hi guys,
i owe to my good friend cedric jonckheere this fundamental intuition that
well summarizes the postpandemic shift in modern politics.
there's no longer (woke) left and (populist) right. the emergence of major
novax movements largely hegemonized by the nationalist and racist right is
a constant all across Continental Europe (iberia excepted)
and the English-speaking world (and largely absent elsewhere - the vax
angst seems for whites). there's people who trust the empirical method and
the role of science in knowledge and health and people who do not because
they are novax or nopass, mistrust the state, oligotech, big pharma,
whatever.
if the epistemological divide is clear-cut, the sociological rift of the
science wars is anything but. i was recently in belgium and this coincided
with the european libertarian demo. in francophone countries the agambenian
fallacy looms large and splits the pre-existing radical left in two.
compounding the confusion but revealing the strength of the lefty nopass
component, justine and son boyfriend have just published le manifeste
conspirationniste (seuil), the black book of leftist conspiracies. a
corollary of this was that in brussels the clashes with the police were
done by outrerhin black blocs, thereby at least hiding the fascist
component from the news (which was large: flemish, italian, german,
romanian). it's hard but necessary taking stock of the social variables
that are predictors of wo/man falling into the novax trap. i surmise my
inferences: yoga, veganism, buddhism and oriental religions are strong
predictors, as are also critiques of sciences steeped in postmodernism and
poststructuralism. foucauldianism has become a liability, alas. major
components of no vax movements are: national populists (white supremacists,
racists, fascists, nazi-populists), provincial lumpenpreneurs, hippies and
communitarians, anarchists (but crimethinc is opposed to that and the hong
kong movement pioneered public health response). punks, antifas,
postcolonialists are usually invariably provaccinations altho they remain
antigov. feminists, it depends - some strands of ecofeminism can be
science-skeptic, but most feminism has embraced the postcapitalist society
of care which is in favor of restrictions to protect society (but please
keep the schools open).
in italy the leftist component of the novax movement is smaller, also
because fascists (forza nuova) have attacked the chamber of labor in our
version of january 6, the red mainstream union cgil's hq in rome, in the
coda of a nopass demo, tarnishing the image of the movement in anybody with
a progressive mind. Unlike in france and belgium, autonomists here are all
provax also because they did the covid brigades and have seen with their
eyes the death and destitution brought by covid. If anything they have
erred on the side of caution, keeping squats closed for too long (the
minister of health in italy is nominally a red). Still, anarchists and
antagonists have participated in the nogreenpass movement in milano (where
fascists have been sidelined).
although greta's climate justice movement remains the only major movement
force on the global scene, along with ni una menos post-metoo feminism, the
science wars seem to have stopped the greens' inexhorable rise. also, the
return of the state noted by gerbaudo in the great recoil is favoring a
return to social-democracy and socialist govs after they seemed to have
been irreversibly discredited after their 30-year dalliance with
neoliberalism. the german election and the portuguese election could be
signs in this direction. government spending is back and voters seem to
trust those who have historically championed the welfare state. maybe now
that omicron appears to be the last gasp of the pandemic in europe, both
the novax movement and the socdem uptick will recede, but that could prove
overoptimistic, because the science wars seem to have polarized politics in
a new way.
what's most depressing in the vax/novax rift is that it overshadows that
capital-labor divide, at a time when finally pandemic-induced labor
scarcity is changing the balance of power in class struggle and public
morality is finally seeing precarious labor for what it is, essential but
insecure and underpaid. starbucks is being unionized and amazon could be
soon, too. labor is finally reclaiming its share of the pie. that seems
more important than getting an mRNA injection. however right now the
situation favors technocratic centrists like macron or draghi because they
have proved apt at vaccinating large numbers (but omicron has undermined
their plan to open businesses and return to offices to restore capitalist
normalcy).
let's win the science wars to prevail in the climate and class struggles,
alex
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