5. State of Exception in Philosophy (according to Reiner Schürmann)
“The
spectacle inherits all the weaknesses of the Western philosophical
project which undertook to comprehend activity in terms of the
categories of seeing; furthermore, it is based on the incessant spread
of the precise technical rationality which grew out of this thought.
The spectacle does not realize philosophy, it philosophizes reality.
The concrete life of everyone has been degraded into a speculative
universe.” (Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle, Black and Red,
Detroit, 1983, Chapter 19)
Digression, Detour or Shortcut?: Is the state of exception in philosophy a form of immunity or autoimmunity?
Philosophy
is in a ‘state of exception’. Schürmann describes the state of
philosophy at the end of hegemonic/epochal history (the collapse of
‘normative self-consciousness’) in similar terms to the way Agamben –
following Carl Schmitt – describes the law under the conditions of the
state of exception: in force but without significance. In
Agamben/Schmitt’s terms: the state of exception is such when the law is
suspended but remains in force – meaning for the force of the law to be
separated/extracted from the law – the law is suspended and preserved
(otherwise the state of exception would be an-archic). The law is necessary to
suspend itself – to unbind or unleash its force from itself. This is the paradox/aporia of the state of exception. In
Schürmann’s analysis of principles - the traditional
domain or immanent architecture of philosophy/metaphysics since Plato - and their demise,
the principle is both the law, principium, and the political authority
as princeps. All
this ends. Or does it? Is it perhaps in a mere state of exception – the
force of metaphysics/the principle or principial thinking is preserved
by a suspended (not ended) metaphysics? Perhaps that is the power of
Heidegger’s ‘sovereign’ thought – to decide on this state of exception –
which had already invaded or established itself or broke out in
philosophy – simulating the closure of philosophy or metaphysics. This
would then be the monstrous site to which we are still riveted – from
which or in which we are suspended.
Philosophy
has had many endings. Metaphysics is not just at its end – it’s a kind
of undead bricolage of ‘devalued’ concepts – as numerous philosophers
have intimated – Nietzsche, following him Heidegger, Wittgenstein,
Derrida etc. But Heideggerian philosophy through its being riveted to
the Heideggerian or monstrous site (Schürmann) – is itself in a
Heideggerian state of exception. Or the state of exception induced by
the Heidegger anomaly – is not a closure of philosophy, the end of an
era of a certain way of doing philosophy – it is the suspension of
philosophy for an indefinite period. Heidegger announced and induced
this suspension – not an end. Philosophy is ‘condemned’ to perpetually
destruct or deconstruct its premises, itself, metaphysics – without ever
reaching an end – never overturning the suspension or state of
exception into which it has entered. And just as in the opening line of
Schmitt’s ‘political theology’ – sovereign is he who decides on the
exception, - Heidegger – for those who perceive philosophy through his
hegemonic fantasm of ‘thinking’ or ‘topologies of being’ – is the
sovereign who has decided on the exception in the state of philosophy. “
Or
in Heidegger’s words from Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis): “We
are living in “the age of transition from metaphysics to the historical
thinking of being.””(cited in Reiner Schürmann, Broken Hegemonies,
Indiana University Press, 2003, p. 516) Beiträge written from 1936-1938
in the midst of the Nazi state of exception is Schürmann’s prototype, one might surmise,
for all subsequent philosophical states of exception or the state of
exception in philosophy.
‘The
state of philosophy’ is a practising body which Schürmann refers to as
the ‘civil servants of humanity’ – implying the existence or
constitution through this body of mandarin-philosophers of their own
state of exception. The mandarin-philosopher or bureaucratized
philosopher-king mimics or parallels in his/their state those
semi-permanent states of emergency or exception of the body politic or
political state thus perpetuating their symbioses with the state. Such
mandarin-philosophers (today’s academia) (since Hegel – Schürmann
argues) provide evidential moorage for the Prussian or any other state.
But not the state in its ‘normal’ mode or phase – the state in its
state of exception.
