How the Coronavirus ‘Wants’ to Change Our Lives
On Covid-19 and the Actor-Network Theory.
The Covid-19 pandemic has changed our lives drastically — if not permanently. We have no way of knowing when the threat of infection will wane, when social distancing measures will end, or how the world will change economically, politically, and socially.
As infectious diseases expert, Dr Anthony Fauci told CNN —
“You don’t make the timeline, the virus makes the timeline.”
We might feel like the virus is in charge of our lives, and no matter what actions are taken on the federal, state, or individual level, as of now, we cannot effectively fight against it. We see this feeling reflected in the statements people make: The coronavirus wants to kill us. Covid-19 loves crowds. The virus tries to show us our vulnerability.
It’s almost as if the virus has a mind of its own.
But, of course, it doesn’t. The coronavirus can’t think, plan, want, feel, or express any kind of purpose or intention. Still, it’s true that the presence of the virus in our world is directing actions and decisions on every level of life. How is it doing that?
No, the virus doesn’t want anything. But it has changed everything.
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphizing Covid-19 — that is, attributing human characteristics to the virus — creates a handy way of envisioning a dangerous force in our lives.
We figure, if we can understand it on human terms, maybe we can understand it better and defeat it. Viewing the virus as a quasi-human opponent may help ease any fears or uncertainties we have about it. We tend to anthropomorphize things that appear to be human, such as animals, or objects we interact with, like a car or computer.
It’s the opposite of “putting ourselves in the other’s shoes”; instead, we’re attempting to interpret the nonhuman object in ways that we can relate to.
But the coronavirus is not an animal; it isn’t even a living organism. It’s a piece of RNA that, once inside the human body, attaches to cells and “hijacks the host cell’s protein-making machinery” to make copies of itself, which then continue to spread. In the process, it makes the human host very ill and causes death in some cases.
The virus may better be described as a nonhuman object: a thing in the world that we interact with and that has the ability, through its design and characteristics, to affect our choices and behaviours. In Actor-Network Theory, the coronavirus is an agent or actant.
Agents and Intentionality
In Philosophy, an agent is usually defined as “a being with the capacity to act” and usually includes the concept of intentionality, or the mental ability to think (or make mental representations) about actions, their purposes, and their consequences.
We humans exhibit agency when we willingly take actions in our daily lives: we decide how to dress, we take the bus to work, we type reports on our computers, we choose what to have for lunch. We can imagine these acts, plan them, and envision the effects of doing them.
But an agent doesn’t necessarily have to be human. Animals are an obvious examples of nonhuman agents. We can observe that animals are beings “with a capacity to act,” and their actions can affect other creatures and their environments.
Whether animals have consciousness or intentionality has been debated; but there’s no question they function as agents: “they act and their actions have consequences, they also resist conditions which they do not like and, in some circumstances, are able to change the conditions of their agency.”
Think of the dog that deliberately digs a hole under the fence, squeezes under it, and goes to explore the neighbourhood. The dog knows exactly what he’s doing, and why. If you fill-up the hole, he’ll dig it again.
Actor-Network Theory
Actor-Network Theory (ANT) takes the nonhuman agent a step further as it considers objects and technologies as part of large, ever-changing networks of people, their activities, their relationships, their interactions, and so on. In these networks, humans are agents or actants (subjects that act) but nonhuman objects are also considered actants, even though they don’t behave with volition or intentionality.
These objects are designed and used in such a way that they substitute for actions that a human would otherwise have to make.
French philosopher Bruno Latour explains the role of the nonhuman actant:
“Every time you want to know what a nonhuman does, simply imagine what other humans or other nonhumans would have to do were this character not present. This imaginary substitution exactly sizes up the role, or function, of this little figure.”
Latour gives the example of a door closing mechanism, the device that automatically closes the door after it’s opened. Without it, every person who passes through the door would have to do the work of pulling the door shut and making sure it’s latched.
The heated or cooled air would rush out, and the wide-open door might be an invitation to theft or stray animals. But as part of the larger network of human activity, the door closer can affect social, economic, and political processes and relationships.
Without a door closing mechanism, a public building with a lot of foot traffic, such as an office complex, hotel, or department store, might have to hire a human to do the work of closing the door. This would bring with it considerations of costs, labor, time, unions, work ethics, retirement investments, interpersonal relationships, insurance concerns, capitalistic systems, and governmental regulations, just for a start. The network is vast, complex, interconnected, and overlapping with thousands of other networks.
The door closer may be an object without consciousness or independent agency, but its presence or absence affects a multitude of other things. To consider the magnitude of this, think about how more complex objects, such as the automobile, or complex technological processes, such as DNA sequencing, serve as nonhuman agents within their networks.
The Coronavirus as an Actant
But back to the Covid-19 virus. It is neither animal nor object, but there’s no question its presence in the world makes it an actant in countless networks of social, economic, education, and political systems.
The Covid-19 virus is doing nothing more than what any other virus does: settle in a living host, attach to the host’s cells, rapidly make copies of itself, and spread to other hosts. It doesn’t want to do this; it has no ultimate goals or ends. It doesn’t care if the host dies, it doesn’t willfully target certain individuals, and it doesn’t try to cause any effects. It’s not capable of agency or intentionality in the classical sense.
But as a nonhuman actant, it has changed virtually everything. The presence of the virus and its the deadly effects have disrupted the lives of nearly every human being on the planet. We have altered our movements to avoid catching and spreading the virus. It’s postponed weddings, cancelled vacations, eliminated traditions like prom and graduation. We have changed the way we go about simple daily tasks, the way we work, educate our children, communicate with our friends and loved ones. The virus has caused havoc with our economic stability and placed unfathomable stress on our public health networks. It has exacerbated political conflicts and revealed strengths and weaknesses in leadership. Many of us are rethinking our future goals and whether we might have a future at all.
So, no, the virus doesn’t want anything. But it has changed everything.
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