[Xmca-l] Re: General check-in?

Fri Apr 10 09:35:42 PDT 2020

Hello everybody!

Thank you so much for all the news and perspectives that are being shared from all over the Planet. Such difficult times, especially for those who can’t even send news...

Some news from Switzerland, a privileged country, yet with very serious contamination rates. Almost 4 weeks of confinement (rights to go out are very limited and only a limited number of professions are still working) that totally re-organize our private and public life.

The sun is shining wonderfully and it is very tempting  to move out for this Easter holiday. Nevertheless, most people are very disciplined and stay home in confinement.
It took a lot of time for the local, cantonal and federal authorities to decide on the confinement measures. Switzerland’s political traditions impose  bottom-up decisions. But the result of this (too slow?) process seems to be that most people agree and comply with this policy. Police forces try to do education and not  repression. But the peak of the tide of contamination has not been reached yet and hospitals are under stress.

The economic stress due to this long shut down arises a lot of fear on the side of trade unions and employers associations. Switzerland has very large multinational companies, but 90% of its firms are small or medium size business. Quite a number of them are now reaching the edge of  bankruptcy. If they should go bankrup,t this would totally disorganise the country, its daily style of life and more: small firms and their locations impact regional demography, resources, power (in a federation of cantons), etc.  after compulsory education, 60% of the young people attend dual education (i.e. half time in firms and half-time in school) and if firms shut down this education will fall apart. Government, banks and networks of citizens are lending money and trying to maintain these small firms alive. Unemployment rate is raising but rents have to be paid. Etc…

Switzerland is a country of pharmaceutical industry and engineers. But the panic in the hospitals is not over: equipment is insufficient, and drugs are starting to miss. Local enterprises have the know how to make them but …with ingredients that come exclusively from China and India. Hospitals have been afraid of losing 25% to 40% of their staff as nurses often come from the bordering regions of France and Italy. Finally, these countries have locked their borders but not for those professionals. This does not solve the problem on the long term, of course as these countries also need more medical staff. We hope that a growing awareness of the importance (and respect and salary) due to these professions will finally have the necessary impact. At 9 p.m., everybody goes at the window or balcony to give them a clap (or ring bells or even play music) for a minute to thank all the medical staff and other professions (e.g., cleaners) who likewise take enormous risks and make great efforts.

The number of beds in the hospitals has been seriously increased by creative means. The ultraliberal policy of the last decade had seriously cut down the number of beds in hospital and sent many many patients  to private practice and ambulatory treatment. But the government, when declaring confinement, has also declared that medical practitioners should only do online treatment and should close their practice. Result: 3 weeks later medical authorities are very worried: many patients in serious conditions or with severe chronic diseases don’t dare to call their medical practitioner and are afraid to go to the emergency services in hospital (fear of overloading them, fear of infection by Covid and fear of being cut out from their families (not allowed in the hospital). The pronostic is a possible wave of very serious cases needing urgent and heavy  treatment. This wave will put extra-pressure on the sanitary system already overburden. Meanwhile small medical units are close to bankruptcy : their have to pay the salaries of their staff but have no income to do so.

There is also a (still small) growing concern among social scientists that the teams that reflect on the pandemic and the confinement measures (and the planning of the end of the confinement) are made up of exclusively of epidemiologists and economists (with one or two specialists in ethics). Hence the psychic and social problems of the confined population are probably underestimated.
Little is known of the underprivileged part of the population, now unemployed, in small housing, with little outreach. Schooling has gone online in a fortnight (with absolutely no preparation) but many students don’t have connections or share the unique computer of the household with parents and siblings all supposedly on line.

This is only a few elements that characterise the situation. In parallel, many citizens are becoming increasingly aware of the dangers of the total interdependence of the economy and of the ecological disasters that this creates. Sanitary disasters and ecological disasters are much more interrelated than expected (a very nice book to understand that biological processes and ways of life social life are interdependent: Rob Dunn "Never home alone. >From Microbes to Millipedes, Camel Crickets, and Honeybees, the Natural History of Where We Live").

There are also plenty of many nice examples of solidarity, creativity, etc. They need to converge and be made visible.

We (MAPS in University of Neuchâtel)  are engaging in a large inquiry based on Bruno Latour’s call (March 29, 2020): "A little exercise to make sure that, after the virus crisis, things don’t start again as they were before" (see http://www.bruno-latour.fr/node/852.html with already versions in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, German, Dutch).

Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont

Prof. em. Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont
Institut de psychologie et éducation Faculté des lettres et sciences humaines
Université de Neuchâtel
Espace Tilo-Frey 1 (Anciennement: Espace Louis-Agassiz 1)
CH- 2000 Neuchâtel (Suisse)
http://www.unine.ch/ipe/publications/anne_nelly_perret_clermont

Last publications:
Perret-Clermont, A.-N., Schär, R., Greco, S., Convertini, J., Iannaccone, A., & Rocci, A. (2019). Shifting from a monological to a dialogical perspective on children’s argumentation. Lessons learned. In F. H. van Eemren & B. Garssen (Eds.), Argumentation in actual practice. Topical studies about argumentative discourse in context (pp. 211-236): John Benjamins Publishing Company. Version électronique<http://doc.rero.ch/record/327354> Iannaccone, A., Perret-Clermont, A.-N., & Convertini, J. (2019). Children as investigators of Brunerian “Possible worlds”. The role of narrative scenarios in children’s argumentative thinking. . Integrative Psychological and Behiavioral Science, 53, 679-693. Version électronique<https://doc.rero.ch/record/327830?ln=fr>

Perret-Clermont, A.-N., Perret, J.-F., Pochon, L.-O., & Marro, P. (2019). Hommage à Jacques Perriault. Hermes, La Revue, 3, 226-226.

In J.-P. Fragnière (Ed.), Agir et penser avec Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont (pp. 71-107). Lausanne: Editions Socialinfo https://www.socialinfo.ch/les-livres/38-agir-et-penser-avec-anne-nelly-perret-clermont.html

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