Birds do it, bees do it, even everylovin' trees do it....then it gets more or less complicated....Managing social distancing is a part of who we are. It is a dance that keeps a civilization intact.

Social distancing can be determined by a fear of disease either as an act of nature, as in the case of the coronavirus, or perhaps as an act under the guise of a virus that as anthropologist Mary Douglas observes is a fear of contamination related to meanings of class and/or ethnicity. It is safe to say based on the coronavirus moment that there is an association between the two meanings.

What is social distancing anyway? He/she is not wearing, or is wearing a mask or defies the six-foot rule? Or in the moment can it be presented as a plea to be aware of the other. But how is this managed in relation to social distance?

In anthropology, personal space maintained as a function of a particular culture was coined by Edward Hall in 1966 as proxemics — a term defined as how personal/public space is maintained as a function of one’s culture.

Maintaining the right distance to another is both a reflexive and semi-conscious cultural act which supports the constitution of a particular collective or individualistic oriented society.

There are cognitive and motivational reasons as to why there is more or less space between people. (For instance, if there are two elderly people communicating and neither hear well, standing closer together is probably important. The same could be said if one person tries to teach a skill to another and needs the proximity of the object. For instance, hunkering, squatting has a social distance that might average around three feet.

Then there is the strong ties of needing the physical intimacy of family during important occasions in the face of a pandemic where government is perceived to be pitted against family values.

Adaptability to the circumstances we find ourselves in varies. Many people (though zoom exhausted) seek out a new intimacy online more than before the virus and this changes the inner self particularly since it has some relationship with slowed time. This time brings insights such, perhaps, as an unrealized desire to want more intimacy or perceived intimacy with various effects on societies.

At the same time, the coronavirus moment has brought a re-evaluation of solitude: time to think about both loss and reflections of what it means to be human.

A little lightness in the dance

The slowed time during the coronavirus moment has also brought new energy to action.

In the midst of grief, the coronavirus moment has highlighted the need of the collective to mitigate the loss of hugs and the experience of winks and nods and the cues of facial expressions.

Many people have creatively adopted the six-foot rule whether from their balconies or dancing in the street, or entire symphonies created from their individual spaces. These individual and collective acts show the incredible resilency of the human spirit

The Wuhan Shake involves foot play with the makings of a dance.

Countries such as France and Turkey have to an extent upheld the two cheek kiss though the 1918 pandemic tempered the practice.

The United Arab Emirates have traditionally engaged a lot of touching involved in greetings. A waving of the hand or a hand to the heart have become substitutes. (I particularly like the latter and would like to adopt it more permanently perhaps with a slight bow).

The Maori have pivoted to a casual lift of the chin and eyebrows.

America's rural wave involves a slight lifting of the hand off the steering wheel,the movement of one or two fingers accompanied by a bare incline of the head.

In the moment

The coronavirus moment and political mechanisms have reordered social distances and starkly defined the undercurrents of class differences as never before.

As of this writing we live in a world of threatening circumstances which on some level are a confluence of events including climate change, the coronavirus pandemic, the unconscionable brutality of one "race" visited on another. Whatever the politics, we have all suffered the effects of four years under an amuck American president.

Something has been stolen in these four years. This theft and its extent over time is viewed in sharper relief under pandemic circumstances. Instead of winks and nods and cues of intimacy or the promise of intimacy, we see bumper riding and Trump stickers and the violence of language widely broadcasted to the extent of physical violence by a gang of thugs. We see the body count mount.

The occupation of time and space has been grossly political where there should be social, cultural, and political negotiation and an awareness of commonalities in a time of crisis.

Instead a large audience has been exposed to deliberate acts of intimidation and polarization where there is no negotiation and apparently there is no remedy.

Gross violations of private space have been normalized. An example, I cannot unsee is found in the U.S. 2016 presidential campaign where in a setting of compressed time the current president circled his opponent and stood behind her as a looming shadow with a distance designed to intimidate. This predatory behavior in defiance of civility coopted the glue of social convention such as a handshake by grabbing another and pulling the person toward him. These public actions in view of the world carried their own trauma and code for behavior beyond the podium and touched generations and countries.

However, in this moment, behind the mask of belief and ideations there remains the universal truth of yearning and loss as a common experience. It would be a mistake to not consider this as a psychosocial manifestation with various consequences and perhaps solutions leading to greater unity.

As far as the role of culture, despite the power of the conflicting belief systems we see at play on stage, believing doesn't make it so.

I live in "Trump Country, but people still wave as I walk down a rural road. They do not ask me about my politics because some things are better left unsaid.

Culture is not just a concept invented by anthropologist...." Culture "exists completely independent of what people believe." And, when it comes to behavior, culture carries its own timing to be negotiated between different kinds of people around the globe and this is inseparable from the negotiation of social distance which touches the interplay between individuals. This is the nature of the dance and globally whatever power plays exist, there is a growing sense that timing when it comes to intimacy is more critical than ever.