How Political Theorists Let Us Down During COVID-19

The reason I originally wrote something about COVID-19 back in 2020 was because I could see no one writing about it at the level I wanted to see it written about. There was, of course, plenty of good political journalism. I listened to Hitchens, read Sumption, looked at Lockdown Sceptics every day. But there was nothing at the level of political theory. Well, almost no-one: there was the great Georgio Agamben. Every other political theorist or political philosopher or whatever you want to call them, remained silent. And this struck me as odd. I mean, off the top of my head, what about Quentin Skinner or Philip Pettit? They were always writing about liberty and, moreover, writing about the importance of understanding liberty as not being under the will of others, not being dominated by others. And yet, surely, we were dominated during COVID-19?

But the great men were silent.

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