Schürmann
seems to allude directly to such a state of exception of philosophy in a
passage in the Conclusion of Broken Hegemonies:
At
the end of hegemony – a fantasm goes through the stages of its demise -
atrophy, phenomenological inanition and mortal contraction:
“I
have spoken of destitution to describe what happens to such a fantasm
when it loses its force of law. (approaching the zone of suspension of
law – it loses its force – but the force changes into a ‘force of
necessity’ stronger than force of law). Diremption signifies the loss of
every hegemony – the possibility that we have been living for more than
a century. (RS calls these inter-hegemonic times, but at the end of the
hegemonic fantasm of modern consciousness – there are no further
fantasms arising – the end of epochal history. sm) In the destitutions
and in Diremption, the ultimate trait of mortality is manifested, along
with the singularizing condition that manifests itself in everydayness
as dispossession. (…) It is a dispossession of habitable phenomenalities
that remains systematically operative in every positing of an
integrative law. The law thereby finds itself already placed in
abeyance, already forbidden. (this is what approximates the state of
exception of the hegemonic fantasm. sm)” (Broken Hegemonies, ibid., p.
623)
Philosophy’s
state of exception immunizes it against the force of its own law which
would come to an end – were it not needed to uphold the state of
exception. Is that also a condition of autoimmunity? As such
Philosophy or Metaphysics at its end would be the identity or
coincidence/collision of its powers of immunity and autoimmunity.
 |
| Reiner Schürmann |
6. Nailed to the Dance Floor
An
excerpt from Foucault’s Hermeneutic of the Subject – found semi by
chance – when searching for ‘bio’ - describes the type of fitness one
needs now in the Coronavirus biopolitical state of exception according
to the stoics who professed another fitness or athleticism as the one
found in the Christian tradition:
“I
will quote you a text from Marcus Aurelius, but you will also find the
theme in Seneca and Epictetus, and so on: "The art of living [what he
calls the biotic: he biotike; M.F.] is more like wrestling than dancing,
in that you must stay on guard and steady on your feet against the
blows which rain down on you, and without warning." This contrast
between athleticism and dance, wrestling and dance, is interesting. The
dancer is of course someone who does his best to achieve a certain ideal
that will enable him to surpass others or to surpass himself. The
dancer's work is indefinite. The art of wrestling consists simply in
being ready and on guard, in remaining steady, that is to say, not being
thrown, not being weaker than all the blows coming either from
circumstances or from others. I think this is very important. It enables
us to distinguish between the athlete of ancient spirituality and the
Christian athlete. The Christian athlete is on the indefinite path of
progress towards holiness in which he must surpass himself even to the
point of renouncing himself. Also, the Christian athlete is especially
someone who has an enemy, an adversary, who keeps him on guard. With
regard to whom and to what? But with regard to himself! To himself,
inasmuch as the most malign and dangerous powers he has to confront
(sin, fallen nature, seduction by the devil, etcetera) are within
himself. The Stoic athlete, the athlete of ancient spirituality also has
to struggle. He has to be ready for a struggle in which his adversary
is anything coming to him from the external world: the event. The
ancient athlete is an athlete of the event. The Christian is an athlete
of himself. This is the first point.” (Michel Foucault, The Hermeneutics
of the Subject, Lectures at the College de France, 1981-82, edited by
Frédéric Gros, translation Graham Burchell, New York 2005 p. 322)
(Is
this distinction so clear-cut – Nietzsche’s Zarathustra dances his way
down the mountain – his sayings are his dance – but he is the antithesis
of a Christian – he wonders at the old hermit he meets alone with his
God, in need of no human company. Zarathustra muses – hasn’t he heard
that God is dead? Or another Nietzsche saying: I should not believe in a
God who does not dance. The Christian God is nailed to the dance floor.
On the other hand isn’t the wrestler also a dancer? Just staying
upright under blows requires a dancer’s technique.)
Ancient askesis says Foucault is steeled through Logoi – remembered and transformed into muscles and sinews for the rescuing act at the moment of danger. This is reminiscent of Benjamin’s Logoi from “On the Concept of History” describing the consciousness of the historical subject in the moment of danger: It’s the 6th Thesis – and has a very ancient stoic ring to it – memory is not just knowing how things were – rather it is the recollection and knowledge which light up at the moment of danger and turn into action:
“To
articulate what is past does not mean to recognize “how it really was.”
It means to take control of a memory, as it flashes in a moment of
danger. For historical materialism it is a question of holding fast to a
picture of the past, as it unexpectedly thrusts itself, in a moment of
danger, on the historical subject. The danger threatens the stock of
tradition as much as its recipients. For both it is one and the same:
handing itself over as the tool of the ruling classes. In every epoch,
the attempt must be made to deliver tradition anew from the conformism
which is on the point of overwhelming it. For the Messiah arrives not
merely as the Redeemer; he also arrives as the vanquisher of the
Anti-Christ. The only writer of history with the gift of setting alight
the sparks of hope in the past, is the one who is convinced of this:
that not even the dead will be safe from the enemy, if he is victorious.
