The Covid-19 Pandemic Catastrophe. An Analysis of Some Cultural Transformations Starting from the Social Theory of Risk

The COVID-19 pandemic that has affected all of humanity has definitively reinforced the era of the «second modernity» (Beck, 1986). In the first paragraph, the main social transformations that occurred in the transition from modernity to the «second modernity» with reference to the pandemic event will be highlighted. The pandemic catastrophe confirmed the predictive effectiveness of many of the scenarios described by Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens. It has also activated «blaming» processes such as those analyzed by Mary Douglas (1992). In the second section, the pandemic will be discussed from these different «risk» perspectives. The virus has introduced an invisible threat to the world. A threat that partly escapes the control of technical-scientific instruments. This aspect is also considered typical of the «risk society» (Beck, 1986). However, it is plausible that the specific features of the COVID-19 pandemic have strengthened an atmosphere of «nocturnal re-enchantment of the world» (Camorrino, 2021a), to put together the well-known formulations of Michel Maffesoli (2018) and Gilbert Durand (1960). The third and last paragraph is dedicated to this aspect. In the conclusions I wrap up the reasoning, highlighting how the pandemic threat inaugurates a cyclical temporal conception that prevents us from imagining a post-pandemic era.