New Type of Social Structure, Stratification and Relations in Post-COVID Society

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 pandemic changes society in a dramatic way: new types of social structure, stratification and relations emerge. In this Chapter, we isolate seven features of the “interim” COVID-related social order that threatens to become a new social normality in many countries, including Western countries and Russia. 1. In contrast to natural and artificial disasters, epidemic situations do not unite, but divide people. In the situation of global uncertainty caused by the current pandemic, anxiety and, accordingly, suspicion of people grows. 2. The tendency of population’s distrust towards authorities increases. 3. Feelings of isolation, uncertainty, stress, and heightened anxiety negatively affect family relationships, as evidenced by the rise in divorce rates. 4. The search for the guilty, which is a usual tendency during epidemics and pandemics, poisons international and interpersonal relations. 5. The transition of the education system to predominantly distance (online) learning leads to a decrease in the quality of education and to a surge of learning imitation activities. 6. The emergence of advanced computer technologies of social control is now justified in a number of countries by the need to track the movements of infectious patients. The development of surveillance and control technologies is on the rise. 7. The new type of society implies new principles of social stratification, social structure and social relations, that would be based upon new inequality.

Welcome to postnormal times.

It’s a time when little out there can be trusted or gives us confidence. The espiritu del tiempo, the spirit of our age, is characterised by uncertainty, rapid change, realignment of power, upheaval and chaotic behaviour. We live in an in-between period where old orthodoxies are dying, new ones have yet to be born, and very few things seem to make sense.

Ziauddin Sardar