Original article
Nataliia G. Duna,
PhD, Associate Professor, Department of International Economics and World Economy, V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Kharkov, Ukraine
Address: 4 Svobody sq, Kharkov 61022, Ukraine
E-mail: duna.nataliya@gmail.com
Article ID: 020412320
Published online: 24 October 2021
HANDLE: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12656/thebeacon.4.020412320
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55269/thebeacon.4.020412320
Quoting (Chicago style): Duna, Nataliia G. 2021. “Globalisation and COVID-19-related Mental Crisis: Reconsidering Ideology of One Humanity.” Beacon J Stud Ideol Ment Dimens 4, 020412320. https://doi.org/10.55269/thebeacon.4.020412320
Language: Ukrainian
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The techniques for material and, more importantly, informational exchange across virtually all borders that have emerged and spread worldwide in recent decades, have led to a phenomenon known as globalisation. Not only certain pesticides or exhaust gases such as CO2 as substances introduced by humans into the environment, are spreading globally and changing the ecology of the planet. There is a close parallel to ideas spreading globally, be they dreams of a happy and peaceful world community (“One Humanity” ideology) that begins to dissolve existing nation states and cultures or, alternatively, Malthusian nightmares as results of an anticipated climate catastrophe, or a sequence of pandemics that, like the plague or leprosy in the past, paralysed entire societies and plunged them into an existential chaos. SARS-CoV-2-related mental crisis is an instructive example. In the paper I analyse positive and negative implications of One Humanity project with respect to the COVID-19-related global shift of mental stereotypes. Key words: COVID-19, globalisation, ideology, One Humanity project, mental crisis
The current mental crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has posed a number of questions to the global society, business and world economy. The pace of change in the global business environment is so high that only the most adaptable and flexible organisations can withstand and win the competition. The consequences of the mental crisis were unprecedented organisational changes in international business.
Neither classical (conservative) nor socialistic concepts offer an answer to the COVID-19-related mental crisis discussed in the paper. Many global initiatives emerged within the One Humanity project will scarcely lead to the reduction of this crisis, because it was partially caused by consequences of globalisation. E.g., Noam Chomsky’s ideological calls for a left counter-movement along the lines of Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 to “educate” people and force governments around the world to confront the unprecedented challenges to the survival of our civilisation pave the way to nowhere at best and to tyranny of left-wing political elites that have been constantly hiding their inability to govern the states beyond their pompous slogans on “tolerance” and “solidarity.” Cession of rights of left-wing political elites dominating in European Union structures in favour of transnational corporations, financial funds and private capital in the situation of globalisation, is a true problem that impedes creating effective methods of coping with the modern administrative challenges, including the COVID-19-related mental crisis.
Indeed, the current leftist European Union mainstream ideology requires unquestioning political and military solidarity of its members, which often is unravelled in idle media debates and creating odious ideological slogans. At the same time, within the EU there are no common, unified and standardized procedures and agreements on how to deal with the mental crises brought about by SARS-CoV-2. Each state is for itself! – this is the current slogan of European healthcare programmes. It all began in March 2020, when Czech Republic basically stole medical cargoes and supplied dispatched from China to Italy. Instead of making scientific and healthcare European agreements within the EU to struggle with the coronacrisis in a most effective way (e.g. to elaborate unified common standards of identification, distinguishing symptomatic picture, distributing antiviral medications, creating vaccines etc.), political debates dominate.
This situation need be mended as soon as possible and the common European initiatives to fight the emerging epidemiological threats must be elaborated and adopted.
Modern communication and information technologies contributed to the aggravation of the COVID-19-related mental crisis by strengthening the cultural interaction and cultural exchange. At the same time, they significantly affected the value system. Revolutionary changes in the means of production and technology, that are sped up by the mental crisis, are not accompanied by corresponding changes in human behavioural patterns or social responsibility.
The media manipulation of individual and mass consciousness may be one of the reasons for the mental crisis, whose “visit card” is the disproportion between the technical capabilities of homo sapiens and the lack of its spiritual and moral fitness to the new conditions made obvious by the COVID-19 pandemic. The current mental crisis and any similar healthcare crises can be overcome only with recognising that mental, economic and cultural resources of different states and nations that can be used for coping with the crises, are subdued by globalisation. Switching from unconditional belief in global values to defining “sectors of influence” during global crises is the sole way that will help humanity to survive in this New Brave World.
© 2021 Nataliia Duna. Licensee The Beacon: Journal for Studying Ideologies and Mental Dimensions.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) that permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.