Covid, or the clandestine sacred from “covidism” to “covidosis”...

Abstract

This article examines the health and social crisis linked to the global Covid-19 pandemic from an anthropological point of view, showing that fundamental categories of analysis from anthropology were mobilized in the reflection which underpinned the writing of this article, such as purity/impurity which constitute fundamental taboos constituting most archaic or contemporary societies and which establish a symbolic line of demarcation between what is socially acceptable and what is not. In this contribution I further endeavor to demonstrate that the sacred character of interactions (which constitute the symbolic cement of the social order according to Erving Goffman) has been desecrated by extremely strict health measures (wearing a mask, social distancing, use compulsory use of hydroalcoholic gel, compulsory and intrusive nature of the health pass, etc.) which have been rightly perceived as an attack on the fundamental freedoms of individuals but more broadly as a violent questioning of our model of society and a certain art of living outside, on terraces and in the streets. I also wish to show that Covid has become a real ideology (Covidism) which has imposed itself insidiously to the point of becoming unavoidable and presiding over our destinies by gradually restricting our room for maneuver and even a neurotic obsession, Covidosis that which can be compared to the obsessional fevers of the Middle Ages and which ended up making the men and women hit hard by this pandemic crisis literally sick in terms of mental health.