Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to reflect on the effects of the pandemic that have affected the social system in all its components since March 2020. The crisis has settled within a ‘permanent state of crisis’ that can be read as an inescapable condition of contemporary society. The unpredictability of certain events, with all that this entails, characterises the system of complex societies, which are in themselves inevitably risky, even when they strive to function according to apparently rational rules. The processes of globalisation stress this character and imply the acceptance of living and sharing a common human condition increasingly exposed to uncertainty and contingency. Although sociology in general (and the sociology of risk in particular) reflects on these problematic aspects, here we have chosen to refer to the analyses of two sociologists well known for their powerful humanistic perspective and biographically acquainted with crises, wars and epidemics of the past century: Edgar Morin and Franco Ferrarotti.

Their theoretical reflection is the background to two empirical researches that I conducted on the pandemic phenomenon: the first, a qualitative/visual type carried out during the first lockdown in the city of Rome, resulted in the documentary entitled ‘If not now when’, that bears witness to the dystopian aspects and social and urban exceptionalism; the second, currently in progress, is an in-depth study of the first and is the result of the national project ‘Inhabiting uncertainty’. In the latter, a research unit in Rome has been focusing on surveying the youth response to the condition of uncertainty, dedicating a special concern to the emotional, relational and imagination spheres. The voices of scholars and young people interviewed who participated in the research converge on a need that also represents a social objective: re-founding our way of being in the world and designing, through imaginative processes, different ways of inhabiting uncertainty and crisis.

Rethinking the Human Condition from the Pandemic Crisis

Pandemic, war conflict, climate emergency and economy: these are the four crises of the post-global age that accompany the great adventure of mankind and feed such a deep sense of uncertainty, both individual and social, that it now almost completely supersedes the trust hitherto placed in ‘expert systems’ (Giddens 1994).