ERDEMLİ BİR PANDEMİ Mİ? DANIEL DEFOE’NUN VEBA YILI GÜNLÜĞÜ’NDE KARA ÖLÜME KARŞI AHLÂKİ (OLMAYAN) TEPKİLER

Tarih boyunca insanlık, insanların farklı şekillerde karşılık verdiği, baş etmek için mücadele ettiği ve nihayetinde onları alt ettiği birçok pandemiden mustarip olmuştur. Tarihin insanlığı şahit kıldığı gibi, şu ana kadar insanlığın atlatamadığı tek bir pandemi yoktur. Bununla birlikte bir pandemide hayatta kalmak, sadece fiziksel, sosyal ve finansal değil, en önemlisi ahlâki olan birçok yetenek gerektirir. Bu anlamda, pandemi anlatıları zor zamanlardan geçerken ahlâki ve ahlâk dışı tutumların nasıl benimsendiğini kavramak için ilham vericidir. Bunun ışığında, Daniel Defoe'nun 1722'de yayımlanan A Journal of the Plague Year [Veba Yılı Günlüğü] adlı eseri, bu romanı gerçekçi bir tarihsel anlatı kategorisine dahil eden rasyonalist bir bakış açısıyla 1665 Londra Büyük Veba salgınına ışık tutar. Bununla birlikte, Defoe'nun 1665 veba salgınını belgelemesi, aynı zamanda insanların pandemi zamanlarında nasıl davrandıklarını ve pandemiye ahlâki veya ahlâk dışı olarak nasıl tepki verdiklerini tasvir eden ve bunu açığa çıkaran ahlâki bir anlatıdır. Defoe'nun insan yelpazesi göz önüne alındığında-–şehirden derhal kaçan önde gelen zenginler, insanları ölüme terk ederek evleri karantinaya alan valiler, vebayı yayan cahil insanlar, sahtekâr din adamları, doktorlar ve insanları sömüren sihirbazlar; ve birbirlerini kollayarak hayatta kalmayı tercih edenler–A Journal, acı çeken insanların ve onların acılarından faydalanan diğerlerinin ölümcül bir salgına nasıl ahlâki ya da ahlâk dışı tepkiler verdiğine işaret etmektedir. Bu çalışma, günümüz Covid-19 pandemisine verilen mevcut ahlâki (olmayan) tepkilere ışık tutmak için, yüzyıllarca öteden gelen bir çağrı olarak kabul edilebilecek Defoe’nun bu anlatısında ahlâk felsefesinin yerini görünür kılma çabasıdır.

Anahtar Kelimeler:

Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, Veba, Pandemi, Ahlak

A VIRTUOUS PANDEMIC? (IM)MORAL RESPONSES TO BLACK DEATH IN DANIEL DEFOE’S A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR

Throughout the history, humanity has suffered many pandemics which people have responded to in various ways, struggled to cope with, and ultimately survived. As the history has made humanity witness, there is not even one pandemic until now which humanity has not come through. However, to survive a pandemic requires multiple capabilities, not only physical, social, and financial, but most importantly a moral capability. In this sense, the narratives of pandemic are stimulating to discern how moral and immoral attitudes are adopted while going through hard times. In the light of it, Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year published in 1722 sheds light on the Great Plague of London in 1665 by using a rationalist point of view which places the novel among realist historical narratives. However, Defoe’s documentation of the 1665 plague is also a narrative of morality that depicts and gives insight into how people behave in the times of a pandemic and respond them morally or immorally. Considering Defoe’s range of people–the wealthiest people running away from the city at once, the governors who quarantine houses leaving people to death, the ignorant infectious people spreading the plague, the fraud ecclesiastics, physicians, and magicians who exploit people; and the ones who prefer to survive by taking care of each other–A Journal signs how the people who are suffering and the others who take advantage of their suffering give moral or immoral responses to a fatal pandemic. To provide an insight into the current (im)moral responses to today’s Covid-19 pandemic, this study is an effort to make the place of moral philosophy visible in the narrative of Defoe which could be accepted as a call from over the centuries.

Keywords:

Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, Plague, Pandemic, Morality,

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