- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
- Click to share on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
- Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in a new window)
- Click to email a friend (Opens in a new window)
Editor's Note: Rafael Domingo Oslé is a professor at the Emory University Law and Religion Center and Álvaro d'Os professor at the Institute of Culture and Society of the University of Navarra
(CNN Spanish) - During these months of confinement, there are many lessons that I have learned from the covid-19 crisis. Yes, in addition to hundreds of thousands of deaths, dozens of them very dear and close ones, unspeakable collective suffering, massive unemployment and material, psychological and economic damage that we are not yet able to assess, the coronavirus crisis is also a chair from which invaluable master classes are being taught.
The first thing this crisis has taught us is to accept our own fragility. The human being is enlarged when he recognizes his limitations and uncertainties and learns to manage himself. With the recent advances in science (quantum computing, artificial intelligence, among others), it seemed that the era of homo sapiens was closing to inaugurate the era of homo omnipotens. Nothing more contrary to it.
The second great lesson is that we are much closer together than we thought. Culture, history, the scientific method itself, ideologies and the fragmentation of the world into States, prevented us from clearly seeing a fact that we now understand better than ever: that reality is one and that everything is connected. Solidarity, therefore, is not only a political principle to remember on national holidays, but it is constitutive of the human. The degree of solidarity marks the degree of human evolution.
The third great lesson is that global problems must be solved globally. Humanity needs, like water, to develop a new global right for the management of global public goods (health, among them) and the protection of humanity as a whole. The fragmented international law, based on the idea of sovereignty and state interest, has become completely obsolete.
The fourth great lesson is the importance of the family as the basic institution of society. Liberal democracies were emphasizing the role of the individual, his rights, his vote, his personal development, considering the family as a hindrance to the past, as an obstacle in the free relations of each citizen with the political community. The time has come to rectify.
The fifth great lesson of the crisis is the need to integrate the public and the private. He rides so much, he rides so much. The social has a public and a private dimension. They are the two wings with which political communities are capable of flying high. The demonization of the private, typical of today's populism, reduces the initiative of citizens, bureaucratizes institutions and slows down the development of peoples.
The sixth lesson is the enormous relevance of auctoritas in crisis management. Cooperation between the health authorities ( auctoritas ) and the power of the rulers ( potestas ) is being key. In the West, however, we had stifled the role of authority and reduced the social to the political.
The seventh lesson is that advanced societies must invest much more in research, as an engine of social development. Any comments left over.
The eighth is that telework is going to be imposed as an ordinary mode of employment and not as an exception that confirms the rule. You will travel for pleasure, for family, cultural reasons, but rarely for business.
The ninth affects education. Virtual education has been legitimized as an invaluable instrument, especially at the university level. We are moving from a cloistered and fragmented university, centered on campus, to a much broader, virtual and global integrated university that welcomes all university students around the world.
Finally, as a tenth lesson, this crisis has taught us to spiritualize ourselves, to seek peace within ourselves, when it could not be found outside, to feel humanity as our own for which it is worth giving our best.