At the time of writing the COVID-19 pandemic is just starting to escalate toward a potential catastrophe.

It turns out that the Lars von Trier directed 1987 film Epidemic was not only a prank but a prophecy. Originally made on a throwaway budget as an intermezzo between his debut and Europa, the high jinks lay bare insights on attitudes toward pandemics in technical society. With daily life increasingly disrupted, the regularities of our self-constructed virtual environment get irredeemably challenged. We might very well be talking about a pre-COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 world in the future. The highways shot from a hovering helicopter at the ending of Epidemic hinted at the actual sickness being contemporary society. Both the physical illness and the mental sickness feel inescapable, but contrary to von Triers bleak sarcasm there is no reason to despair. There could be a silver lining to all the misery yet to come.

It would be obvious to point out the environmental benefits of reduced air pollution and CO2 emission reduction showcasing the necessity of de-industrialization. Permanently reduced industrial activity is however not inevitable and massive economic stimulus is to be expected. In the meantime, cracks open up in the edifice of daily life that entice the formation of new habits. Therefore the true silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic lies in the potential for personal transformation.

The protagonists of Epidemic forgo this possibility. Screenwriters von Trier and Niels Vørsel, who play themselves, have to start from scratch after losing the only copy of their commissioned screenplay. The new subject is a doctor who goes to the countryside against all advice to help the people there after the outbreak of an epidemic in the city. In the meantime an actual epidemic breaks out as well. This slowly unfolding disaster keeps lingering on in the background while the main characters operate under the assumption of the continuity of daily life, the quotidian.

An underlying theme that comes up in behavioral economists’ research on heuristics and biases is that man often acts departing from a perceived stable status quo. At the macro-level, institutions such as the state act in a similar manner. Every institution eventually becomes independent from its participants and seeks continuous self-expansion. This requires an environment that is easily controlled, leading to an idealized world of mathematical stability. A self-created world perpetually regressing to a self-determined mean. The individual, maintaining this order through the use of intellect, at the same time internalizes this rigid logic in their daily life. This conformism, called the quotidian, is characterized by an adherence to technical life comprised of additive calculation.

Oscar Wilde once quipped: “the systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development.” The reactions of states to COVID-19 show how the pandemic is a problem of political economy as well. Whether it’s the Dutch reluctance to enact far-reaching measures, the Brazilian denial or the Chinese frantic militarization, these are borne from a desire to save their continuously expanding self-created environment. The regularity of daily life needs to be maintained by all institutions of control. Yet the logic of an exponentially growing pandemic now forces a breakdown of the underlying idealized mathematical stability that relies on the permanency of human nature. The Austrian doctrine of Ludwig von Mises in its myopic analysis of the market named this the calculation problem, because the state can never take into account all the different informational inputs from society to optimize its own plan.

The quotidian individual lives daily life with a restricted emotional disposition of narrow intellect. Therefore the sudden changes wrought by COVID-19 takes them by surprise. The doomer, who does recognize systemic risks, plays through the dire scenarios internally. They acknowledge the alienation inherent in the quotidian, its flaws in systemic construction and strive to observe it as an outsider.

It’s here that Epidemic becomes such an apt description of contemporary events. Screenwriters Lars and Niels hole themselves up in houses, cars or hotels to work diligently against the looming deadline. They get bogged down in virtuality, playing out the consequences of the fictional epidemic forgoing the actual one. Ironically during a session of hypnosis the disease takes them by brutal surprise, as they spent their times with a form of self-hypnosis through artistic creation. Von Trier gives the fictional epidemic, a film within the film, an overwhelming mystical pull. At those times the only reminder of an actual epidemic going on is the film title perpetually displayed in the corner of the screen as a pesky post-it note.

Although Lars and Niels seem unaware, their behavior mirrors how doomers follow the mass media updates on the pandemic from the perceived safety of their screens. The endless stream of COVID-19 information gets absorbed. Virtual scenarios are then played out based on the resulting understanding or rehashed from experts. As long as the doomer hasn’t been in contact with the virus, they stay distant through the memes and videos shared about the happenings. Both the screenwriters in Epidemic and the doomer build their own mental world as an alternative to the world of the quotidian. They keep talking about events instead of experiencing one.

Although the doomer has an emotional disposition more attuned to the realities of the pandemic, they still are an archetype of alienation. Their attitude is merely a reconfiguration of the quotidian by expanding its mathematical logic. A distance from the pandemic’s realities and adherence to a determined routine is maintained. Von Trier exemplifies as much, barely upholding the fourth wall with a characteristic smirk revealing his urges to be contemporary society’s court jester. It’s as if the character realizes his solipsistic pursuit. The creative process of the writers is one of escapism as well, of not confronting the actual realities taking place. The sober decors and muted diegetic sounds lay bare this alienation lived in sparse interiors where even a posh glass of wine cannot liven up the mood.

