Showing posts with label great reset. Show all posts
Showing posts with label great reset. Show all posts

24 May 2022

On Finding Ourselves in a State of Exception (Part 1)

Giorgio Agamben
 
We will have to ask ourselves the only serious question that truly matters: where are we now? 
And it is a question we should answer not just with our words, but with our lives too.
 
 
I.
 
A state of exception is one which grants the powers that be the right to suspend parliamentary procedure and transcend the rule of law in the name of the greater good - or, as in the case of the coronavirus pandemic, public health.

Although the idea that a ruler or government may need to take extraordinary measures in order to deal with an emergency of some kind is nothing new, the concept of Ausnahmezustand was introduced into modern political philosophy by Carl Schmitt (someone who, as a prominent member of the Nazi Party, knew a thing or two about creating and exploiting a crisis situation in order to consolidate and extend power).     
 
The concept was then further developed by the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, who, in his book State of Exception (2005), argues that rule by decree has become an increasingly common phenomenon in all modern states. To illustrate this, he traces out the manner in which the September 11 attacks mutated into a war on terror; something which involved invading Afghanistan and bombing Baghdad, but also justified the creation of a surveillance system (in the name of homeland security) which placed everyone under suspicion. 
 
The key thing is: temporary measures have a way of becoming permanent once they are put in place; i.e., the exception becomes the rule ...
 
 
II.  
 
And so, here we are in 2022 ... 
 
But, asks Agamben, where are we now as we enter a post-pandemic world? 
 
To try and answer this question, Agamben has collected 25 short texts written during the state of exception triggered by Covid-19 [a]. Reflecting upon the Great Reset affecting Western democracies, he observes with astonishment as a majority of citizens not only accept but demand unprecedented limitations on their freedom.
 
Agamben took a lot of criticism for these short texts, including from fellow intellectuals who, rather than think through the political and ethical consequences of the measures taken during the pandemic, gleefully supported mask mandates, lockdowns, social distancing rules, and programmes of mass vaccination.
 
But he should, rather, have been commended for his courage in speaking up and speaking out when so many remained silent or simply echoed the official line that biosecurity (and protecting the state health system) is all that matters.  
 
 
III.
 
Agamben cerainly doesn't mince his words: he explicitly states at the outset, for example, that, in his view, "the dominant powers of today have decided to pitilessly abandon the paradigm of bourgeois democracy - with its rights, its parliaments, and its constitutions" [8] and replace it with a new order that smells suspiciously despotic. 
 
We've not seen anything like this in Europe since 1933, "when the new Chancellor Adolf Hitler, without formally abolishing the Weimar Constitution, declared a state of exception that [...] effectively invalidated the constitutional propositions that were ostensibly still in force" [8] [b].
 
New governing techniques - sold to us via a compliant media and our favourite online networks - combine ideals of wokeness and wellness into a kind of zen fascism. But, rather touchingly, Agamben remains optimistic; he can still envision new forms of resistance "and those who can still envision a politics to come should be unhesitatingly committed to them" [10] [c]
 
I'm not quite sure I understand precisely what he means by this politics to come, but he insists it will "not have the obsolete shape of bourgeois democracy, nor the form of the techonological-sanitationist despotism that is replacing it" [10] [d].
 
Hmmm ...
 
 
IV. 
 
The coronavirus pandemic was one thing: the climate of panic cultivated by the media and authorities in order to establish a state of exception was something else. Who now would disagree with that? With the fact that the response to Covid-19 was disproportionate to say the very least. 
 
But then it provided the ideal pretext for imposing exceptional measures and increasing the level of fear that has been "systematically cultivated in people's minds" [13] in recent years; fear which makes us regard everyone as a vector of infection
 
Even those individuals who appear perfectly fit and well may be asymptomatic plague-spreaders. In fact, the apparently healthy are more dangerous than the obviously sick - so it becomes necessary to lock everyone up (or down) just to be on the safe side. 
 
And if this results - as it must - in the deterioration of human relationships, well, too bad; "even loved ones must not be approached or touched" [15]. Bare life is better than risking even the tiniest chance that one might get seriousy ill and die. 
 