And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.” (Translation ©Dennis
Redmond, 2005, @www.marxists.org)
(“Vergangenes
historisch artikulieren heißt nicht, es erkennen ‚wie es denn
eigentlich gewesen ist’. Es heißt, sich einer Erinnerung bemächtigen,
wie sie im Augenblick einer Gefahr aufblitzt. Dem historischen
Materialismus geht es darum, ein Bild der Vergangenheit festzuhalten,
wie es sich im Augenblick der Gefahr dem historischen Subjekt
unversehens einstellt. Die Gefahr droht sowohl dem Bestand der Tradition
wie ihren Empfängern. Für beide ist sie ein und dieselbe: sich zum
Werkzeug der herrschenden Klasse herzugeben. In jeder Epoche muß
versucht werden, die Überlieferung von neuem dem Konformismus
abzugewinnen, der im Begriff steht, sie zu überwältigen. Der Messias
kommt ja nicht nur als der Erlöser; er kommt als der Überwinder des
Antichrist. Nur dem Geschichtsschreiber wohnt die Gabe bei, im
Vergangenen den Funken der Hoffnung anzufachen, der davon durchdrungen
ist: auch die Toten werden vor dem Feind, wenn er siegt, nicht sicher
sein. Und dieser Feind hat zu siegen nicht aufgehört.” (in Gesammelten
Schriften I:2. Suhrkamp Verlag. Frankfurt am Main, 1974)
Reprise:
The self-isolating zoe/bare life suspected of being infected with
Coronavirus is homo sacer par excellence. Out of reach, off limits for
everyone - denied treatment or contact with medical personnel – until he
reaches the hospital phase – needs respirators or help breathing –
which he can be denied if he falls out or into the ‘triage’ – or
possibly as in the case of many care home inhabitants is not even
allowed into hospital to avoid “clogging up NHS hospitals” (a phrase
used by Professor Sir David King, former chief scientific advisor early
on in the pandemic). But even in hospital homo sacer’s ostracism follows
him like a shadow – thus it was – a great dispensation/interruption in
the iron logic of total separation, pariahhood, abandonment when the
health minister Hancock granted the populace of homo sacers the right in
hospital to say goodbye to their dying relative.
*
As
Foucault notes – with the rise of ‘biopower’ the question of classical
sovereignty and its juridical powers fades, while the power the modern
state exercises directly over the population is what sustains its
sovereign existence.
“But
the existence in question is no longer the juridical existence of
sovereignty; at stake is the biological existence of a population. (…)
this is not because of a recent return of the ancient right to kill; it
is because power is situated and exercised at the level of life, the
species, the race, and the large-scale phenomenon of population.”
(Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, An Introduction, Vol 1,
translated by Robert Hurley, New York, 1978, p. 137)
As opposed to earlier historical universalistic/cosmopolitan class struggles – the International, the Paris Commune etc, general anti-imperial/anti-colonial movements - the counter-power of the biopolitical masses accrues/arises like the biopolitical regime/hegemony it mimics or apes - at the level of life or bare life whether such masses are mobilised by sexuality, gender, race or ethnic origins.
As opposed to earlier historical universalistic/cosmopolitan class struggles – the International, the Paris Commune etc, general anti-imperial/anti-colonial movements - the counter-power of the biopolitical masses accrues/arises like the biopolitical regime/hegemony it mimics or apes - at the level of life or bare life whether such masses are mobilised by sexuality, gender, race or ethnic origins.
How
are these biopolitical masses at the same time ‘human capital’ –
another term Foucault explores in his studies of neoliberalism?
Neoliberalism like capitalism is a multiplicity of regimes dwelling
under one name – it is at once an economy composed of entrepreneurial
monads – dubbed human capital – each promoting his/her proper brand of
self. A brand or ownership of self is a unit of immunity in a
neo-Lockean sense. Social media or the society of the spectacle is
where these brands promote themselves - compete and circulate. Social
media grants the human capital entrepreneur an immortal astral virtual
body. The same ‘human capital’ - when neoliberalism switches to its
‘noir’ face – immediately reverts to its physical herd body –
disposable, dispensable bare life – subject to both the economic
‘triage’ of the recession – and the medical ‘triage’ of the health
services.
