When Covid hit we retreated to our homes. Our homes became a place of safety and security, a physical barrier to what lurked outdoors and a sanctuary for us to hide out. Of course, for many of us, this was not a time of fun or newfound freedom but a disturbingly shocking period. A 21st-century pandemic turned out not to be much different from a 20th-century one. Except for our up-to-the-minute updates and accessibility to almost endless entertainment, all we could do was sit and wait until a vaccine was found or it was safe to go outside again.
For some this feeling never went away. Those with weakened immune systems or suffering from severe conditions are still extremely vulnerable to COVID-19. Despite pleas from advocates, there is no chance of permanent lockdown occurring and little more chance that we will all go back to the days of masking up. The days of masking were hard let’s be honest. The physical and psychological barriers of masking put up walls between us denying people the moments which make us human. For a year it felt that we had become machines.
This chimes in with what Agamben labels the state of exception. Once an emergency has been declared it is difficult, if not impossible, to put it back in the box. Normalcy is as easy to hold as smoke it seems. The emergency precedent instead becomes embedded, part of our lives, expanding ever further outwards until it engulfs us all. The picture of the Concentration Camp on the front of Homosacer presents the image of boundless emergency engulfing our physical space. Agamben himself courted controversy when labelling COVID emergency measures as dictatorial and dangerous bio-political methods of control. The outcry was new but the message was not.
It is safe to say that few if any of us long for a return to the stringent controls of the state that emerged during COVID-19. Even in authoritarian China, the ruling regime had to bow to citizen pressure in the wake of mass protests to their ‘Zero Covid’ policy. Yet, it would be wrong to believe we haven’t picked up any habits from the ‘covid era’. Indeed, the pandemic period was, much like wartime often is, a period of mass innovation.
We have developed new methods of working relying increasingly on video calls and the Internet to manage our schedules. Rather than making long commutes to work, which cost time and money, hybrid systems or even permanently working from our ‘home office’ has become the new norm. The results born out of a need to adapt to an emergency have entered a new period of normalcy which many not only accept but actively demand. What was a necessity is now a need.
This demand for a newfound sense of independence has created knock-on effects. Businesses such as taxi rank at stations, sandwich shops in the high streets and vendors next to workplaces have all suffered a contraction. No longer do we go for our expensive Friday lunches or pints, instead we open our cupboard doors and snack on what’s inside. This is not unattractive for many given the state of our transport network and the ever-tightening economic conditions affecting households.
Working from home in theory is yet another extension of freedom in the negative sense. Granting us the ability to do more with our own time and to decide where we’re best placed to do our work. No more time wasted travelling to meetings when they can be done from the comfort of our living room. Surely for companies and employees, it’s a win-win?
Yet, as someone who works from home 3 days out of 5, I do not consider it solely a victory or a mark of progress. Home has its place but so does the office. Just like with COVID, the walls of our home close in, feeling inescapable for long periods until we or our beloved others manage to drag us out. Suddenly work doesn’t leave at all as it infests our home slowly but surely. First, we develop a home office, then it migrates to the living room before eventually spreading to the bedroom.
There is no physical, emotional or intellectual distancing. Work becomes akin to that sibling you really wish did not exist- immovable and constantly in the background shadowing you even when you exorcise them. The work constantly speaks even if it never fully engulfs your life. Suddenly your sanctuary has been penetrated and there is little you can do about it. The physical barriers erected to stop COVID no longer apply.
Admittedly this paints a different picture from what some experience. Many have no desire to follow ‘ A return to normalcy’, the demand made by Warren Harding in the 1920 US Presidential election. Many have embedded the emergency life into a practice of their everyday lives. Utilising extreme measures to their own benefit delivering greater flexibility for child care, household chores and even spending time with our partners.
Of course, the occupation of emergency measures into every day life does not necessarily stop here. The demand for people to mask has grown, even if someone simply has the sniffles. Despite the lack of a realistic prospect of a return to masking there is nevertheless a significant minority who are increasingly vocal for greater health measures to take up parts of our lives. Indeed, where we to lock down again would we see it as such a chore given how so many have now adapted to working from home?
There is no such thing as a lack of trade-offs so we should be wary whenever we entertain a new method of living. No doubt we are entering a phase where experimentation of living in different ways is coming upon us. For some it is the great adventure whereas others fear with unnecessary extremity any deviation from what has come before. I sit in the middle camp. Watching closely, grappling with the changes set upon us with both trepidation and hope we can use our love, ingenuity and community to find our own ways.
"It is safe to say that few if any of us long for a return to the stringent controls of the state that emerged during COVID-19." I'm not convinced this is true, it's not fashionable to admit but I suspect there are many millions who would cheerfully go back to lockdowns if it gave them a chance to punish their cultural enemies, and who would welcome similar emergency responses to climate change, inequality, etc. The genie's out of the bottle, it will happen again.