Instead of developing so crucial an element of his philosophy, he trains his fire instead on the "Boomer Theorist," of whom Agamben not strictly a Boomer is exemplary. During the War on Terror, Agamben was correct to challenge a then-lockstep and panic-driven moral consensus about the need for exceptional state and private coercion—but this gives the thinker no credit with Bratton, who knows as a matter of scientific rationality that Agamben must be wrong this time. I too hesitate at Agamben's theories, in general and in particular.
Is the Nazi concentration camp the paradigm of modern governance or is this an exaggeration? Much as I want to suspect the latter, the famous injunction "never again" seems to require the vigilance urged by the former. Likewise, Agamben surely goes too far when he refers to the pandemic as an "invention"—yet a mainstream source as unimpeachable as The Washington Post has begun to report on the possible American role in dangerous experimentation that might have left to our present predicament, which at least puts the "conspiracy theorist" in a slightly more forgiving light.
When Agamben complains of "facial cancellation" and "social distance" as abolishing the political, as destroying the very possibility of democratic convocation and deliberation, I believe one would have to be totally stunned by mediated panic not at least to consider the argument, especially since it's doubtful this disease will ever leave us another War on Terror echo: zerocovid policies as a reprise of Bush speechwriter and current Biden supporter David Frum's ambitious war-cry for "an end to evil".
Bratton, by contrast, judges these concerns trivial; he disparages Agamben's nostalgia for human visage and touch as merely "ritual," a word presumably chosen to connote to the scientific intellect the irrational gestures of ignorant faith or perhaps, in a more aptly "diagnostic" register, the helpless tics of a person with OCD. There is an eliminationist New Atheism belligerence to this polemic, one for which no metaphysical conception of humanity, not even the responsively modern spirituality of the Romantics, can co-exist—except disastrously—with 21st-century life.
In a cruel irony, Illich died from a horribly disfiguring facial tumor that he refused to have treated as doctors suggested. Following the thesis of Medical Nemesis , he administered his own medication against the advice of doctors, who proposed a largely sedative treatment which would have rendered his work impossible.
What gives Bratton the imperious right to judge how a man with an apparently incurable illness chooses to treat himself? Death and suffering are inevitable, Illich often argued, and his choice of painful lucidity over analgesic insensibility for his remaining years is one any writer might make.
What other private medical decisions will Bratton mock and deride? I'm only surprised we weren't given another round of "Foucault in the bathhouse" imagery. But Bratton's obscene lapse in decorum here is not incidental; it demonstrates the rot at the heart of his project and the similar ethical decay in our ongoing state of emergency.
But it requires only experience, not a faith in or a theory of divinity, to grasp the difference between mere subsistence and a life worth living—experience of a loved one's deathbed decisions will demonstrate the concept neatly, if painfully. When Bratton strips humanity to an insectoid system mysteriously infused with consciously reflexive "sapience" no less metaphysical a concept in the end than any of Agamben's , he withdraws this experiential distinction, as do governments and their corporate collaborators when they declare a limitless state of emergency legitimating almost any intrusion into our minds and bodies.
Philosophy fails not when it reminds us of these dilemmas, but when it urges us to forget them and prostrate ourselves instead before the idols of the age—idols all the more insulting to the intellect when they pose as transparent, neutral, scientific, and non-negotiable moral truths to which no reasonable person, neither the non-consenting medical subject nor the slaughtered Muslim, could possibly object.
Aug 01, Alys rated it did not like it. A polemical theoretical work attempting to consolidate and radicalise the technocratic authoritarian tailist mentality that took hold amongst the left through the pandemic and spin it towards a positive political project.
Somewhat useful as a conspectus of the bullshit to come his effort to doublethink his way to an identity of luxury and austerity seems like quite a viable candidate to become a motif of a certain kind of leftist as they desperately fall behind green austerity in the hopes of s A polemical theoretical work attempting to consolidate and radicalise the technocratic authoritarian tailist mentality that took hold amongst the left through the pandemic and spin it towards a positive political project.
Somewhat useful as a conspectus of the bullshit to come his effort to doublethink his way to an identity of luxury and austerity seems like quite a viable candidate to become a motif of a certain kind of leftist as they desperately fall behind green austerity in the hopes of saving the planet. If you already agree with this kind of politics, likely to be quite an enjoyable read as it hits out at all the right figures there's even a discussion of the 'Karen' meme in there. If not, the argumentation is likely to feel unimpressive.
Bratton's argument is directed against a series of strawmen of his own fashioning; every position taken on is dealt with only in its most naive variant. This is particularly egregious when it comes to the topic of Foucault's biopolitics, which Bratton reduces to nothing more than a romantic preoccupation with individual autonomy against state and society, which are treated essentially equivalents.