Since
neo-liberalism is inherently the biopolitical regime of capital which
rules ‘bare life’ –why quibble if ‘bare life’ is technically inside or
outside of capital as Balibar would argue with Agamben:
“No
form of life as agency, activity and passivity, even suffering, even
dying, can be lived outside a commodity form and a value-form that is in
fact a moment in the valorization process of capital. This is not a
reduction of the individual’s life to ‘bare life’, as Agamben calls it.
In a sense it is just the opposite: the denaturalization of life, or the
production of a ‘second nature’ – albeit not in any form (since every
human culture is a ‘second nature’), but in purely capitalist form.”
(Balibar, ibid. , pp. 56-57)
One
could also say - ‘Bare life’ and its ‘reproduction’ is the ‘unnatural’
or ‘denaturalized’ form in which the biological substance of the
population becomes the subject/object of this edition of
the capitalist state (under the state of exception) and its
direct immediate governance of bodies.
7. A brief genealogy of biopolitics
Herd
immunity – what does it mean – 60% of the herd will have had to have been infected? Is that
true in China – 600,000,000 cases? Where are they? How can it be
over? In Wuhan there was a total of 4ooo fatalities approximately – the
lockdown was over after 2 months – in the UK we are very far from over
and there are 14,000/30,000 (onwards and upwards) fatalities (at the
latest count 60,000 give or take). The virus seems to behave
differently in the various local settings. It can’t just be the virus
itself – or a mutation causing the vast difference in fatalities. The
Umwelt must also play a part – human and otherwise ecological
predispositions and the epidemiological bureaucracy, medicine etc. The
mathematical modeller and neuroscientist Karl Friston of University
College London speaks mysteriously of epidemiological ‘dark matter’ or
individuals not susceptible at all to the virus (see Laura Spinney,
“Covid-19 Expert Karl Friston: “Germany may have more immunological
“dark matter”’, Guardian 31 May 2020) Somewhere I read that in the UK
despite appearances (highest fatality toll in Europe of approx 60,000)
maybe even half to 80% of the population is naturally immune!? Is ‘dark
matter’ the Messiah? But how to know if you’re one of the lucky many?
If you knew and could prove it - you could enter the Brahman caste of
the covid-19 immune, sell your genome … Japan might be the epicentre of
dark matter – despite having the oldest population in the world and
Tokyo being one of the most densely populated cities on earth – it has
had only a thousand or so fatalities since the beginning of the
pandemic. They were lax with testing and per law could not declare a
full-fledged state of exception. Perhaps it is the deeply engrained
Shinto worship of ancestors, which bestows the Japanese with ancestral
immunity? Even if contagion does not reproduce through hereditary
genetics – perhaps immunity does?
We
can tell we’re in the throes of a biopolitical conversion/transitioning
of government. The medics (doctors, bio-scientific advisors, chief
medical officers, biomedical science in all its manifestations, NHS
managers) have become our rulers – elevated far beyond their usual
status of being ‘just’ our doctors or scientists or grey bureaucrats.
At the daily Coronavirus briefings they flank the government minister or
prime minister – the primus inter pares. The medics are the unelected
sovereigns of the state of exception. The chief scientific advisor Sir
Patrick Vallance besides being a doctor is also a former head of
research at Glaxo/Smith/Kline – so that in his person he unites big
pharma-business and the dominant medical camarilla. That the chief
‘scientific’ advisor is a medical drug researcher and not an
astrophysicist or geologist or some non-biological scientist shows that
the biopolitical trajectory is already deeply embedded/ensconced in
government. His predecessor Mark Walport belongs to the same
biopolitical group –, a former director of Wellcome Trust and a
specialist in immunology. (see their respective Wikipedia entries)
The
position/authority of the new medical rulers in the British
biopolitical state of exception resembles structurally the role of the
NS doctors in the NS regime. This follows quite logically and
historically from the biopolitical template: when politics’ or
government’s most urgent ‘pastoral’ task is to self-transform (mutate)
into an immunological/immunizing machine. The doctor rulers become the
exception in the exception – their power is far greater than the police
or other enforcement bodies.