But, unfortunately, bare life and the fear of losing it, "is not something that unites people; rather, it blinds and separates them" [18]. A society that values survival at all costs (which is even prepared to sacrifice freedom) ultimately isn't a society at all. 
 
And it certainly isn't a dwelling place; a Heideggerian word that Agamben seems to cherish, much like Byung-Chul Han, who in his most recent work insists mankind no longer knows how to dwell on the earth and under the sky [e]. It's certainly hard to dwell when you are socially distanced from other mortals and think that communicating on Zoom is preferable to meeting face-to-face. 
 
Like Agamben, I don't believe you can sustain or create a community based on new digital technology alone. In the end, hell is not other people, but the suspension of real friendships and physical contact with others.     
 
 
V.  
   
One of the great zombie-mantras of the pandemic - certainly here, in the UK - was: Follow the science [f].
 
But perhaps instead we - particularly journalists - ought to have interrogated the scientists. Because it is often mistaken - and often dangerous - to entrust everything to those in white coats:
 
"Rightly or not, scientists pursue in good faith the interests of science and, as history can teach us, they are willing to sacrifice any moral concern in this pursuit. No one will need reminding that, under Nazism, many esteemed scientists executed eugenic policies, never hestitating to take advantage of the camps for the performance of lethal experiments they considered useful for the progress of science [...]" [44-45]      
  
Experimental vaccines anyone ...?
 
  
Notes
 
[a] Giorgio Agamben, Where Are We Now? The Epidemic as Politics, trans. Valeria Dani (ERIS, 2021). 
      This work was originally published in Italy as A che punto siamo? L'epidemia come politica, (Quodlibet, 2020). 
      All page numbers in the post refer to the updated English edition which has added chapters.
 
[b] Some readers will baulk at this hypothesis and find it silly (or offensive) to compare what is happening in Europe now with what happened in the 1930s. But Agamben insists that the liberal democratic order is "being replaced by a new despotism that, with the pervasiveness of its controls and with its suspension of all political activity, will be worse than the totalitarianisms we have known thus far" [42]. 
 
[c] Agamben would hate my description of his thinking as optimistic. As he tells one interviewer (Dimitria Pouliopoulou): "Pessimism and optimism are psychological states that have nothing to do with political analyses: those who use these terms only demonstrate their inability to think." [64]
 
[d] Speaking with Dimitria Pouliopoulou, Agamben says this about his idea of a politics to come: "For a careful observer it is difficult to decide whether we live today, in Europe, in a democracy that sees increasingly despotic forms of control, or in a totalitarian state disguised as a democracy. It is beyond both that a new, future politics will have to appear." [69]
 
[e] See Byung-Chul Han, Non-things, trans. Daniel Steuer, (Polity Press, 2022). I reflect on this book in a post that to be published shortly. 

[f] Whilst Agamben hints at a zombie-like aspect of the pandemic when he refers to human bodies "suspended indefinitely between life and death" in a twilight zone, unable to escape "its strictly medical boundaries" [64], I can't help thinking first and foremost of the ever-brilliant Mark Steyn whenever I hear someone utter the phrase follow the science: click here

 
To go to Part 2 of this post, click here.


30 Nov 2021

The SynBio Revolution

'We can redesign you. We have the biotechnology. 
We have the capability to make the world's first synthetic human.
Better than before; better, stronger, faster.' - Oscar Goldman
 
 
I.
 
People who think the World Economic Forum's Great Reset initiative is simply about restructuring capitalism, have failed to realise the scope of their vision. For central to their ambitious plan to build back better is the radical development of synthetic biology; i.e., the redesigning of organisms for what are designated as more useful or productive ends. 
 
According to articles and reports on the WEF website, the future of life on earth - including human life - can no longer be left to evolutionary chance and the process of natural selection. Due to climate change, environmental degradation, and the pressures exerted by a rapidly growing population, it's time for scientists to step in and open the way towards a bioeconomy that incorporates (and coordinates) all sectors that rely upon the exploitation of biological resources (and that pretty much includes every major industrial sector).         
 
II. 
 
