Essays Concerning the Coronavirus Pandemic

We are exploring the various disorientations and reorientations currently taking place in connection with the Coronavirus pandemic.
We welcome your questions and feedback and are open to publish responding essays.

Please contact: reinhard.mueller@hfpo.com

03/20/2020

Orientation in Times of Crisis

by Werner Stegmaier

The world is experiencing the Corona pandemic and needs new orientation. Everything can change, everything will change, some things from one day to the next. Completely unexpected things will happen. From one situation to the next, quick reorientations are necessary. This also changes our orientation as such. We know a lot about what is happening, but nothing is certain. We depend on plausibilities that can be shared by most people in the world. Our values shift, are suspended, and revalued. …

04/14/2020

Seeking Orientation in the Pandemic: Uncertainties and Moral Orientation

by Reinhard G. Mueller

Albert Camus writes in The Plague (1947): “pestilence isn’t a thing made to man’s measure; therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn’t pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away…” It has become clear that the Coronavirus outbreak took many countries by surprise and that many actions came too late …

05/09/2020

Rising Above the Coronavirus Crisis: Using the Past for Orientation in the Present

by J.B. Potter and James Potter

Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has turned the world upside down. For an interconnected society that is used to being on the move, two months at home have felt like years. While some hoard toilet paper in an effort to exert some sense of control over their reality, others, even those in power, dismiss the pandemic and act as if everything were “normal.” …