ABSTRACT

This pandemic is a season of nevertheless; we are exhausted from all kinds of labour, but keep labouring nevertheless. This labouring, I suggest, takes three forms: doing (the productive and reproductive labour required to sustain life through a pandemic), undoing (the tedious processes of postponing and cancelling plans, or abandoning the process of planning altogether), and not-doing (passing the time left over between doing and undoing). Of course, the particularities of our doing, undoing, and not-doing will vary by our circumstances even as we operate within these general patterns of behaviour. I want to think through these neverthelesses as a way of mapping orientations toward the future fractured by the pandemic, and our collective persistence despite those fractures. Under normal circumstances, doing is an expression of optimism about the future, but the pandemic has quickened the tempo and increased the frequency of disappointment and continually forecloses possibility. Undoing is tiresome and painful, the necessary labour that amounts to less than nothing, begetting a collection of losses that often remain private and invisible. Not-doing is an intensified experience of boredom, with no obvious end or relief. Against the calls, which abound in the public culture of the pandemic, to treat COVID-19 as an opportunity to cultivate resilience, I posit endurance as an alternative framework. Resilience implies a better future if only we would learn how to suffer more productively. By contrast, endurance makes no such promises but fully acknowledges all the ways we might hurt, even as it functions as the nameless capacity that carries us through our doing, undoing, and not-doing – nevertheless.

摘要

然而，这种大流行是一个季节; 我们从各种劳动中筋疲力尽，但仍要继续努力。我建议这种劳动采取三种形式：干活（通过大流行维持生命所需的生产劳动和生殖劳动），废除（推迟和取消计划的繁琐过程，或完全放弃计划的繁琐过程）和不采取行动（经过操作和撤消操作之间剩下的时间）。当然，即使我们按照这些一般的行为方式开展工作，我们做，不做和不做的特殊性也会因我们的情况而异。我想认为通过这些neverthelesses以此来描绘因大流行而破裂的未来方向，以及尽管发生了这些破裂，我们的集体毅力。在正常情况下，做事是对未来的乐观表示，但这种大流行加快了节奏，增加了失望的频率，并不断地排除了可能性。无所作为是令人厌烦和痛苦的，必要的劳动总之不到零，导致了一系列损失，这些损失往往是私密的和无形的。不做是无聊的经历，没有明显的结局或缓解。在大流行的公共文化中，有很多人呼吁将COVID-19视为培养抵御能力的机会，但我认为耐力是替代框架。如果只有我们将学习如何更有效地忍受痛苦，韧性就意味着更好的未来。