¿Giro hacia la izquierda en Sudamérica? Polarización y futuro incierto en el tránsito hacia una sociedad postpandémica: Editorial

Abstract

In a scenario in which the social and economic crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic has been decreasing in the countries of the Latin American region, characterized by a vaccinated population and by a decrease in confinement strategies; we can say that a transit from a 'pandemic society' to a state of normality or 'post-pandemic society' has been generated. This socio-temporal passage has been highlighted by the return of students to schools and universities, as well as the passage from teleworking to offices and production spaces, to mention some concrete practices.  This in the understanding of what Mark Fisher called 'capitalist realism', allows us to reflect that beyond the advances and learnings from the pandemic, there seems to be no alternatives to a model of social production that has been reestablished. The return to 'post-pandemic' normality presents a new social articulation that has evident consequences, one of them being the effects at the ballot box. The Latin American socio-political panorama opens up many possibilities for reflection, encounter and dialogue for academics and citizens alike. We highlight three that are central to the current social scenario. In the first place, the existing polarization that has been accentuated in recent years; the second aspect has to do with the difficulties to govern. From South America to Europe, passing through Spain, Italy among many other cases, in recent years, the traditional Rousseaunian democratic meaning of representative democracies -in its different meanings- also seems to have tyrannized political parties, betting on the noise or the quick news that will be news every day, rather than on a long-term country project that will continue through the next government; and the third concept, which is derived from the two previous ones, is about the uncertain future that Chile, Latin America, Europe and the World (as a group of nations) or the Earth (as a space in which we cohabit with other species) are facing imminently. It is beginning to be drawn in the social imaginary that our future is neither in that World nor in that Earth, but in the uninhabitable desert of Mars. A place where politics becomes a-politics, marked by automation and the lack of a deep and slow reflection on who we are or where we land when we talk about health, children, education, old age, peace or ecology.