Orienting Between Hyperobjects

An initial warning: I know this blog is for people to talk about the quarantine and various experiences they've been having, and I fully intend to make this post about that, but this will also include some things pertaining to the current situation in America and the widespread unrest.

I've seen contrasting images of once-empty NYC streets with entire cities flooded with people. One represented the fear of an intangible, pernicious disease. The other represented people protesting an intangible system of oppression. Watching these protests from another country feels like I'm witnessing an alternate reality, one in which there is no global pandemic sweeping through the world. I didn't expect seeing so many people in one place to seem so foreign to me. I am happy to see people protesting a deeply broken system but I dread that these protests will lead to more deaths from the virus.

The protesters in this case seem to be caught between two "hyperobjects" that is an object that is so far-reaching that it cannot be necessarily touched but its effects can be felt. The internet, global warming, race, and class could be considered hyperobjects by this metric. More information on hyperobjects. I would posit that a pandemic can also be a kind of hyperobject. One of the key factors of a hyperobject is the interactivity of a multitude of smaller objects all acting on each other. The main hyperobject is only made apparent when we look at how these smaller objects are affected. We only notice climate change through things like raised sea levels, temperature changes, emission levels etc.

This made me think about race and how all these small systems culminate into a far-reaching web of violence, hate, ignorance, and mortality for people of color. I am also reminded of a series of articles that show that Black Americans are dying of Covid-19 at a rate of three times that of white people. Here we can see two hyperobjects compounding to create a horrific system of co-morbidity in which the pandemic is exacerbated by a racist system.

I wanted to write this because I feel incredibly unmoored with everything that's happening but at least I can attempt to measure out some of what's going on.

I hope you all stay safe.