Disembodiment and Delusion in the Time of COVID-19

Abstract

This article proposes an analytical framework that highlights embodiment’s ontological complexities and the ways in which the securitization of the body, during the COVID-19 pandemic, brought our embodied existence under the scrutiny of the invasive gaze of multiple social authorities, framing public and private modes of being as existential security risks. It engages with the research developed by psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist and clinical psychologist Louis A. Sass on schizophrenia, tracing the extent to which COVID-19 reshaped reality displays a dynamic akin to this mental disorder, through its abnegation of embodied presence, retreat into virtual register, and abnormal interpretations of reality. To spotlight this dynamic’s consequences, the article explores three interconnected features of schizophrenia, namely hyper-reflexivity, diminished self-presence, and disturbed grip on the world. These help to contextualize the ways in which a large segment of the population in the United States responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. To that end, the article highlights the development of a virtual universe of conspiracy theories, shaping a citizenry which, akin to schizophrenics are simultaneously cynical and gullible, manifesting a vehement distrust of aspects of life that need to be implicit, while readily embracing conspiratorial worldviews.