When the approximately 2.3 billion Christians worldwide celebrate Christmas, they commemorate the birth of a person. An abstract, incomprehensible (and perhaps therefore so often portrayed as an old, white man) God was born a good 2000 years ago as a child – or as the biblical Gospel of John says poetically: “And the word has become flesh used to live between us. ” So a special birth. The place where it happened, a stable, was anything but appropriate for a god; but that is part of the memorable logic of the story.
Christmas 2020 is also a special one – and we also find it inappropriate. And not just because many of us can’t be with those we love due to the coronavirus pandemic or couldn’t buy gifts because of a lockdown. We celebrate it against the backdrop of a recent experience that is the opposite of the Incarnation described by John in the Bible’s New Testament. It is the profound, unsettling experience of disembodiment or a loss of control that the catchphrase “social distancing” does not adequately describe.
The lonely person at the computer
On the one hand there is the loss of a “social body”. If we look at a video from the pre-Corona period in which several people stand close together or even hug each other, we intuitively react in horror: “What are they doing? That doesn’t work!” Just to remind us a moment later that something was lost this year that we have experienced and enjoyed as normal for decades.
As recently as February, carnival was seen as a happy event. Today it is considered a superspreader event.
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Common physical experiences such as a visit to a stadium or a concert are, at least for the time being, only real in memory – fellow human beings are currently considered a potential threat and are – quite rightly – kept at a distance.
The daily commute to work has been replaced by the loneliness of the home office. Whether it’s a meeting or a short chat in the kitchenette – being with others disappears in the virtual space of the video conference. But they are trimmed for efficiency and not for community. And a lot of communication is lost in the process – because gestures and facial expressions fall by the wayside if the heads of colleagues can only be recognized as small tiles.
Digital networking brings the job from the office to the kitchen table – or wherever the laptop is and the WiFi is good. The work becomes placeless and thus for some – especially singles living alone – also timeless, without beginning or end. The new, isolated world of work has also resulted in disembodiment – what you can feel is no longer the closeness of your colleagues, but rather your own back pain.
The suffering body in the intensive care unit
The exchange remains virtual even after work. The video conference is being replaced by Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp and Co. – it somehow fits into the picture that the most popular communication apps are gathered under one corporate roof. Emotional reactions are trivialized in like thumbs or hearts – or they break their way in uncontrolled hate postings. In the course of the pandemic, social space has changed noticeably: Where have the people gone who sing on balconies or applaud overburdened caregivers?
DW Editor Martin Muno
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In addition to the social, there is the body suffering from the pandemic – and unfortunately it is not going away. The image of the unconscious body struggling to survive in the intensive care unit with a tube in its lungs has long since become an icon. And there is the defenseless body that cannot avoid the viruses because it is barracked in slums, mass accommodation or refugee camps. Or the one who dies lonely.
Regardless of whether we are devout Christians or not: The Christmas story makes it clear to us, especially against the background of the pandemic, that we are physical beings who need care and affection for life from birth. Or like the philosopher Judith Butler expresses: “Life transcends the individual person in forms of mutual dependency, which we should all learn to affirm, even if this state may seem threatening at the moment.”
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