This is the first of a series of essays in which, drawing on the wisdom of experts in social psychology and authoritarianism in the modern age, I try to make sense of the state we're in.
Thank you for the essay! I must reread it more closely, and look forward to future installments in this series.
While I too lament our sudden loss of many liberties, and agree we need to be alert to the danger of anyone using the pandemic as an opportunity for more far-reaching power-grabs, I am less suspicious than you seem to be about the motives of governments trying to deal with the crisis. This is something instinctive, I think, and is possible naive - but if I had to offer some evidence to support it, it might be that more authoritarian leaders of our time (Orbán, Bolsonaro, Trump) were/are among the most likely to minimise the threats posed by Covid-19, and the least likely to support the kind of mandates recommended by public-health officials.
Of the thinkers you cite, I am most familiar with Fromm, and have long intended to read more Arendt. The others are new to me, and very intriguing - again, thank you!
Having originally subscribed to your travel-writing, I realise that vaccine passports and restrictions on international flights are particularly regrettable to you - and I agree that this is severely detrimental to fundamental human needs to seek society and interest. On the other hand, from a climate-change perspective, the brake Covid-19 has imposed on ever-expanding international flights is perhaps welcome, and might even have opened people's eyes to the less exotic richness of their immediate circles.
Yours, also reeling from the barrage of the past 22 months,
Ah, you've hit on something really important. I'm not writing about the motives of governments so much as the dynamics of power, and what we can observe about power dynamics in modern societies. I think there's too much of a focus on intentions and motives in politics, at the expense of rather's actually happening ... and so we can get massively distracted, mesmerised by the need to avoid thinking badly of individuals. But it's not about them - the operation of power is a weird phenomenon that I don't think we've begun to understand, but Arendt's work is a good place to start. Foucault really grappled with this, and I hope to do something on him in a future essay. This one wasn't concerned with what's going on at the leadership level at all, but I'm going to look at that in the next essay.
I also meant to say, I've seen Mattias Desmet speak in another video, and he is certainly worth listening to. I encourage your readers to check out the interview you linked.
Thanks for this wonderful essay. I'm seeing more and more of these kinds of thoughtful and informative pieces. Interestingly, although you and others are noticing the same things, each writer takes on the topic with such originality that the same things aren't being said twice. The fact that there are so many personal perspectives, and not just repetition of ideology, is what lets me know that we are on the right side of history.
Thank you. I am reading the pieces of which you speak and feel exactly the same - we're coming from the same fundamental intuitions and instincts but bringing the particular perspectives that come from our own, individual backgrounds and interests. Kind of illustrates Arendt's point about the incorrigible diversity of the human condition!
You have captured in words the increasing unease, disillusionment – and even fear – my partner and I have been experiencing over the last eighteen months or so. Thank you for doing this; for making it concrete.
Thank you for the essay! I must reread it more closely, and look forward to future installments in this series.
While I too lament our sudden loss of many liberties, and agree we need to be alert to the danger of anyone using the pandemic as an opportunity for more far-reaching power-grabs, I am less suspicious than you seem to be about the motives of governments trying to deal with the crisis. This is something instinctive, I think, and is possible naive - but if I had to offer some evidence to support it, it might be that more authoritarian leaders of our time (Orbán, Bolsonaro, Trump) were/are among the most likely to minimise the threats posed by Covid-19, and the least likely to support the kind of mandates recommended by public-health officials.
Of the thinkers you cite, I am most familiar with Fromm, and have long intended to read more Arendt. The others are new to me, and very intriguing - again, thank you!
Having originally subscribed to your travel-writing, I realise that vaccine passports and restrictions on international flights are particularly regrettable to you - and I agree that this is severely detrimental to fundamental human needs to seek society and interest. On the other hand, from a climate-change perspective, the brake Covid-19 has imposed on ever-expanding international flights is perhaps welcome, and might even have opened people's eyes to the less exotic richness of their immediate circles.
Yours, also reeling from the barrage of the past 22 months,
Tom
Ah, you've hit on something really important. I'm not writing about the motives of governments so much as the dynamics of power, and what we can observe about power dynamics in modern societies. I think there's too much of a focus on intentions and motives in politics, at the expense of rather's actually happening ... and so we can get massively distracted, mesmerised by the need to avoid thinking badly of individuals. But it's not about them - the operation of power is a weird phenomenon that I don't think we've begun to understand, but Arendt's work is a good place to start. Foucault really grappled with this, and I hope to do something on him in a future essay. This one wasn't concerned with what's going on at the leadership level at all, but I'm going to look at that in the next essay.
I also meant to say, I've seen Mattias Desmet speak in another video, and he is certainly worth listening to. I encourage your readers to check out the interview you linked.
Thanks for this wonderful essay. I'm seeing more and more of these kinds of thoughtful and informative pieces. Interestingly, although you and others are noticing the same things, each writer takes on the topic with such originality that the same things aren't being said twice. The fact that there are so many personal perspectives, and not just repetition of ideology, is what lets me know that we are on the right side of history.
Thank you. I am reading the pieces of which you speak and feel exactly the same - we're coming from the same fundamental intuitions and instincts but bringing the particular perspectives that come from our own, individual backgrounds and interests. Kind of illustrates Arendt's point about the incorrigible diversity of the human condition!
You have captured in words the increasing unease, disillusionment – and even fear – my partner and I have been experiencing over the last eighteen months or so. Thank you for doing this; for making it concrete.