Kulturowe obrazy epidemii i wizje świata „od nowa”

This article seeks to describe the social and cultural changes in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The (post)pandemic landscape turned out to materialise the long-felt visions – dystopias. The metaphors of alienation and exile have proven dramatically real in the age of the general (self-)isolation. Particularly interesting are the social reactions to ‘new’ threats: from epidemic denialism and scepticism to epidemic panic. The biological cataclysm has triggered an avalanche of social antagonisms, contradicting the optimistic (and, it appears, naïve) thesis about the democratic nature of the disease/epidemic. In the context of the events observed since 2020, one may wonder why the world ignored the numerous warnings of microbiologists and epidemiologists, while humanity – despite the spectacular advancement in medicine – has repeated the old, pre-scientific mechanisms of constant maladjustment? Attempts to answer these questions are accompanied by an analysis of anxiety and fear as extremely important emotions governing the social life. The article develops the thesis about the significant narrative/myth-forming potential of nearly every epidemic, indicating its characteristic language and symbolic layer. Importantly, the paper also offers post-pandemic forecasts seeking to answer questions about what the new reality will look like and to what extent the presence of this biological threat will revise our (old) understanding of the world.