The
Holocaust was perpetrated as a medical public health intervention
against the “Jewish virus” or contagion under the supervision of doctors
– to produce immunity or immunize the German racial community. As
Esposito writes – the doctors were in charge of all phases of the
extermination, the selection of newly arrived Jewish victims (‘triage’)
on the ramp in the death camps, the ‘switching’ on of the gas (the
opening of the gas valve, the NS ‘respirator’), extraction of gold
teeth, supervising the cremation – besides of course the ‘medical
experiments’. “If ultimate power wore the boots of the SS, auctoritas
wore the white coat of the doctor.” (Roberto Esposito, Terms of the
Political, “Nazism and Us”, Fordham University Press, 2013, p. 82)
Historically,
there is a genealogical convergence/confluence of English liberalism
(Locke), eugenics (Galton), social Darwinism, Houston Chamberlain and
Nazism. The Nazis’ great admiration for the British Empire is well known
– they emulated its overt and underlying race theories and their
‘classic’ Roman inspired administrative models. The Nazi historian Otto
Graf, published his popular work Imperium Britannicum in 1937 – it was
reprinted for the 5th time in 1941. In it he gushes over Britain as
the “heir of Rome” – admiring the British finesse in ruling vast regions
with a relatively small imperial administration. Especially the way
they could instil their colonial subjects with an imperial zeal of their
own: “Whether black, brown or yellow they were proud to be permitted
to lick the boots of their masters in English. What an art of politics;
what a genius hand at ruling people, to awaken even in such creatures a
feeling of pride!” (Otto Graf, Imperium Britannicum, From Island-State
to World Empire, Leipzig 1941, p. 28, translation sm) Graf was only
echoing a view prevalent amongst Britain’s academics and colonial civil
servants: In his inaugural lecture in 1912 the Cambridge English
professor A. Quiller-Couch called Britain ‘the spiritual heir of Rome” –
and the historian Sir Charles Lucas said in his study of ‘Greater Rome
and Greater Britain’ (1912) – both peoples have “an innate capacity for
ruling”. (cited in Piers Brendon, The Decline and Fall of the British
Empire 1781-1997, London, 2007 p. xvii)
The
Nazi SS administrators might have seen themselves in turn as the ‘heirs
of the British Empire’ when they set up their Generalgouvernement in
Poland or the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and their other
diverse forms of occupation in the territories they
conquered.
Certain
prominent British figures reciprocated this fraternal warmth of feeling
- notably the founder of the boy scouts, Lord Baden-Powell. The birth
control advocate and agony aunt – Marie Stopes was also a Nazi
sympathiser, (she sent love poems to Hitler) and a eugenicist, a
‘neo-Malthusian’ in the language of the time. Birth control was for
Stopes an instrument, a first step toward the fashioning of a superior
race. Another prominent eugenicist was Montagu Norman, Governor of the
Bank of England from 1920-1944 – one of the notorious rakish
‘free-spirited’ ‘lords of finance’ of the pre- war period. Not only was
he a close friend of the Nazi finance minister Hjlamar Schacht and
godfather to one of his grandchildren. Norman and his wife Priscilla
Reyntiens Worsthorne The Lady Norman CBE JP were both eugenics and
mental health activists.
(Note:
In Britain psychiatry was strongly intertwined with eugenics, as were
other medical fields such as obstetrics and gynaecology for obvious
reasons. Eugenics was/is considered a legitimate element/tool of social,
biological and medical reform.
The
British eugenics society has had an illustrious roll call of members
including Winston Churchill as honorary president, Havelock Ellis, John
Maynard Keynes (Director 1937-1944, Vice-President 1937), Marie Stopes,
Arthur Balfour, Julian Huxley, members of the Darwin family to name a
few. It still exists in London under the name ‘Galton Institute’. Until
recently UCL had a lecture hall named after Galton.)
Beyond
his activities as a public persona, Norman used his powers as Governor
of the Bank of England to help Nazi Germany expropriate the gold
reserves of Czechoslovakia.
In
1939 after the invasion of Czechoslovakia, he aided the 3rd Reich’s
sale of stolen Czechoslovakian gold reserves and the transfer of these
funds (at least 700 million pounds worth much more then) to various
German accounts in particular to the German Reichsbank account at the
Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland. All of this history
flows into the DNA of the NHS, its genetic memory – before that the
Malthusian notion of population control.