Eventually reality sets in during a reading session and the terrifying shake of the camera capturing the internal combustion of the victim under hypnosis shocks into a realization. First of all, that daily life in contemporary society itself is the disease as it drives those unable to adapt to the quotidian to despair. More importantly, that no escape is possible and that the doomers attitude is but a temporary self-absorbed fix. How enticing the virtual world one built themselves may be, the disease, whether physical or mental, will catch up. This defeatism is the underlying reason why the doomer remains alienated. His awareness of the situation translates into keeping scorecards of the misery happening on the perceived outside.

The futility of the doomer’s attitude is reminiscent of Jean Baudrillards insight on today’s hyperreality. According to him, there is no outside, only the virtual world created by man and their institutions. Instead of a real, there is a hyperreal consisting solely of signs without a referent such as a digital model. A self-imposed fantasy world from which there is no escape. Whatever is real therefore seems deserted, until it hits back with a vengeance like in the harrowing climax of Epidemic. The COVID-19 pandemic is of the same manner, and it shows the shortcoming of Baudrillard’s fatalism. The escalating measures taken by states realizing the threat to labor power upsets the quotidian and thereby the alienation inherent to contemporary daily life. This rupture of the quotidian is a potential Rapture by laying bare a plethora of unforeseen mental conceptions hidden in the psyche.

The possibility of mental resurrection requires a specific attitude. The sociologist Henri Lefebvre recognized how in daily life the quotidian gets reproduced. According to him, any revolutionary practice that doesn’t take this into account would fail. Raoul Vaneigem took up to the task, arguing for self-realization through the creation of new situations within the quotidian, with a situation being an activity of twisting a regularity in individual or systemic behavior. His was an artistically inclined approach, thereby neglecting how art can itself be an activity of alienation as exemplified by the screenwriters in Epidemic. This ineffectiveness gets underlined through potential encapsulation within the quotidian, where art gets devalued as an intellectual pastime. It is precisely in COVID-19s ruthless negation of regular practices in daily life that a space opens up to potentially create new conceptions of how one should actually construct those regular practices.

Now that the regularity of quotidian existence gets shaken to its core by a reassertion of the real, the individual is obliged to temporarily form new habits. The challenge is to turn these into permanent subversiveness. For this to happen it is necessary to be aware of the quotidian situation like the doomer, but see this as a call to action instead of observation. Those that recognize that life can potentially be recreated to get new meaning after a systemic risk such as the COVID-19 pandemic can be called preppers. A true prepper has not merely stocked up on the equipment necessary to survive disaster, but more importantly on the necessary mental conceptions. The call to action they heed to entails taking advantage of the current opportunity to form those regularities of behavior that grow organically from attunement to wilderness, i.e. the independently operating environment of which the individual is but a part.

De-industrialization is the way to limit the ecological catastrophe, and the accompanying process of rewilding the land is one of mental adaptation of its inhabitants as well. Thoreau said as much in his essay on the virtues of walking, where he argues how the taming of the landscape tamed man themselves. “Life consists with wildness” and COVID-19 with its uncertainty surrounding the regularities of the quotidian presents an opportunity to discover what this entails. However, this is not a purely individual process. A prepper doesn’t hoard, but shares. To speak in Biblical terms, one needs to love one’s neighbor (Matthew 22:39).

The self-imposed cage of domesticated man is breaking, requiring a step into an actual desert of the real. It’s a vast mental landscape of presently unknown configuration. Terrifying as it may be, beyond the horizon may lie greener pastures. Let us beat on, boats against the current, borne forward ceaselessly into the future.



Bibliography

Baudrillard, J. (1981). Simulacra and simulation. Semiotext(e).

Lefebvre, H. (1947). Critique of everyday life. L’Arche.

Mises, L. von (1920). Economic calculation in the socialist commonwealth. Archiv für Sozialwissenschaften, 47.

Thoreau, H.D. (1862, June). Walking. The Atlantic Monthly, A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics, IX(LVI),657–674.

von Trier, L. (Director). (1987). Epidemic [Film]. Det Danske Filminstitut & Elementfilm A/S.

Vaneigem, R. (1967). The revolution of everyday life. Practical Paradise Publications.

Wilde, O. (1891). The soul of man under socialism. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1017.