To Thrive in These Times: Capabilities, Negativity, and the Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare many of the inadequacies of our capitalist systems, as Žižek extols in Pandemic! COVID-19 Shakes the World (2020). This essay explores how the capabilities approach, as outlined by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, may be re-examined in the light of this new viral reality by the contributions of Slavoj Žižek and Byung-Chul Han. The capability approach, as it stands, suffers from two missing pieces: that of an acknowledgement of the necessity of negativity as a foil to positivity within the capabilities as articulated by Nussbaum, and the existence of the material root of all capabilities, namely the need to have the capacity to be capable. A “capability for boredom,” and a “zeroth capability” are discussed as solutions, means by which to fill these gaps. Finally, an universal basic income is discussed as a means by which to support the functioning of a “zeroth capability,” the goal being to avoid a descent into bare life during this time of pandemic capitalism.