When
you trace the genealogy of biopolitics, its austere promontories from
Hobbes, to Locke and Bentham – adding Malthus, Darwin and Galton, Sir
Julian Huxley, Hubert Spencer and Houston Chamberlain - biopolitics or
the government of ‘life’ itself - is (crudely speaking) practically an
English invention. The rudiments of its sovereignty originate in Hobbes’
bleak answer to regicide and revolution in the Leviathan, its
biological-anthropological underpinnings evolved during the British
Empire’s long ‘scientific’ rule over vast portions of the globe and its
population – affording much opportunity for the gathering of ‘big
data’. Against this rich background - a small group of Victorian
scientists from an inbreeding middle and upper class connected to
University College London could cultivate an incestuous scientific
discourse. Together they invented a variety of meanwhile ‘discredited’
or obsolete sciences like eugenics, or the field of ‘zoology and
comparative anatomy’, a precursor or tributary of Darwin’s theory of
evolution or Hubert Spencer’s ‘social Darwinism’ and its ‘survival of
the fittest’. Galton, the ‘father of eugenics’ was Darwin’s first
cousin – descending from a common paternal grandfather Erasmus Darwin.
Robert Grant a major proponent of ‘zoology and comparative anatomy’
influenced the young pigeon fancier to be Darwin who heard his lectures
on medicine at Edinburgh University and admired his evolutionary work on
sponges. Malthus’ On Population about the population’s ‘necessary’
cyclical food catastrophes (the so-called Malthusian catastrophe) flowed
back into Darwin’s idea of natural selection in the ‘economy of
nature’.
As he writes in his autobiography:
“In
October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic
enquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and
being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which
everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of
animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances
favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones
to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new
species.”(Charles Darwin, Autobiography, Darwin Online, p. 120)
Not
to forget H G Wells’ inspired visions of ‘scientific’ animal to human
transitioning experiments in The Island of Dr Moreau – “Are we not
Men?”. Biopolitics à l’anglaise is a branch of teratology.
8. Let him drink or let him go
Malthusian
pragmatism in the slogan – protect the NHS. Use ‘moral restraint’ –
refrain from using the services or demanding services of NHS – anyway
suspended indefinitely – ‘routine’ operations, cancer treatment and
screening, normal ‘emergencies’ like heart attacks, appendicitis, stroke
– and any GP visits – so that the NHS is not overwhelmed: the
exponential growth of pressure of the pandemic on the NHS – but merely
arithmetical growth or quantity of the facilities and staff of NHS –
like exponential growth of population – arithmetical growth of food –
leads to hunger, misery – population then later decimated by war,
famine, epidemics – so that a time of abundance – more for less people
can return. During this time of ‘neglect’ (benign or otherwise) NHS
develops more means and capacity to deal with the exponentially growing
caseload from the epidemic including erecting 4 new Nightingale
Hospitals which are promptly ‘mothballed’ – for what higher purpose? In
the London Nightingale Hospital there is a ward dedicated expressly to
triage. The neglected ‘routine’ side of the NHS deteriorates and
creates ‘excess’ morbidity of its own.
Perhaps
this 'collateral morbidity' contributes to the epidemic indirectly –
those medically neglected individuals are less likely either to withstand
the virus or survive their original (underlying) diseases. The
non-epidemic part of the caseload reduces itself naturally – the ones
excluded from the treatment for the virus and hence die also reduce the
burden of the NHS – which is thus relieved of that portion of population
which goes beyond its means. Its capacities thus doubly enlarged – more
facilities – less patient demand (through viral death and neglect or
slow death) – that is how the population protects the NHS by shedding
its surplus contingent of patients.
Cicero’s concept of ‘herd immunity’ – let him drink or let him go.
Deleuze – becoming animal, the pack (A Thousand Plateaus) – what about the herd?
The exclusion of a group, denied inclusion in herd immunity - such a group remains exposed to whatever turn the virus may take.
 |
| Total Triage |
9. The Invisible Hands of the Virus
The
current situation has nothing to do with autocrats, autocracy or
authoritarian leaders – all of its aspects, details, virulence, eruptive
spontaneity, switches and dramaturgical twists are inscribed in the
biopolitical paradigm itself - inflected in a quasi natural (istic)
necessary unavoidable ‘state of exception’ – with the express and vital
urgent aim to obtain ‘immunity’ – nothing in common except the dire need
to separate – or become immune to the general affliction racing through
communitas.
