I'm late to the party, but shouldn't we also remind ourselves how immense medicalization of transgender individuals which happenened right in front of our noses, is perfectly in line with unprecedented measures to curb C-19?
My guess the answer would be "No". In reality, one might assume, they're finally getting some freedom from institutions!
The insistence of the demand which every "active" intellectual faces in his or hers zenith, unable to resist it, shifts the process of the theory production to the plane of impossibilities. Is it not the actual reason why this piece (along with my comment) reeks right-wing virtue signaling despite obviously not appealing to the corresponding Other?
Sorry, I can't make sense of this comment. "My guess the answer would be "No"." What is the question?
"Is it not the actual reason why this piece (along with my comment) reeks right-wing virtue signaling despite obviously not appealing to the corresponding Other?" What? I'm a social conservative, so by today's definition a "right-winger". As Marx would be. So I don't know what you are talking about.
The scorched earth technique is tired. As much I hate mandates that force people out of livelihoods or believe that “science” has been been marshalled for political power, covid politics is not totalitarianism. When you use such a term and don’t justify it, it is no different than when new lefties called all their opponent's fascists. Quite obviously millions of workers were affected directly by the pandemic, as in dead family members. In the US, it's the non-existent healthcare system that is mostly to blame for this. The trucker convoy for all it's virtue was politically narrow and to prop it up as a the conscience of workers is fatuous.
The definition of biopolitical totalitarianism is the manipulation society in such a way that the distinction between private and public, between the singularity of the subject and the universality of the polis, between the sphere of civil society and the sphere of governmentality becomes obsolete, so that it can put itself in the position of deciding what life is and what life is not, what is human and what is not human. This is exactly what happened in during Covid.
With the abolition of bodily integrity, of the alternative to get a forced medical injection or lose one's job (and in Australia, the "unvaccinated" are still barred from work life), totalitarianism has found a way into a formally democratic space. With a top-down manipulation campaign through media, Twitter bots, and government institutions informing key PR pundits that “the perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging.", as leaked from the "Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures" paper, issued by the The Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (SPI-B), March 22nd, 2020 and the German interior ministry's paper that informed on a communication strategy of the pandemic that desires to "create a shock effect" in the population, by envisaging a scenario in which "many seriously ill people are brought to hospital by their relatives, but are turned away and die in agony at home, struggling for breath. Suffocation...is a primal fear for every human being...When [children] infect their parents and one of them dies in agony at home and they feel they are to blame because, for example, they forgot to wash their hands, it is the most terrible thing a child can ever experience” - using children as pawns for their manipulation campaign - a new level of political disinformation is reached that is essentially undemocratic and totalitarian.
For people who get it rubbed in their face every day and still do not realise what is going on - does not the creation of a Government Disinformation Board get at least a raised eyebrow - there is obviously not much I can do by writing these little essays. The more obvious it gets, the more compliant people become was my dystopian take away from the pandemic. I am not wasting my time persuading people of the upgrade in repression, by laws and new regulations, when it has become clear as daylight. I would rather like to think about ways out of this totalitarian hell we are already facing and going to face in the future if we do not resist.
I keep trying to figure out who this critique is specifically aimed at. The only actual human you mention is Meagan Day. But honestly, I can’t think of anyone who embodies all the criticisms in this essay. It’s a straw man argument fueled by weird resentments.
curious about your methods for coming to some of these conclusions about DSA. they are a lot more heterogenous in my experience. plenty of DSA members (and democratic socialists not involved with DSA) aren't succumbing to a narrow fantasy embracing only the likes of Starbucks and Amazon-type worker protests. Plenty of democratic socialists have openly admired the
'petit bourgeoise' worker demonstrations throughout America, the truckers, the healthcare workers, independent operators/contractors, and have been anti-mandate. (Im especially thinking of some of the leading dem soc intellectuals, like Richard Wolff, Ben Burgis, Vivek Chibber, Alex Press). They've also also been quick to critique any talk that fetishizes POC and indigenous or subaltern communities as the only worthy revolutionary subject; they've been quick to critique ideologies that dismiss the problems of white workers.
Hi Daniel., thanks for this. The DSA may be heterogeneous as any other political organisation, and they have been critical of one or the other Covid policy - but never have they questioned the main narrative and concretely addressed the biopolitical goal and totalitarian character of the measures. In fact, it was always about the "protection" of workers ("give the workers masks and PPEs"), never about how the measures have affected civil society as such. Their piecemeal criticism then sat comfortably with the left that feigned "care" about "the vulnerable" (which always comes around as its opposite), but never once questioned the hysteria and the damage it caused to social life. I have never heard one DSA member or affiliate utter any kind of concern about the biggest infringement on civil rights since WW2. What should have been their number one concern was avoided at all costs (see the programme for the 2021 convention). Especially individuals like the paradigmatic dirtbag Ben Burgis have not once worried about the tenets of, e.g., the mass vaccination campaign (which he in fact supported, as well as the NPIs). Chibber preferred to continue to abstractly criticise "neoliberalism" on academic panels while supporting Joe Biden's neoliberal hell against Trumpists (not as bad as Adolph Reed Jr, but still). In fact, Chibber's response was especially lacklustre. He was little worried about the disenfranchisement of the little guy in the wake of Corona regime triumphalism. I have noticed Wolff's intervention, but he was immediately called a "right-winger" for addressing the notable omissions in the left critique. My method is talking to people in person and reading what people write, from which I assess their position in the overall discourse. I did not hear or read anything from DSA members or affiliates that would suggest they were at any point critical of the Covid regime for the sake of democracy. If you can point me to those sources, I'd be happy to catch up on my homework.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I think Burgis' thinking on covid mandates changed over time as he saw more and more fearmongering and mask/vaccine moral policing. I could be wrong though. As for Chibber, it was my understanding that he consistently calls for critiques against viewing workers as stupid or rightwing just because they have different values than you. Im not as familiar with his specific views on Covid regulations though.
Ultimately I appreciate the Jacobin/DSA flavor that critiques big tech surveillance and censorship
Thanks for this. I am aware that there is a small minority in Jacobin circles that is actively opposed to Big Tech censorship. But the majority still acts as though this didn't matter. I have simply been told too many times that "right-wing disinformation" is legitimately countered with a "Science"-oriented approach, where Science is equated with Fauciism. And also, then you have these Jacobin articles, comparing resistance to vaxx mandates to Hitlerism: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/09/vaccine-mandates-covid-pandemic-german-nazi-inoculation-policy
There was also the recent article by Christian Parenti: "How the organized Left got Covid wrong, learned to love lockdowns and lost its mind: an autopsy".
Well, there is a direct pipeline of Adorno fans like dirtbag leftists Ross Wolfe, Endnotes, Cured Quail, Théorie Communiste, etc. to Covid totalitarianism and "protecting the vulnerable", which follows the same wokist, authoritarian logic they would otherwise reject. After seeing Habermas's plea for the biopolitical security state, I am really no longer surprised. The really interesting question is whether beyond the topsy-turviness of worldviews suddenly espoused by leftists if there is a deeper motive in the *theories* of Adorno and the FS that makes it relatable to state authoritarianism. I think there is, and a lot of the inversions, convulsions and self-defeating logic can be found in this abominable piece from TC, reprinted by Cured Quail: https://curedquailjournal.wordpress.com/2021/02/14/conspiricism-in-general-and-the-pandemic-in-particular/.
I think the "primacy of the object" that Adorno speaks about in the ND is very indicative of this convulsion, as it is immediately taken to mean "objective facts, science". When it certainly does not: Adorno was a *critic*, not an advocate for the plain positivism we are seeing today. This short-circuit may account for the wrongheadedness you see in "enlightened" left criticism today. This is also why I say the admiration would not be mutual.
I'm late to the party, but shouldn't we also remind ourselves how immense medicalization of transgender individuals which happenened right in front of our noses, is perfectly in line with unprecedented measures to curb C-19?
My guess the answer would be "No". In reality, one might assume, they're finally getting some freedom from institutions!
The insistence of the demand which every "active" intellectual faces in his or hers zenith, unable to resist it, shifts the process of the theory production to the plane of impossibilities. Is it not the actual reason why this piece (along with my comment) reeks right-wing virtue signaling despite obviously not appealing to the corresponding Other?
Sorry, I can't make sense of this comment. "My guess the answer would be "No"." What is the question?
"Is it not the actual reason why this piece (along with my comment) reeks right-wing virtue signaling despite obviously not appealing to the corresponding Other?" What? I'm a social conservative, so by today's definition a "right-winger". As Marx would be. So I don't know what you are talking about.
The scorched earth technique is tired. As much I hate mandates that force people out of livelihoods or believe that “science” has been been marshalled for political power, covid politics is not totalitarianism. When you use such a term and don’t justify it, it is no different than when new lefties called all their opponent's fascists. Quite obviously millions of workers were affected directly by the pandemic, as in dead family members. In the US, it's the non-existent healthcare system that is mostly to blame for this. The trucker convoy for all it's virtue was politically narrow and to prop it up as a the conscience of workers is fatuous.
The definition of biopolitical totalitarianism is the manipulation society in such a way that the distinction between private and public, between the singularity of the subject and the universality of the polis, between the sphere of civil society and the sphere of governmentality becomes obsolete, so that it can put itself in the position of deciding what life is and what life is not, what is human and what is not human. This is exactly what happened in during Covid.
With the abolition of bodily integrity, of the alternative to get a forced medical injection or lose one's job (and in Australia, the "unvaccinated" are still barred from work life), totalitarianism has found a way into a formally democratic space. With a top-down manipulation campaign through media, Twitter bots, and government institutions informing key PR pundits that “the perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging.", as leaked from the "Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures" paper, issued by the The Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (SPI-B), March 22nd, 2020 and the German interior ministry's paper that informed on a communication strategy of the pandemic that desires to "create a shock effect" in the population, by envisaging a scenario in which "many seriously ill people are brought to hospital by their relatives, but are turned away and die in agony at home, struggling for breath. Suffocation...is a primal fear for every human being...When [children] infect their parents and one of them dies in agony at home and they feel they are to blame because, for example, they forgot to wash their hands, it is the most terrible thing a child can ever experience” - using children as pawns for their manipulation campaign - a new level of political disinformation is reached that is essentially undemocratic and totalitarian.
For people who get it rubbed in their face every day and still do not realise what is going on - does not the creation of a Government Disinformation Board get at least a raised eyebrow - there is obviously not much I can do by writing these little essays. The more obvious it gets, the more compliant people become was my dystopian take away from the pandemic. I am not wasting my time persuading people of the upgrade in repression, by laws and new regulations, when it has become clear as daylight. I would rather like to think about ways out of this totalitarian hell we are already facing and going to face in the future if we do not resist.
I keep trying to figure out who this critique is specifically aimed at. The only actual human you mention is Meagan Day. But honestly, I can’t think of anyone who embodies all the criticisms in this essay. It’s a straw man argument fueled by weird resentments.
I protect my sources. All quotes are documented.
curious about your methods for coming to some of these conclusions about DSA. they are a lot more heterogenous in my experience. plenty of DSA members (and democratic socialists not involved with DSA) aren't succumbing to a narrow fantasy embracing only the likes of Starbucks and Amazon-type worker protests. Plenty of democratic socialists have openly admired the
'petit bourgeoise' worker demonstrations throughout America, the truckers, the healthcare workers, independent operators/contractors, and have been anti-mandate. (Im especially thinking of some of the leading dem soc intellectuals, like Richard Wolff, Ben Burgis, Vivek Chibber, Alex Press). They've also also been quick to critique any talk that fetishizes POC and indigenous or subaltern communities as the only worthy revolutionary subject; they've been quick to critique ideologies that dismiss the problems of white workers.
[edit: grammar mistake]
Hi Daniel., thanks for this. The DSA may be heterogeneous as any other political organisation, and they have been critical of one or the other Covid policy - but never have they questioned the main narrative and concretely addressed the biopolitical goal and totalitarian character of the measures. In fact, it was always about the "protection" of workers ("give the workers masks and PPEs"), never about how the measures have affected civil society as such. Their piecemeal criticism then sat comfortably with the left that feigned "care" about "the vulnerable" (which always comes around as its opposite), but never once questioned the hysteria and the damage it caused to social life. I have never heard one DSA member or affiliate utter any kind of concern about the biggest infringement on civil rights since WW2. What should have been their number one concern was avoided at all costs (see the programme for the 2021 convention). Especially individuals like the paradigmatic dirtbag Ben Burgis have not once worried about the tenets of, e.g., the mass vaccination campaign (which he in fact supported, as well as the NPIs). Chibber preferred to continue to abstractly criticise "neoliberalism" on academic panels while supporting Joe Biden's neoliberal hell against Trumpists (not as bad as Adolph Reed Jr, but still). In fact, Chibber's response was especially lacklustre. He was little worried about the disenfranchisement of the little guy in the wake of Corona regime triumphalism. I have noticed Wolff's intervention, but he was immediately called a "right-winger" for addressing the notable omissions in the left critique. My method is talking to people in person and reading what people write, from which I assess their position in the overall discourse. I did not hear or read anything from DSA members or affiliates that would suggest they were at any point critical of the Covid regime for the sake of democracy. If you can point me to those sources, I'd be happy to catch up on my homework.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I think Burgis' thinking on covid mandates changed over time as he saw more and more fearmongering and mask/vaccine moral policing. I could be wrong though. As for Chibber, it was my understanding that he consistently calls for critiques against viewing workers as stupid or rightwing just because they have different values than you. Im not as familiar with his specific views on Covid regulations though.
Ultimately I appreciate the Jacobin/DSA flavor that critiques big tech surveillance and censorship
example specific to Covid: https://jacobinmag.com/2021/05/big-tech-censorship-science-covid-19-debate)
broad example: https://jacobinmag.com/2021/01/censorship-big-tech-facebook-twitter
Thanks for this. I am aware that there is a small minority in Jacobin circles that is actively opposed to Big Tech censorship. But the majority still acts as though this didn't matter. I have simply been told too many times that "right-wing disinformation" is legitimately countered with a "Science"-oriented approach, where Science is equated with Fauciism. And also, then you have these Jacobin articles, comparing resistance to vaxx mandates to Hitlerism: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/09/vaccine-mandates-covid-pandemic-german-nazi-inoculation-policy
and
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2022/02/canada-freedom-convoy-conservative-right-wing-anti-worker-anti-vaccine
There was also the recent article by Christian Parenti: "How the organized Left got Covid wrong, learned to love lockdowns and lost its mind: an autopsy".
https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/31/left-covid-lockdowns-mind-autopsy/
This is great, thanks
Well, there is a direct pipeline of Adorno fans like dirtbag leftists Ross Wolfe, Endnotes, Cured Quail, Théorie Communiste, etc. to Covid totalitarianism and "protecting the vulnerable", which follows the same wokist, authoritarian logic they would otherwise reject. After seeing Habermas's plea for the biopolitical security state, I am really no longer surprised. The really interesting question is whether beyond the topsy-turviness of worldviews suddenly espoused by leftists if there is a deeper motive in the *theories* of Adorno and the FS that makes it relatable to state authoritarianism. I think there is, and a lot of the inversions, convulsions and self-defeating logic can be found in this abominable piece from TC, reprinted by Cured Quail: https://curedquailjournal.wordpress.com/2021/02/14/conspiricism-in-general-and-the-pandemic-in-particular/.
I think the "primacy of the object" that Adorno speaks about in the ND is very indicative of this convulsion, as it is immediately taken to mean "objective facts, science". When it certainly does not: Adorno was a *critic*, not an advocate for the plain positivism we are seeing today. This short-circuit may account for the wrongheadedness you see in "enlightened" left criticism today. This is also why I say the admiration would not be mutual.
https://john-steppling.com/2022/01/total-awareness-of-nothing/
this looks extremely interesting. will read. thanks.