The picture of the relationship of politics and society is essentially that of the iconic cover of Hobbes 'Leviathan' in a remarkably unproblematised sense: governmental apparatuses are nothing more than society's sensory apparatus, and biopolitical critique nothing more than a demand that we all go blind for the sake of some silly romantic individualism. It sounds superficially compelling, but it all falls apart once you allow for any serious antagonisms in your political picture e.
Foucault's actual point is not that we should reject everything that impedes some uninhibited ideally sovereign individuality, but that apparatuses are political entities in their own right, filled up with people whose interests are nonidentical with that of society, that produce their own internal logics and motives and their own will-to-power, and are therefore non neutral and require critical investigation and a cautious suspicion towards their intellectual discourses and concrete operations.
Not the skin of the Leviathan through which society touches its world, but institutions, systems in their own right, whose reproduction make obscure and potentially problematic demands on the society that supports them and upon which they act.
None of that exists for Bratton's argument, however, which does little more than kick the same straw individualist about for pages or so. The major positive contribution of the text is Bratton's idea of "the epidemiological view of society", which is Bratton's attempt to hang a holistic collectivist political metaphysics on a narrow reductionist discipline dealing with a restricted set of technical questions regarding the spread of pathogens in populations.
It's unconvincing and ultimately has very little to do with the actual discipline of epidemiology. The same argument could be made of macroeconomics, which also models the dynamics of large aggregates and systems rather than individual units, but that would be far less likely to fly under anyone's bullshit radar.
Aug 23, Katy rated it really liked it. Jul 10, Steve rated it it was amazing. This was exactly the thrill ride I needed after wading through the muck of political takes on pandemics, populism, epidemiology, and automation the last year and a half. Bratton manages to construct, out of the same sloggy material I did not want to step in anymore, a wonderful blueprint for writing, thinking, and articulating post-pandemic life for the next decade. The book begins with a premise too simple to really be acceptable.
It took me a while - maybe 40 pages - to finally get it. The core This was exactly the thrill ride I needed after wading through the muck of political takes on pandemics, populism, epidemiology, and automation the last year and a half. The core argument of Bratton's post pandemic politics is to construct a positive, social justice and humanistic biopolitics as a response to negative biopolitics. The advantage here is that instead of throwing away all the good by decrying "surveillance" or "authority" or "global order" in totality, we can make partial critiques on these articulations of power in the terms of how well they address human needs.
Humans, for Bratton, are much more biological than spiritual. This again is not a binary, but a wonderful blending of what are often two oppositional tropes in books about governance, Foucault, and power. Bratton goes to great lengths to show that humanity - even individualism - is a joint. It's a hang between besties of the biological form and the intellectual feel of the being. With this as the basis, Bratton works out the need for layers of touch, layers of care, abstraction, and modeling that without a complex understanding of power would be dismissed as a thin excuse for a social control regime.
In the end, Bratton wants to consider governance a global stack of data - theorized as an archive rather than a specific collection modeled for gain think Facebook - that can care for the individual by abstracting them as a biological body in a situation and delivering just care.
The impetus for this reimagining is the idea that we have come out of COVID and lockdown into the ultimate dream of neoliberalism - all aspects of society have been dissolved, except for police power. We need new ways of imagining resistance that are not based solely on immediate care without superstructures or distant organizations or what we will be left with is a governmental organization founded by and within the logic of police control.
This is a refreshing read on biopolitics. I really like what's being suggested. It's incomplete and feels like an invitation to us to take up one of the chapters and "flesh it out," bad pun intended.
Positive biopolitics in service of humanity rather than institutional, rudderless incompetence is what needs to be further theorized. Bratton says best what his goal is in this book explicity: "Read Foucault better. The blueprint as been delivered; let's get to writing our way to a better global governance of living and feeling human beings.
Jul 07, Leif rated it it was ok. The kind of book that makes you want to shake its author by the shoulders and ask them why they choose to appear the way they do! Too arrogant to cite his sources or provide evidence for his assertions, Bratton settles instead for a technocratic brand of heckling the reader until they accept his positions.
Funnily enough, I went into the volume agreeing with many of Bratton's basic positions - but the style and some of the dominant conceits are just overwhelmingly soured by his attitudinal probl The kind of book that makes you want to shake its author by the shoulders and ask them why they choose to appear the way they do! Funnily enough, I went into the volume agreeing with many of Bratton's basic positions - but the style and some of the dominant conceits are just overwhelmingly soured by his attitudinal problems.
I really wish I'd have skipped this one in the recent Verso offerings. It's not worth the time, to say nothing of the purchase price. Sep 10, Florin Flueras rated it did not like it.
Ignorance of the real. Aug 11, Jim Rimmer rated it really liked it Shelves: non-fiction , politics , current-affairs. As many comparable countries are taking the first tentative, vaccine led footsteps out of virus induced misery at the time of reading Australia remained firmly in the grip of covid with our three largest cities in various states of lockdown.
