There are certainly important questions to be asked about the ways in which the science is being framed and sometimes manipulated at a time when ‘knowledge’ is increasingly being seen as central in what we take democratic politics to be. Boris Johnson’s original attachment to the ‘herd immunity’ (famously declaring let the bodies pile high) was being justified at the time as “guided by the science”.
Richard Horton, the editor of the respected medical journal the Lancet, worried that “the relationship between the scientific advisers and politicians in the early phase of the epidemic was strangely collusive”. And James Wilsdon, (professor of research policy at Sheffield University) has been arguing for some time that “The entire science advisory system feels as if it has been fundamentally – perhaps fatally – compromised by the pandemic.” I don’t know how the data was communicated in the Netherlands but I certainly shared Wilsdon’s discomfort that from the very first moment I saw those press conferences “with Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance, the Government Chief Scientific Advisor, flanking the Prime Minister” [like a pair of praetorian guards] “which rang all sorts of alarm bells, in terms of lines of accountability and the blurring of the distinction between advice and decision-making.”. These questions will only increase in importance as we move into a new political phase where the science behind of net zero target will become the new frontline of politics.. David Garcia From: <nettime-l-boun...@mail.kein.org> on behalf of "Hoofd, I.M. (Ingrid)" <i.m.ho...@uu.nl> Date: Thursday, 20 January 2022 at 12:07 To: "nettim...@kein.org" <nettim...@kein.org> Subject: Re: <nettime> CfP: Critical reflections on pandemic politics: left-wing, feminist and anti-racist critiques Your knee-jerk response is an excellent example of elitist and false-oppositional ‘left’ thinking that has completely fallen for the government and big-pharma propaganda, and forgets to think critically about power structures, knowing very well that right-wing and left-wing, while also entertaining huge differences, are not pure opposites. Baudet would be proud of you; he can rake in the spoils. Cheers, Ingrid. From: Florian Cramer <flrnc...@gmail.com> Sent: Thursday, 20 January 2022 13:00 To: Hoofd, I.M. (Ingrid) <i.m.ho...@uu.nl> Cc: nettim...@kein.org Subject: Re: <nettime> CfP: Critical reflections on pandemic politics: left-wing, feminist and anti-racist critiques - Government propaganda and censorship around lockdown and vaccination [...] - The role of mass and social media in anti- or pro-lockdown or vaccine propaganda, political polarization and forms of media virality (eg. via covid-19 memes) [...] - Mandatory vaccine rollouts as assaults to the feminist appeal to bodily autonomy [...] - Ethical considerations regarding mass experimentation, moral shaming and lateral citizen surveillance [...] - Teleological and theological narratives of science as salvation (eg. via vaccinations) All beautiful examples of a "Querfront" discourse where extreme right positions are packaged in left-wing rhetoric. Not a single point, however, on minorities and vulnerable people and communities endangered by anti-vaccer egoism, and neo-Darwinist politics - for example in the UK, Sweden and the Netherlands, of "herd immunity" through survival of the fittest. You should invite Dutch experts Willem Engel and Thierry Baudet as keynote speakers. -F # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
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