Books

When a virus threatens to shut down all of humanity, how is it our humanity threatens to shut down?

A virus that affects the human race would unite us all, surely? However, because Covid occurs within the framework of capitalistic individualism, empathy, Hammond argues, stretches only to a yawn-inducing apathy. Since George Floyd's murder, whatever empathy many white people sensed for others has mutated into an indignant rage that has entrenched the racial tensions already gouged by Brexit and Neoliberal rhetoric. Market forces, meritocracy and social media have stoked a culture of competition and left many behind. Now it seems, all that many white people have left to compete over is victimhood.

Applying key concepts from psychotherapy and social models of interaction, Hammond investigates collective trauma with dialectical rigour. As in psychotherapy, examination of the individual within is the way toward healing the collective without.