Present Context

The pandemic of COVID-19 has devastated the entire world.  However, it is not only instilling fear among the people but also has the potential to disrupt the social system from its core. It produces anxiety, depression and stress among people by invoking new realities to the lifeworld of different societies which have not been experienced yet before. Rapid human‐to‐human transmission of the COVID-19 virus has resulted in the enforcement of regional lockdowns to stem the further spread of the disease. Many regulatory norms, as well as rules, are being enforced by the authorities in all the parts of the world to encourage the people to follow the norms of social distancing, sanitising hands, wearing masks and work from home in all public and private offices and enterprises for breaking the chain of transmission at the first place. These restrictive measures undoubtedly have affected the social and mental health of individuals all around the world.

Conceptualisation of fear

The fear of death, as hypothesised by Sigmund Freud, is called Thanatophobia. We have gone through this condition at this juncture deep-rooted in our conscious state of mind, as Freudian psychanalysis proposed. Freud also proclaimed that we could not fear death itself as death resides beyond our unconscious. Instead, we fear abandonment, castration, and other unresolved conflicts by making expression at the helm of fear of death. Thus, he negates the existence of absolute fear of death by making remarks that it rather appears as a disguise of a deeper source of concern [i].

Contrary to the Freudian assumption on fear of death, I believed that fuzzy imaginations and perceptions that shape our idea or knowledge of a particular fatalistic disease or illness or any other phenomena give a particular colour to the fear of death. Lack of experiential knowledge on how much suffering of dying would inflict upon us before it occurs aggravates the fear of death among the people. Our fear, anxieties and stress are being shaped and socialised by the social environment as a whole and thus, how social institutions and various structures with its individuals as a collectivity reacted upon a particular fatalistic disease or virus could shape the epistemic of fear. Even though it is always deduced at the individual level by taking a micro-level perspective for its dissection for knowing its probable cause, we cannot ignore the social construction of the phenomena like fear, stress, depression and anxiety at the broader societal level. Thus, our knowledge, doubt or ignorance at the societal level gives our fear a particular tint. Thus, the power of scientific knowledge and its transformation through modern social institutions in present-day society mould our social behaviour and actions at the individual level.

Social Construction of fear and anxiety

The pandemic of COVID-19 has been recapitulating the fear of death at the global level with the mayhem it created by crossing all national boundaries with its reverberations stroked in all the dimensions of human life. People feel more powerless, alienated, and despair at the social level as the desire for living or life instinct has been under threat due to the prevalence of an uncontrollable state with overregulation of people’s own life by the political and legal apparatuses. The absence of a liberal atmosphere in all spheres of life of this situation puts human life into an ‘Iron Cage’ as Weber maintained with regard to modern industrial society (Giddens, 2009). The situation that demands estrangement from one’s loved ones who lives in far distant places invokes the fear of losing without having face-to-face interaction and for not being able to stay besides love ones as a support system in times of crisis. Thus, the functional role played by the family as an institution at times of crisis would be absent if members scattered in far-flung places. Although people used to stay connected with each other through a virtual space on various social networking sites, such interactions cannot fulfil the amount of solace and empathy that provides in face to face (physical) interaction in times of crisis, and the absence of the latter led people to get more depressed and lonelier [ii].

Anxiety and Stigmatisation

The process of stigmatisation that runs through those families or individuals who have tested COVID (+) positive also induced stress and anxiety subsequently as a by-product for being alienated by the social surrounding even after the post-recovery period. As Erving Goffman theorised, social stigma is an attribute or behaviour that socially discredit individuals by being classified as the ‘undesirable others’ by society (Goffman, 1986). In this context of COVID19, through othering, social stigma segregates the healthy from the ill. During this time of crisis (Pandemic), society upholds discriminatory behaviour towards those who suffered from the disease for the stigma associated with the virus. The unknown factors about fear, myths and rumours around the disease in different mass media platforms further heighten the stigma and thus, reaffirms anxiety and depression among stigmatised individuals (Prama Bhattacharya, 2020).

Alienation and Disruption of social order

Loss of jobs and livelihood sources, especially among marginalised working-class sections in times of lockdown, has affected the lives of the petty labourers and workers and their children and spouses as well, both mentally and physically. Its impact could also be felt at the countries’ economy with the tremors that transpired through all the modern institutions with the downfall of global GDP. As a result, the standing workforce, along with those pursuing their education courses, might have felt the state of uncertainty of their future perpetuated by the present condition and hence, invoked much alienation, despair and helplessness within the social system itself as Robert K. Merton presupposed that a social system where people become more disoriented from achieving socially prescribed goals due to the absence of legitimate means to achieve the same would lead to rising criminal activities (Merton, 1938). The current situation is underway in such a direction that could disrupt social harmony as people are getting more and more exhausted, alienated, and deprived of their basic human needs in the prevailing situation of risk.

The commodification of fear and socialisation of risk

Daily updates on death tolls from the news and various social media platforms in all the corners of the world have been doubling the anxiety among the people and also demoralising the health workers who have been working day and night to save lives by pushing them into a zone of mental trauma by breaking the confidence of their own professionalism. At this moment, although transmission of information through all mass media sources is required for creating awareness among the mass to stay proactively by upholding necessary cautions for escaping the repercussion of this deadly disease, it has been observed that a few news agencies have been commodifying the anxiety and fear by showing the carcasses of those people died of COVID 19 while burning in cremation grounds in India particularly. It is said that whoever controls media controls the mind of the people or try to do so by commodifying fear and anxiety with the use of content and information to socialise the risk of one’s life [iii]. Human tragedy was used as a commodity to fulfil the vested interest of a few news channels in times of medical emergency where people are starving for basic health care needs and facilities like a supply of oxygen, medicines, vaccines etc. could surely demoralise health workers and instil fear and anxiety among the citizens as well.

In a nutshell, it can be comprehended that fear and anxiety are the end product of the various social structures and institutions that impinges on the actions and behaviours of the people by socialising risk in our everyday life. Thus, it is nothing as an objective reality but a social construction that emerges through the complex interaction between social institutions and individuals.

References:

Giddens, A. (2009). Sociology -6th edition. Italy: Polity press.

Goffman, E. (1986). Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Merton, R. K. (1938). Social Structure and Anomie. American Sociological Review, 672-682.

Prama Bhattacharya, D. B. (2020). The “Untold” Side of COVID-19: Social Stigma and Its Consequences in India. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, 383-386.

[i] Excerpt from https://www.freudfile.org/psychoanalysis/papers_11.html

[ii] Excerpt from https://www.eleventhcolumn.com/2021/05/04/a-pandemic-of-anxieties-and-alienation-why-the-covid-19-crisis-is-a-capitalist-nightmare/?fbclid=IwAR3L8SzP-T3Y8P5utzqt4gxDHoXUhfTrz8Ka_yk_yckzoy_TM7QYqPZs-hM

[iii] Excerpt from https://www.theaustraliatoday.com.au/besides-covid-19-india-is-also-fighting-with-vulture-journalists-who-are-spreading-more-panic-and-despair-than-pandemic/?fbclid=IwAR0K6kH_xksER6CfPTvOYpeeJIo0xbyqZhFL2q1msn4AJuYj0Ln2lt1lHf4

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Kukil Gogoi is an Assistant Professor of Sociology in North Bank College, Ghilamara, Lakhimpur. He is pursuing his PhD from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Guwahati.