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Paper short abstract

The presentation traces the resulting contradictions and political confusion of political categories and their negotiations in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and analyzes how “progressive” and “regressive” attitudes and behaviors oppose each other and tend to overlap on different sides.

Paper long abstract

Building on anthropological fieldwork on the controversy surrounding measures to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Germany, in which I emphasized the widely disputed common ground between supporters and opponents of the measures, this presentation traces the further development of the controversy and its actors, some of whom only became politicized through the coronavirus protests and have now turned their attention to new crises. In new crises, such as the war in Ukraine or the situation in Palestine, the polarization of the debates resembles that during the coronavirus period, in which mutual accusations of misinformation, conspiracy theories, and right-wing extremism were exchanged. And in their assessment of new crises and conflicts, the actors from both sides still repeatedly refer to the coronavirus controversy. It is not uncommon in the current protests against orthodox opinion, for example with regard to Ukraine, to find former opponents during the coronavirus pandemic on the same side, with new alliances being formed and old divisions along accusations of following conspiracy theories being reinforced at the same time. The presentation traces the resulting contradictions and political confusion and their negotiations and analyzes how “progressive” and “regressive” attitudes and behaviors tend to overlap on different sides, and proposes a symmetrical perspective that aims „to untangle the mess without adding one more accusation to those that the actors have already made“ (Akrich), and that is necessary to reach an analysis capable of producing new understandings, rather than merely deepening the rift between opposing groups by choosing a side.