Synthetic biology - or SynBio as proponents and those working within the field like to call it - is a multidisciplinary area of research that aims to create new biological parts, devices, and systems, or to redesign systems already found in nature; a rapidly expanding world where genetic engineers meet computer engineers, and evolutionary biology meets big business [1]. There are now hundreds of companies around the world actively investing resources in synthetic biology and hoping to make (billions of dollars profit from) new and improved life forms.       
 
Now, whilst, I'm usually all for medical and scientific advances - who doesn't want clean energy and new drugs to fight disease? - I have to admit that increased state control over the bodily autonomy of the individual during the coronavirus pandemic has made me slightly anxious about where things are heading. 
 
Mandatory masks and vaccines are bad enough, but synthetic biology opens up a whole new can of worms and ethical issues and I'm not sure I want governments, organisations like the WEF, or giant tech companies, redesigning the natural world and reprogramming the human genome in the name of healthcare, enhancement, or sustainability. 
 
And it seems that there are an increasing number of people who feel the same and who are calling for a global moratorium (if not an outright ban) on the creation and commercial use of synthetic organisms until more robust regulations (or biosafety measures) are put in place. These people don't just include all the usual suspects - ecofascists, religious lunatics, conspiracy theorists, etc. - but even some leading scientists who are particularly concerned about the creation of so-called designer babies [2].   

Do Klaus Schwab and his billionaire friends promoting the Davos Agenda not understand that Brave New World was a dystopian science fiction novel and not a social blueprint for the 21st-century?  

 
Notes
 
[1] Despite the fact that the phrase biologie synthétique has been around for over a century (coined by the French biologist Stéphane Leduc in 1910), there is no fixed and agreed definition of synthetic biology. Essentially, it's an expanded (and far more elaborate) form of what used to be called biotechnology, with the ultimate goal of being able to design and engineer live biological systems that process information, manipulate chemicals, fabricate materials and structures, produce energy, provide food, and maintain and enhance human health. The first international conference for synthetic biology - SB1.0 - was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2004. 
 
[2] See the article by Ian Sample - 'Scientists call for global moratorium on gene editing of embryos' - in The Guardian (13 March 2019): click here.  
 
 
Suggested further reading: 'The Bio Revolution: Innovations transforming economies, societies, and our lives', a McKinsey Global Institute report by Michael Chui, Matthias Evers, James Manyika, Alice Zheng, and Travers Nisbet, (May 13, 2020): click here to read online. 


4 Aug 2021

Take a Walk Into a Future of Diminished Reality with Amy Webb ...

Photo of Amy Webb 
by Elena Seibert (2018)

 
In a recent video released on Twitter by the World Economic Forum, three leading futurists predict what the world will be like after the Great Reset has been accomplished and human life completely enframed within technology ... [1]

Stuart Russell, the British computer scientist known for his contributions to the field of AI, predicts that the age of manual labour will finally come to an end, freeing us up to engage in more fulfilling activities that make greater use of our abilities (such as online shopping and video games, presumably). 
 
Mike Bechtel, on the other hand, who is chief crystal ball gazer at the professional services network Deloitte, looks forward to a world in which ambient technology is integrated into the environment and ever-ready to lend support and obey our commands, enabling us to live without discontinuity or disruption (never losing our connection to the network again).
 
But it is a remark made by the founder of the Future Today Institute, Professor Amy Webb, that really caught my attention ... [2]
 
After predicting the increased use of gene editing technologies in order to redesign organisms for beneficial purposes (which sounds sinister enough), Webb went on to speak of diminished reality glasses, which would allow the wearer to remove unwanted objects from their field of view - such as garbage or other people.
 
It's nice to discover that Professor Webb equates her fellow human beings - or is she only referring to those who, in the future, haven't been genetically enhanced? - with waste material and how she finds the world so unsightly and distracting that she wishes not to see and not to know. 
 
I suppose diminished reality glasses work best when worn with noise-cancelling headphones and an old-fashioned peg on your nose, so that you can be virtually deaf as well as virtually blind, and not have to smell the garbage or other people either ...  

 
Notes
 
[1] The Great Reset refers to a fundamental transformation of society, leading to the zen fascist utopia in which no one owns anything (but all are happy), as dreamed of by Klaus Schwab (Chairman of the WEF) and others who subscribe to his globalist agenda. To find out more, go to the WEF Great Reset website: click here. To watch the video I refer to on Twitter, click here.
 
