Wide View
by Alexander Peer
Translated by Suzanne Kirkbirght

One definition of Europa is the woman “with the broad face”*. This woman is in demand. We’re experiencing a surfeit of omnipresent news and homage to the statistic. We’re not only up to our necks in the tide of the news, in fact we’re drowning in it and thus our literal perspectives. The coronavirus can be explained as an ominous black hole. If you trust in physical theory, an object is lost once the event horizon has been crossed. This applies for discussion topics.
Certainly, that should not deny the importance of nuanced reporting. It should merely leave space for all-round consideration.
When I was at school in the 1980s, ‘witness to history’ was a term exclusively used for the Second World War and particularly for the Holocaust. The crimes of both world wars, the disenchantment about the enormous wounds that ultimately mankind dealt itself against its better knowledge, continues to influence European mentality till today. I didn’t realize until I became adult that I was a surviving witness to a turning point. To have lived through the end of Europe’s division is an experience that millennials, for example, were denied. It’s true that they currently experience shifting borders, yet the basic diversity of Europe, which was actually locked away for decades and always in trepidation and under the watchful eyes of both bloc powers, is best conveyed by recounting experiences. Stories from people whose families lived separate lives and were only allowed to travel aged 40 to neighbouring countries. Because you can study cultures, but you have to encounter people. Now, it’s down to the generation of those in their 20s and 30s to hold onto this achievement of freedom.

Obviously, there is the risk of new discrimination. It doesn’t follow ethnic divisions but medical ones. First the app, then the chip. Apparently, it’s reassuring to have a chip as a trusted companion in the body that monitors your pulse and measures the temperature curve. That I might lose my job because of it, that I cannot get life assurance or my partner rejects me out of concern for the quantity of my red blood cells are collateral damage. Technological change goes deeper. If I’m a diabetic and regularly have to check my sugar level, then this is how I stay in touch with my body. Every delegation to technology is a loss of need-satisfaction. The effort involved is a contribution to nurturing relations. Higher convenience and safety is linked with gradual degeneration.

At the same time, the technology train thundering along at excessive speed implies two things: even more acceleration and a sensitive malfunction. If a subversive is just a few nanometres in size, even monitoring systems fail. This helplessness is healthy. At least, we’re allowed to grieve again. We’re allowed to do so ex officio. The rule of control over the planet and the self-imposed rule of functioning are at least temporarily suspended.
After the initial shock there is an opportunity to develop a Europe-wide health and social policy, to unify fiscal policy and to adapt economic liberal attitudes. If health and social safety are in future strong business location factors, Europe is even going to encounter a brain gain in the competition for talented people. The enhancement of research and development is confirmed by no more potent plea than by the virus. The fifth power in the state, i.e. art, can now make its mark. Because in a period of confusion there is a need for fantasy, concentration and mental agility. All art disciplines – no matter how diverse formally and vis-à-vis content – promote these qualities. The preferable shift in values that could follow in the wake of the coronavirus: ultimately, respectful and resource-saving business and enhanced basic roles for the state. Much more stakeholder value rather than shareholder value.
The common enemy can unite Europe. To that end, let’s keep the wide view.

* https://www.etymonline.com/word/Europe  (* From Greek, the name is often explained as a combination from “eurys, ‘wide’” and “óps ‘face’, literally ‘eye’” – ... π. (Eur.p.), leading to definitions such as “broad face”. Other etymological explanations are also given.)  

We have accomplished joint projects, enhancing our knowledge thanks to cooperation and we’ve learned a great deal about each other through cultural exchange, like almost no other European generation before us. A ‘post-corona’ era should build on that. I had in mind this kind of initiative with the publication of the anthology “Schreibende Nomaden entdecken Europa”, a collection of texts that interpret and interconnect all four words of the title programmatically. Because discovery is an attractive quality that I associate with the European spirit. That leads on the one hand to medicines for medical (emergency) cases and, on the other hand, to medicines for a more harmonious life together.