THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL AND SPIRITUAL BRIDGING IN RELATION TO POST-COVID SOCIETY POLARIZATION IN SLOVAKIA

Background: The situation with the third wave of the pandemic revealed the problem of frontal atomization of Slovak society, which is considered to be one of the main reasons why Slovakia currently achieves significantly negative quantification parameters in vaccination and overall pandemic management. Here, we are of the opinion that activities that create social bridges between entities in an antagonistic environment contribute to the healing of the social atmosphere. Therefore, the call for coherence in social policy, economics and ethics presupposes, on the one hand, the weakening of the fragmentation of society and the strengthening of functional communication and cooperation schemes in which the human factor precedes the technological and organizational factor. The need for such bridging in the Slovak context brings challenges in terms of values, ethics and soft skills not only on the part of professionals in the field of social work, but also on the basis of civic responsibility, to which the authors point their arguments. Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic affected society as a whole. We note that some of the negative trends present before the pandemic intensified and required that they be properly understood and adequately addressed quickly and competently. The results of our study are a contribution to the interdisciplinary discourse on the causes of the growing social atomization and value fragmentation of society.