68814
  • Log in
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Forum
  • Donate
  • Newsletter
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

A Political Theory of COVID-19 or Hobbes’s Coviathan

by Toby Young
3 July 2021 1:17 PM

We’re publishing an original essay today by Dr. James Alexander, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey, in which he sets out the rudiments of a political theory of COVID-19, drawing heavily on Hobbes’s Leviathan. This is how his essay begins:

Political theorists have been mostly silent about COVID-19, as far as I have seen. There was Georgio Agamben, who, early on in 2020, suggested that what was going on bore out his view that the exception was now the norm. For thirty years or more Agamben has gone on, to great applause from admirers and publishers – he is one of those writers for whom every lecture in Italian becomes a handsomely bound book in English – in a paranoiac metaphorical erudite leftist manner. But now events have borne him out. And since he was willing to say that something bad was going on, we have to give him credit, not only for that – saying so – but also for having worked on a theory which, no matter how irrelevant it seemed in the old days (except, perhaps, to Guantanamo), now has something to say to everyone.

Apart from him there is no one I know of. They continue in conference and on Twitter while the world burns. So I asked myself which of the great political philosophers would have approved of the government-corporation-media response to this novel coronavirus (and the apparently necessary consequence that all discussion, debate or disagreement be suppressed, avoided, deplatformed)? And the answer was bare, to say the least. Plato might come to mind, because he advocated rule by the wise, and because he mentioned “the noble lie”: but the lies told this time around have been ignoble; and, anyhow, it is far from obvious that our philosopher-kings (Whitty, Vallance, Cummings, Hancock, etc.) know what the good is. In addition, Plato was not in favour of extending life by the use of medicine. He might not even have granted citizenship to modellers and behavioural scientists.

Other political theorists could not have approved of the rigmarole of distancing, masks, lockdown and vaccination. Not Aristotle, who was moderate in almost every respect, including in seeing both sides of every question. The polis for him had good reason to be aristocratic, but was also, emphatically, a place in which citizens were equals, so that they ruled and were ruled in turn. Not Augustine, who said that Rome had originated in injustice, and that one should opt out of it and think of oneself as a member of a societas perfecta, a city not of this world, the civitas Dei. Not Aquinas. Not even Machiavelli, despite all the force and fraud, because he was, in the end, a good republican, a believer in vivere civile e politico, civil and political life. Not Locke, of course, the father of liberalism. Not Rousseau, not Kant, not Hegel – not without distortion. Not Burke. Not Paine. Not Bentham. Not J.S. Mill. Not John Rawls. No. They all valued something which would have disqualified them, whether it was truth, tradition, reason, utility, liberty, or justice. Not Marx, of course, since he was concerned with emancipation, and was against alienation. Most modern thinkers, from Heidegger, through Adorno, Schmitt and Foucault to Habermas, have been opposed to technical or instrumental rationality. So it is actually quite hard to think of a theorist of this brave new world.

The only obvious candidate is Hobbes…

Worth reading in full.

Tags: HobbesSubmissionThe Biosecurity State

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

Quarantine to End for Double-Jabbed Brits within Weeks

Next Post

Cancelled Job Offers Prompt Recent University Graduates to Enrol on Masters Programmes

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

38 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

 

DONATE

PODCAST

Nick Dixon and Toby Young Talk About the ‘Far Right’ Unrest in Dublin, Geert Wilders Winning in the Netherlands and Tommy Robinson Getting Arrested at the March Against Antisemitism

by Will Jones
28 November 2023
9

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editors Picks

New Zealand Whistleblower Data Leak Links Covid Vaccine to Deaths: The Evidence

4 December 2023
by Igor Chudov

When Irish Eyes Are Opened: The Dublin Riot and the Booker Prize

4 December 2023
by Steven Tucker

News Round-Up

5 December 2023
by Richard Eldred

The Black Lie at the Heart of Net Zero Energy Fantasies

5 December 2023
by Chris Morrison

Tory MP Bids to Overturn Sadiq Khan’s Ulez Expansion as It Is Revealed It Generated £5.3 Million in Its First Week

4 December 2023
by Richard Eldred

BBC Licence Fee £15 Increase Too High, Culture Secretary Says

29

The Black Lie at the Heart of Net Zero Energy Fantasies

28

News Round-Up

24

Tory MP Bids to Overturn Sadiq Khan’s Ulez Expansion as It Is Revealed It Generated £5.3 Million in Its First Week

17

When Irish Eyes Are Opened: The Dublin Riot and the Booker Prize

15

Paris Assailant Has Links to Perpetrators of Three Recent French Terror Attacks

5 December 2023
by Robert Kogon

When Irish Eyes Are Opened: The Dublin Riot and the Booker Prize

4 December 2023
by Steven Tucker

New Zealand Whistleblower Data Leak Links Covid Vaccine to Deaths: The Evidence

4 December 2023
by Igor Chudov

Someone Please Tell Mr. Hancock and the Department of Health About ‘Cohorting’

4 December 2023
by Dr David Livermore

I’ve Seen Britain’s Future – and it’s a Post-Industrial Boneyard Called Stratford

4 December 2023
by J Sorel

POSTS BY DATE

July 2021
M T W T F S S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  
« Jun   Aug »

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Forum
  • Donate
  • Newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Please note: To be able to comment on our articles you'll need to be a registered donor

Already have an account?
Please click here to login Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment