First published in Il Manifesto on 26 Feb. 2020, Agamben decries--very early on, but eerily prescient--'the growing tendency to use the state of exception as a normal governing paradigm'.
"We might say that once terrorism was exhausted as a justification for exceptional measures, the invention of an epidemic could offer the ideal pretext for broadening such measures beyond any limitation."
Ha! That's an interesting point. If we're unlucky, pandemic exceptional measures will be a thing long after we're all dead. Or maybe they won't be. After all unlike anti-terrorist measures, anti-pandemic measures impact pretty much all aspects of life of utterly ordinary people. How much longer will we take?
I honestly feel that after the (virtue-signalled) outrage about the many abuses the war on (foreign) terrorism has been exhausted, there's not much vitality left in the public sphere to counter the very real threat of a 'war' against domestic terrorism in the guise of 'public health' mandates.
My guess is that 'after' Omicron, we'll get some of our 'prerogatives' back, but only conditionally so, hence once the next 'public health' threat coms around, back into 'lockdown' we're going to be sent.
"We might say that once terrorism was exhausted as a justification for exceptional measures, the invention of an epidemic could offer the ideal pretext for broadening such measures beyond any limitation."
Ha! That's an interesting point. If we're unlucky, pandemic exceptional measures will be a thing long after we're all dead. Or maybe they won't be. After all unlike anti-terrorist measures, anti-pandemic measures impact pretty much all aspects of life of utterly ordinary people. How much longer will we take?
Here's a more optimistic take (if only hinted):
https://thesenecaeffect.blogspot.com/2022/01/collapsing-by-doubling-down-how-to.html
I concur, Irena.
I honestly feel that after the (virtue-signalled) outrage about the many abuses the war on (foreign) terrorism has been exhausted, there's not much vitality left in the public sphere to counter the very real threat of a 'war' against domestic terrorism in the guise of 'public health' mandates.
My guess is that 'after' Omicron, we'll get some of our 'prerogatives' back, but only conditionally so, hence once the next 'public health' threat coms around, back into 'lockdown' we're going to be sent.
Rinse and repeat.
This won't stop until we make them stop.