic-religious and national issues" who overnight begin to explain COVID-19 as if it were something they know in detail. Even more disgusting is when individuals, at this critical time, continue to express their phasisoid hatred towards everything Bosnian! However, our civic hope was saved by a few quality professors and doctors who authoritatively explained the new situation in the country and the world. They testified that trust in knowledge is not in vain, because it liberates from hopelessness.

Knowledge, education, and the ethics of responsibility. Major events that dramatically affect all of humanity raise questions about people's knowledge and education. In critical moments of history, we become aware that singers, footballers, influencers, Kardashians, fortune tellers, and political manipulators cannot help us in any way. They are part of the entertainment and consumerism industry, but in crisis situations, we seek the opinions of experts and scientists in various fields. This, in a way, represents our human seriousness and taking responsibility for our own lives. We carefully seek "serious" knowledge about phenomena and events in nature and society! Quite clearly: knowledge that possesses a humanistic aspect and responsibility towards life, care for the yet unborn, and an established ecological consciousness.

Lies of the system and resignation of citizens. Suddenly, we see how certain functions of the system are unable to fulfill their purpose.

For example, the educational or health functions of the system, which we rely on as usable for the social system, are at a certain point revealed as dysfunctional, and often their employees as incompetent. For years, as citizens, we have suspected that we do not have quality education or healthcare, a justice system, or security, and then we realize, when they are needed by the community, that these system functions are inadequate for their purpose, that they are often just formal curtains behind which there is nothing serious, science-based, moral, responsible, or human.

For years, people have been receiving salaries for certain jobs in the social system, and when they need to make these functions available to society, everything falls apart, and the system doesn't work. That is why it is hardest for people seeking justice and order, because a corrupt judge prevents justice, or for people seeking health when they realize that the system's function does not provide medicine or adequate care for their health needs. In these situations, the most disgusting role is played by the media, which are used to ostracize people or mislead the public about certain events.
It has been shown how the media, in collusion with certain groups within the state system, deceive citizens about phenomena that have befallen people. So much confusing information circulated around the coronavirus that at one point it was impossible to follow and understand what it was all about.

At first, everyone was an "expert" and said all sorts of things. Only a few knowledgeable people from the medical profession, epidemiologists, virologists, or biologists, would provide precise information and guide laypeople on what these viruses were about. Others enjoyed spreading apocalyptic reports and images. Sensationalist media finally had their field day, as did rulers with their psychopathic characters. One medium claims it is a "great conspiracy" of world powers. Another medium states it is a "biological war" and that coronavirus is a "perfect biological weapon." A third reminds us that the virus jumped from animals to humans. A fourth medium relativizes all events about the pandemic and debunks the entire narrative. A fifth medium announces how the pandemic is spreading and how humanity is under attack. A sixth medium publishes that doctors misdiagnose flu and prescribe incorrect medications and treatments, and that "every second patient in Italy died due to incorrect treatment"... In accidental and intentional lies of the system and the media, any image of credible knowledge about the coronavirus epidemic is completely shattered.

The situation has been particularly convenient for media and politicians with messianic intentions. Therefore, the situation is ideal for general madness. In that twilight, Konjic, for example, is turned into a "coronavirus hotspot," a media case for exploitation, a post-apocalyptic landscape that is senselessly compared to Wuhan from the perspective of provincial hyperbole...

Neoliberal context of education. National education systems dominated throughout the 20th century and were in the hands of the state/national government. At the end of that century and the beginning of the 21st century, instructions came from international educational projections for reforms at all levels of education. The new model of education, which abandons the Humboldtian principles of the 19th century, is driven by the ideology of neoliberal capitalism and the market as a measure of people's education. The main characteristic of a person is the preference for the definition of homo economicus.

The Bologna process does not develop a humanistic concept of knowledge. This is a very serious claim, almost an accusation, but quite close to the truth that dominates the historically re-established context. The entire system of knowledge has collapsed under the demands of the market! The form of scientific worldview and general scientific orientation in explaining phenomena in the world around us is suppressed. Capitalist relations have "spilled over" beyond the factory walls, where our fathers earned their wages until yesterday, into the entire society and transformed it to unprecedented forms. Some people, in the meantime, have come to believe that phenomena and processes in the world can be explained without science. A valid scientific approach to the world or a scientific worldview has been completely suppressed... What the Vienna Circle demanded in the first half of the 20th century.

Applause for doctors. A human community without knowledge cannot scientifically predict its future or direct the functioning of its existence at any satisfactory level. In today's society, the demand for knowledge is paramount and most urgent. Everything is determined by knowledge and revolves around it. Applause for doctors who save lives is a sign of support and respect, above all, support for their brave confrontation with an "enemy" that is ruthless, and respect for medical knowledge. Applause for doctors is a return of faith and gratitude to people who know how to care for people in need and mortal danger, in this case. It is applause out of fear! It seems to me, however, that something is not right here!? People around us, as has been proven many times, do not respect knowledge, smart people, capable and enterprising individuals. The awareness of what has been said is the result of an experience in which too much of the half-world and half-educated buffoons humiliate and mock knowledgeable people out of malice! It seems, somehow from the depths of consciousness, that this applause out of fear only opens questions that we cannot avoid. The province does not like intelligent people, regardless of what it tells them about valuing them! The province is based on pretense, opinion - and deception. The basis of provincial life is not scientific explanation by which it orients itself, but gossip, lies, slander, and contempt for everything smarter. This is the dominant semi-education in which humanity is suffocated!

After the coronavirus epidemic, the question arises about medical knowledge and scientific knowledge in general. What will happen if medical knowledge is reduced to meager levels? If people who don't know treat us? Will we even notice that people are dying from bad medical interventions due to pneumonia or a slightly stronger flu? Due to incorrect disease treatments... Unprofessional diagnoses...
Encouraging news is still emerging.

A Bosnian man, Mirsad Dević, Chief Digital Officer at Digital Diagnostics AG, who is working on developing a rapid test (Schnelltest) for detecting coronavirus, told German BILD: "The prototype is under development. The technology exists. Now it's just about developing the hardware." The test immediately shows whether the virus is present or not. The results are therefore quick and accurate. Current rapid tests on paper strips have one major drawback: they only detect antibodies, which, however, can only be detected in viral infections at the earliest seven days after infection. The purpose of the current discovery is to detect the infection immediately on-site, without going to a laboratory! The novelty in this procedure tells us that "the existing biosensor will not detect the infection based on existing antibodies, but based on existing viruses."

Since countries generally lack laboratory capacity, "rapid tests are urgently needed today" (Virologist Prof. Melanie Brinkmann from Helmholtz-Zentrum).

To be continued...