Is It Tomorrow Yet?

One of our most scintillating public intellectuals explores
the political paradoxes of the pandemic and helps us think our way
through it

'We are able to imagine anything because we are being besieged by something that was considered unimaginable...'

Beneath the panic and bluster, beneath the confusing speeches and
the conflicting advice, the Coronavirus pandemic acted, changing our
world in the most profound ways. The tragic human cost and the economic
devastation will be assessed and calculated for decades to come. But the
pandemic also changed things in ways that are less easily expressed and
understood. It has made bare the frayed contradictions of modern life.
It has distorted things that seemed simple and settled. It has affirmed
plain, uncomfortable truths.

In this brilliant, thought-provoking essay, Ivan Krastev, one of our
most interesting thinkers today, explores the pandemic's immediate
consequences and conceives of its long-term legacy. Will things be
different for the communities most harmed, and for those who escaped the
worst? Where are we now with the US and China, with the UK and Europe?
And how do we think our way through the unthinkable?