Self congratulatory isolationism meant our farnarkeling leaders didn't prioritise vaccine procurement, a window of opportunity was lost, and now lives and livelihoods are at risk. The perfect time to read a book about the post-pandemic world. Revenge of the R As many comparable countries are taking the first tentative, vaccine led footsteps out of virus induced misery at the time of reading Australia remained firmly in the grip of covid with our three largest cities in various states of lockdown.
Revenge of the Real can be a challenging read. It grapples with areas of life that many don't question because neo-liberal wonderland, but which have now been stripped bare and exposed as no longer being fit for purpose if indeed they ever were. The writing is sometimes difficult to penetrate, the politics a bit fluffy, the proposed remedies likely to have significant side effects, but it is worthy of wading into for pages. Aug 28, John Mihelic rated it really liked it.
I really like the Verso Book Club, which is where I got this from. They send out books every month and it forces me to read more than I normally would and outside of my normal interests. This book was an interesting short little thing, arguing in my reading for a large conception of the social — against the atomized person and thinking of us all as part of a system.
I think it works but my main critique is that it exits in a weird middle ground. Part of me wanted to see it expanded. And it seems like the whole issue was on me, since reading this book I have seen at least a dozen references to Agamben.
Again, thanks to the Verso Book club for expanding my theoretical horizons. Sep 26, Alice D rated it did not like it. Lost a lot of respect for Bratton for pushing something like this out, and am disappointed in everyone who put their recommendation on the back of this.
Bratton has become far too familiar to me. I'm not certain about it, but I believe that he mostly engages inside groups that agree with him. I agree with him to a great extent. My problem is that I don't think he's quite engaging with "the real" himself.
You might call it missing the forest for the trees. The bigger question is: how did the West, over an arc of 30 or 40 years, find itself in a position where it handled the crisis far worse than Taiwan or South Korea, even though they were right next to the original outbreak in China?
Why is all of this still going on? How is it that the people who balked the loudest about lockdowns now refuse to get vaccinated, ensuring more otherwise unnecessary lockdowns? What is the name for this cultural response? What role has the media played in defining public discourse about Covid? Do you think it has been counterproductive or helpful? Certainly both, depending on what media we consider. While my book makes the argument that our ability to deal with the virus was totally inadequate, I still think there was an impressive mobilization of sorts.
What made lockdown culture possible for the course of the year was not social media, but the cloud, which became the essential economic infrastructure — from food delivery, to e-commerce, to Zoom meetings. It did so in ways that probably accelerated the virtualization of a lot of economies by five or six years in a matter of five or six months.
This clearly has both positive and negative implications. While much will be said about the role of social media in spreading bullshit, the bigger story is the role digital media had in organizing pandemic culture with virtualization and automation. We should not reduce this nuance into a single master concept with all of its panopticon and policing connotations.
Societal self-sensing has to be a lot more than just policing vs. This is an incredible mistake. In the book, you suggest that the Covid crisis is not only a comprehensive study in comparative governance, but also a test case for how we can deal, or not deal, with future crises like climate change.
What are your takeaways from this crisis that should inform how we tackle the impending one? The rise of populism over the last five or six years has coincided with an intensification and hardening of preferred niche narratives that provide people with a socio-psychological comfort zone. As I said earlier, the pandemic exposed the generational dismantling of the capacity for governance in the West.
Others are die-hards. No way are they taking the implant and eating the bugs. The general suspicion of science is perhaps a final violence that the Boomers we have foisted on your generation. Following from that, they may presume that composition and construction are always doomed by their contradictions, and that deterritorialization is always better than territorialization.
I am overgeneralizing in order to answer your question, but such a reflex was also present in the Occupy movement which fell apart according to a predictable sad script almost predetermined by this self-defeating orthodoxy. I see them as two sides of the same coin. This is also, it must be said, a very Western problem. It is incomprehensible for much of the rest of the world.
For most of the world it seems like the most delusional and self-indulgent form of pseudo-politics imaginable. What must be said? For one, it is time for the West to be more willing to learn from Asia. Not only is the post-Cold War dream that China would eventually become like the West obviously over, some are entertaining an inverse proposition: that the West will evolve toward the China model as a way of stemming the tide of its influence elsewhere.
It is never that simple, but the organization of longer-term, more stable, and even top-down forms of social governance may very well be something that does prove to be a long term consequence of the pandemic calamities. Organizing all politics around the amplification and congratulation of individualistic autonomy for its own sake, or the magical sovereignty of populist leaders, have both hopefully run their course.
We can only hope. But what will it take for the political culture in the West to become more top-down and more planetary? You see individualism all over the fractured political response in the West. The longer that democratic transformations are delayed or unsuccessful, the more likely that non-democratic paths will be taken.
The Revenge of the Real envisions a new positive biopolitics that recognizes that governance is literally a matter of life and death. We are grappling with multiple interconnected dilemmas-climate change, pandemics, the tensions between the individual and society-all of which have to be addressed on a planetary scale.
Even when separated, we are still enmeshed. Can the world govern itself differently? What models and philosophies are needed?
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