Esposito
cites Canetti: “It is as if that fear of being even accidentally grazed
has been made worse, that fear that Elias Canetti located at the origin
of our modernity in a perverse short circuit between touch, contact and
contagion. The risk of contamination immediately liquidates contact,
relationality and being in common.” (Roberto Esposito, “Immunization and
Violence” in Terms of the Political, ibid. p. 59)
It
doesn’t matter who is in charge – it is almost an acephalous state of
exception – showing also the limits of Carl Schmitt’s ‘sovereign is he
who decides on the exception’. It is a state of exception without a
sovereign. Neither
is the pandemic a war in the Schmittian sense of the Friend/Enemy
divide. The enemy is within. Or rather – there is no inside or outside –
which is the essence of community – a permanent intimate/solipsistic
epidemic.
If
it’s a war at all it’s the population against the population – an
impression deepened by certain remarks of the Health Minister Hancock.
In
the daily government briefing on 22nd May 2020 Hancock called the new
army of trackers tasked with hunting down the contacts of alleged
infected persons – his ‘boots on the ground’ – as if some sort of D-day
against the population were now imminent. The population is
its own worst enemy – each is a pariah for the other (a few household
and bubble members excepted). All the ethical theories of the Other
(Levinas, Derrida) seem to falter under the rule of the virus.
The
Prime Minister Boris Johnson was seriously ill with the virus, then on
a long leave of convalescence and even since his return many
commentators such as Simon Jenkins have been worried that “no one is in
charge”. Tory politicians speculated that he is not quite the same ‘in
the head’, that the prime minister is now ‘frightened’ of the virus
because of his own ordeal. Who could blame him? That he is a ‘changed
man’ ‘has lost his vim’. It doesn’t bode well for his ability to
‘rule’. He has become a virus vampire, bit by the virus he is now one
of its lieges – as Deleuze writes, when werewolves die they turn into
vampires.
Certainly
his unnatural devotion to his intimate advisor Cummings seems an
unhealthy reversal of the Hegelian master servant (Herr-Knecht)
relation.
Or
did Johnson actually die in hospital and the Boris Johnson who came
back is an impersonator or revenant – and he can’t get rid of Cummings
because he would tell everyone?
If
there is any sovereign or sovereignty at work – it is the virus
itself. It dictates all the moves and evasions – towards it (‘herd
immunity’) and away from it – lockdown or quarantine. The virus speaks
through ‘science’ and ‘medicine’ – they are its interpreters, disciples,
pupils and adjuncts. “Let us learn from it.” The virus rules through
its invisible hands – like the market – no one autocrat is in charge of
it either - but there are many retainers of its invisible powers. The
market is the Katechon – the virus the Antichrist?
Medicine - Science is the Katechon – to prevent the worst they create the bad.
 |
| "Are we not men?" |
Those
corollary unavoidable? deaths through neglect of other medical services
and selection/triage in the treating of virus cases will haunt the NHS
for years. Much of the triage took place in advance through the
cessation of all ongoing medical treatments and emergencies (like tooth
pain) potentially causing many secondary fatalities indirectly due to
the virus – but slow enough though so not to appear in the virus count.
(see
Shaun Lintern, “Coronavirus: Pensioner backs ‘do not resuscitate’ legal
action against Matt Hancock after ‘brutal’ phone call with GP” in
Independent, May 19, 2020; Michael Buchanan and Judith Burns,
“Coronavirus: ‘Start public inquiry now to prevent more deaths’”, BBC
News; Colin Drury,” ‘We’re collateral damage’: how the cancellation of 2
million NHS operations ahead of the Coronavirus peak has left patients
feeling forgotten and scared” in Independent, April 15, 2020, Denis Campbell, “Cancer patients will live for less time because of NHS care suspension” in Guardian, 16 August 2020)
After
the triage of those who will be treated for the virus – comes the post
first covid-19 wave triage or rationing of treatment for those patients
languishing in the immeasurable bottomless ‘backlog’ of the NHS: “We’re
talking about longer waiting times for elective procedures and probably
explicit rationing of certain work. That’s going to go down like a rat
sandwich.”
(in
Shaun Lintern, “NHS on life support: Up to one in six will be on
waiting lists as health service turns to private hospitals”,
Independent, June 6, 2020)
Actually,
the paradox of the Katechon – by preventing the worst (delaying the
peak) – they prolong or postpone not just the Antichrist but the coming
of the Messiah. The vaccine? Dark matter?
The Coronavirus (pandemic) is a garden of endlessly forking paths, each fork a dying animal.
End of part 2 (of 3)
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