[2] Those interested in knowing more about Amy Webb can visit her website: amywebb.io / Those interested in knowing more about the Future Today Institute should click here.  

 

21 Jul 2021

Global Goals

SDG logo
 
I. 
 
You may have noticed that all kinds of powerful people have been adopting the phrase build back better as a kind of zen fascist mantra over the last few years. The same people - let's call them the global elite - have also started to wear a circular multicoloured little badge and I thought readers might like to know why that is ...    
 
 
II. 
 
In September 2015, the leaders of all 193 member states of the UN adopted a universal programme known as Agenda 2030
 
At the heart of this programme are a number of Sustainable Development Goals (known more simply as SDGs or the Global Goals), which promote the utopian fantasy of a better world for everyone by the end of this decade; provided that is, we all work together and accept that far-reaching social, economic, and environmental change is necessary. 
 
If we all mobilise successfully, argue those who are seriously pushing this agenda, then we will meet the 169 targets contained within the 17 Global Goals [1] and transform society from top to bottom; ending all forms of poverty, achieving social justice, and tackling climate change, for example. 
 
Whilst the private sector, the media, civil society, and the general public will all have a role to play in this Great Reset, obviously governments will be expected to take a lead and establish the necessary frameworks via which the Global Goals can be implemented and achieved. The UN will monitor and report on their progress "towards building an inclusive, sustainable and resilient future for people and planet" [2].        
  
Of course, although unanimously agreed, the Goals are not legally binding and the UN doesn't have the power to enforce them - it can merely encourage everyone to get on board. Those who wish to show their support for the New World Order can even buy their very own SDG pin on Amazon: click here
 
And once you have the badge or brooch, you might want also to follow these suggestions about how to contribute to Agenda 2030:
 
"Spread the word about the Global Goals, so that more people can take action and contribute to meeting the Goals. Join an organization that actively contributes to meeting the Goals. Reduce your general waste and your enviromental footprint. Avoid plastics, take the train instead of the airplane, the bike instead of the car. Make conscious choices in your consumption. Buy local and try to make sure what you buy is produced in fair and sustainable ways. Show compassion and stand up against racism, exclusion, discrimination and injustice. Use your imagination. The future depends on our ability to imagine it." [3]
 
That last line is, of course, an expression of the purest idealism. In fact, it's almost a form of magical thinking; i.e., the belief that one's thoughts and fantasies can have real effects in the actual world providing one really, really wants something to happen or to change. The young and religiously-minded are particularly susceptible to such thinking. And the insane ...     
 
 
Notes 
 
[1] The 17 Global Goals are: 
 
1. No poverty 
2. Zero hunger 
3. Good health and well-being 
4. Quality education 
5. Gender equality 
6. Clean water and sanitation
7. Affordable and clean energy
8. Decent work and economic growth
9. Industry, innovation and infrastructure
10. Reduced inequalities
11. Sustainable cities and communites
12. Responsible consumption and production
13. Climate action
14. Life below water
15. Life on land
16. Peace, justice and strong institutions
17. Partnerships for the Goals
 
The order of the Goals does not signify priority; "all are critical and interdependent". 
 
[2] All information in this post is taken from globalgoals.org. Lines quoted are from the Q&A section.

[3] For more hints and tips of good things you can do, read the UNs Lazy Person’s Guide to Saving the World, click here
 
 
To understand Agenda 2030 etc. within a philosophical context, see Jean Baudrillard's essay 'The Violence of the Global', trans. François Debrix: click here.


7 Jun 2021

Freedom? There Ain't No Fucking Freedom!


 
What the tabloids like to call Freedom Day - June 21st - the day when the UK is due to abandon the last of its lockdown restrictions and allow citizens to finally throw off their face masks and socially interact, is increasingly likely to be postponed amid mounting concern among scientists and government advisors about the rapid spread of the so-called Delta variant (i.e. the mutant version of Covid-19 that was first recorded in India and is thought to be much more transmissable). 
 
Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, is absolutely open to the idea of a delay and one suspects that a significant number of the Great British Public would rather like the lockdown to continue indefinitely, so scared witless have they become over the last 16 months and so happy to have the authorities micromanage their every activity in the name of health and safety (i.e., the greater good as conceived within an era of biopolitics). 

To be honest, I think the cynically-named Freedom Day is a sham and that talk of the world post-pandemic is mostly in vain. Things will never return to normal; our liberty has been fatally compromised and the Great Reset is in motion. We are all now just NHS numbers.
 
To paraphrase D. H. Lawrence writing after the Great War:

We thought the old times were coming back. They can never come back. Each one of us has had something injected into them. So we have to adjust ourselves to a new world. [1]
 
Sadly, in Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock, we have got the leaders we deserve. To quote Lawrence speaking of Lloyd George and Horatio Bottomley, but with Johnson and Hancock in mind:
 
"These two spoke the Voice of the People [...] They said what the vast majority were choking to say. They said it all enormously, endlessly, and with complete success." [2]
 
My hope is that one day we'll remember these two gentlemen with shame:
 
"Why? - Because they said things that were not true, and because they urged us to actions that were meaner, smaller, baser, crueler than our own deep feelings." [3]    
 
  
Notes
 
[1] D. H. Lawrence, Movements in European History, ed. Philip Crumpton, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 260. The original passage reads: "We thought the old times were coming back. They can never come. We know now that each one of us had something shot out of him. So we have to adjust ourselves to a new world."
 
[2] Ibid., p. 259. 
 
[3] Ibid 


21 Feb 2021

On Useful Idiots


 
I. 
 
Perhaps seduced by its cynical charm, I've always had a thing for the political term and concept of a useful idiot ...
 
That is to say, an individual - usually a well-intentioned idealist of some description - who promotes a cause without fully understanding what's in play or what's at stake and who can be easily manipulated by those who do. 
 
I believe the idea originated early on during the Cold War to describe those left-leaning liberals and communist sympathisers in the West regarded as particularly susceptible to Soviet propaganda. Although some like to give Lenin credit for coining the term, this attribution is unsubstantiated and it seems to have first been used in a New York Times article in June 1948. 
 
Prior to this, however, some were already speaking (in rather less brutal terms) of useful innocents to refer to those confused and misguided souls whose tears of compassion for the suffering of others prevented them from seeing clearly when it came to the reality of life under communist rule. 
 
Those like the British Labour MP Diane Abbot, to give a relatively recent example, who, in 2008, was still putting the case for Maoism and said of the Chinese dictator that, on balance, he did more good than harm, blithely ignoring the fact that he was responsible for tens of millions of deaths [1]
 
 
II. 
 
Unfortunately, Abbott is by no means alone in being a useful idiot. Contemporary politics is full of 'em, on all sides, and not necessarily just doing the work of the far left. For many of the most useful of idiots today belong to (supposedly) radical environmental groups, such as Extinction Rebellion, and are unintentionally serving corporate interests and those promoting a Great Reset and/or a new industrial revolution. 
 
To be fair, however, thanks to social media and the way that the world now operates, perhaps we are all in some sense being made fools of; thus it is that one commentator proposes "a new, analogous term more appropriate for the age in which we live: useful hypocrites" [2]
 
Again, whilst that sounds a bit harsh, one suspects nevertheless that it's pretty much how the masters of the digital universe do in fact view us (and they have the data concerning our behaviour to back it up).
 
 
Notes
 
[1] I'm not making this up: appearing alongside Michael Portillo on This Week (a politics and current affairs show hosted by Andrew Neil on BBC One), Abbott - who would stand for the leadership of the Labour Party in 2010 and eventually serve as Shadow Home Secretary under Jeremy Corbyn (2016-2020) - really did attempt to put the case for Mao: click here
      Twelve years later, in November 2020, Abbott was forced to apologise for appearing on a livestream with Li Jingjing, a journalist working for the state owned CGTN, who denied human rights abuses against the Uyghurs, suggesting they were a fiction invented by China's enemies in order to to try and provoke a race war. At no point did Abbott challenge these remarks.   
 
[2] John Naughton, 'Why the internet has turned us into hypocrites', The Guardian (16 Nov 2014): click here to read online.