Slavoj Žižek is one of the most prolific and well-known philosophers and cultural theorists in the world today. His inventive, provocative body of work mixes Hegelian metaphysics, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and Marxist dialectic in order to challenge conventional wisdom and accepted verities on both the Left and the Right.

CALM DOWN AND PANIC!

Our media endlessly repeat the formula "No panic!" and then we get all the data that cannot but trigger panic. The situation resembles one I remember from my youth in a Communist country when government officials regularly assured the public there was no reason to panic. We all took such assurances as a clear sign that they were themselves panicking.

Panic has a logic of its own. The fact that, in the UK, due to the coronavirus panic, even the toilet paper rolls disappeared from the stores reminds me of a weird incident with toilet paper from my youth in Socialist Yugoslavia. All of a sudden, a rumor started to circulate that there was not enough toilet paper was available. The authorities promptly issued assurances that there was enough toilet paper for normal consumption, and, surprisingly, this was not only true but people mostly even believed it was true. However, an average consumer reasoned in the following way: I know there is enough toilet paper and the rumor is false, but what if some people take this rumor seriously and, in a panic, start to buy excessive reserves of toilet paper, causing an actual shortage? So I better buy reserves myself. It is not even necessary to believe that some others take the rumor seriously - it is enough to presuppose that some others believe that there are people who take the rumor seriously - the effect is the same, namely the real lack of toilet paper in the stores. Is something similar not going on in the UK and California today?

The strange counterpart of this kind of ongoing excessive fear is the absence of panic when it would have been fully justified. In the last couple of years, after the SARS and Ebola epidemics, we were told again and again that a new much stronger epidemic was just a matter of time, that the question was not IF but WHEN. Although we were convinced of the truth of these dire predictions, we somehow didn't take them seriously and were reluctant to act and engage in serious preparations - the only place we dealt with them was in apocalyptic movies like Contagion.

What this contrast tells us is that panic is not a proper way to confront a real threat. When we react in panic, we do not take the threat seriously - we, on the contrary, trivialize it. Just think how ridiculous is the notion that having enough toilet paper would matter in the midst of a deadly epidemic. So what would be an appropriate reaction to the coronavirus epidemic? What should we learn and what should we do to confront it seriously?

Slavoj Žižek is one of the most prolific and well-known philosophers and cultural theorists in the world today. His inventive, provocative body of work mixes Hegelian metaphysics, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and Marxist dialectic in order to challenge conventional wisdom and accepted verities on both the Left and the Right.

CALM DOWN AND PANIC!

Our media endlessly repeat the formula "No panic!" and then we get all the data that cannot but trigger panic. The situation resembles one I remember from my youth in a Communist country when government officials regularly assured the public there was no reason to panic. We all took such assurances as a clear sign that they were themselves panicking.

Panic has a logic of its own. The fact that, in the UK, due to the coronavirus panic, even the toilet paper rolls disappeared from the stores reminds me of a weird incident with toilet paper from my youth in Socialist Yugoslavia. All of a sudden, a rumor started to circulate that there was not enough toilet paper was available. The authorities promptly issued assurances that there was enough toilet paper for normal consumption, and, surprisingly, this was not only true but people mostly even believed it was true. However, an average consumer reasoned in the following way: I know there is enough toilet paper and the rumor is false, but what if some people take this rumor seriously and, in a panic, start to buy excessive reserves of toilet paper, causing an actual shortage? So I better buy reserves myself. It is not even necessary to believe that some others take the rumor seriously - it is enough to presuppose that some others believe that there are people who take the rumor seriously - the effect is the same, namely the real lack of toilet paper in the stores. Is something similar not going on in the UK and California today?

The strange counterpart of this kind of ongoing excessive fear is the absence of panic when it would have been fully justified. In the last couple of years, after the SARS and Ebola epidemics, we were told again and again that a new much stronger epidemic was just a matter of time, that the question was not IF but WHEN. Although we were convinced of the truth of these dire predictions, we somehow didn't take them seriously and were reluctant to act and engage in serious preparations - the only place we dealt with them was in apocalyptic movies like Contagion.

What this contrast tells us is that panic is not a proper way to confront a real threat. When we react in panic, we do not take the threat seriously - we, on the contrary, trivialize it. Just think how ridiculous is the notion that having enough toilet paper would matter in the midst of a deadly epidemic. So what would be an appropriate reaction to the coronavirus epidemic? What should we learn and what should we do to confront it seriously?