COVID-19 AS A BADIOUIAN EVENT? A GLOBAL INSIGHT INTO THEORETICAL INTERROGATION OF ŽIŽEK’S PANDEMICS

Abstract

The rapidly burgeoning literature surrounding COVID-19 pandemic fetishistically and prematurely tried to catch the academic momentum, taking almost an a priori, non-debatable, starting point of the conceptualization of the pandemic as the “new normal”. In Pandemic: COVID-19 Shakes the World and Pandemic! 2: Chronicles of a Time Lost, Slavoj Žižek frames the pandemic as multiple global crises, arguing it will aggressively and drastically rupture the global societal norms and dynamics creating a new order. However, did it? This essay debates this question through the theoretical lenses of Badiouʼs Event. It starts by laying down the fundamental theoretical principles and mapping the necessary criteria needed to be fulfilled in order for a happening to be named an Event. Further, it navigates through ideas and arguments presented in Žižek’s publications localizing the pandemic’s global characteristics. Finally, it theoretically deconstructs them providing us with the fundamental answer to the question what COVID-19 pandemic is: a Badiouian event that has/is/will construct the global “new normal”, multiple consequential crises, or just a temporary situation that reaffirms the existing societal normatives worldwide.