FLYGSKAM [Swedish (c. 2018). Pronounced: fleeg-skahm]
1. Flight shaming; i.e. criticizing someone
for traveling by airplane when unnecessary, given the harm to the environment which airplanes
create.
2. The social movement encouraging people to
stop traveling by planes in order to reduce carbon emissions and other harm to the environment.
This movement began in Sweden in 2018, and one of its most prominent proponents is the young
Swedish environmental activist, Greta Thunberg. Although well meaning, flygskam is a
liberal reformist movement which is very unlikely to lead to significant environmental
improvement worldwide, though for now it has made some impact in Sweden. Like much liberal
political action, it focuses on what individuals can do as individuals, and not on what
mass protest movements can do. And of course it “forgets” to mention the central role of
capitalism and capitalist profits in the destruction of the environment and the absolutely
essential need for socialist revolution to truly put an end to this.
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In an epidemic or pandemic (such as that of the Covid-19 outbreak
in 2020) the disease may spread so fast that the hospitals and
health care system in a country may be completely overwhelmed. This is especially the case in
capitalist society where the government is generally so unconcerned with maintaining the good
health of the working class and general population that the health system is quite inadequate
all the time! But in an epidemic the situation may suddenly be aggravated to an extreme
degree. In order to attempt to deal with this, the health authorities try to keep the disease
from spreading so fast through social distancing and isolation, so that—even if the same
total number of people are eventually infected—the disease cases will be spread over a longer
period of time. This is known as “flattening the curve”.