Social Distancing and Cultural Bias

Abstract

Social distancing (also called physical distancing) is a highly recommended intervention against the community spreading of the new coronavirus. Although social distancing is a prudent intervention, its implications and impacts are not. The new distancing rules affect personal space and create a new sense of what is considered clean or dirty. Mary Douglas, founder of Cultural Theory, has asserted that “dirt” is a social construction that combines a social order with the contravention to this order (“Dirt is matter out of place”). As a social construction, however, “dirt” is subject to cultural bias. To some, disobedience to distancing rules is “dirty” (hierarchist bias); to others, the proximity of strangers or outsiders (egalitarian bias); to a third group, the duty to wear masks and other restrictions to personal liberty (individualist bias). Social biases shape the spatial consequences of COVID-19 and social distancing. Using cultural bias to examine reactions to social distancing allows identifying possible components of a clumsy, yet viable response to the COVID-19 crisis.