[-empyre-] Bio-Fascism: Eclipse of the Social /Decline of Politics

[Timothy Conway Murray]

Thank you, Arthur, for your elegant and cutting analysis of the rise of bio-fascism.  Just today, Renate and I were witnessing news accounts of demonstrations in the US by Trump supporters encouraged by their fascist-in-chief  to protest the valiant efforts of Democratic governors to maintain temporary social distancing practices and policies.  While not necessarily the complete eclipse of politics, but certainly  the manipulation of fascist politics, Trump'scontinual  efforts to downplay science and promote the fiction of the deep state has gone hand in hand, as you say, with "surging gun sales and panic hoarding" as the death of the social.  Then there are the deaths of social services, education and the arts, three broad institutions that are hit particularly hard by the economic downturn while, in the US, real estate developers and major hotel chains seems to be reaping the rewards of public bailout funds. At stake is the future imaginary of social solidarity, erudition, and artistic imagination

Similarly, local governments, for which I am elected official, are told to fend for themselves (offered no US bail out funds that have so quickly been consumed by corporations) as they hope to continue to support desperately needed food pantries, health clinics, childcare, public transportation, etc.  These infrastructures are conveniently ignored by the capitalist superclass in a way that further exacerbates the chasm between hyper-rich (who can shelter in place in their comfortable vacation homes) and the beleaguered underclass who have little access to basic social services.   All of this in the interest, as you say, of bio-fascism.

Tim

Timothy Murray
Director, Cornell Council for the Arts and Curator, Cornell Biennial
http://cca.cornell.edu
Curator, Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art 
http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu <http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu/>
Professor of Comparative Literature and English
 
B-1 West Sibley Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853
 
 

On 4/16/20, 11:44 PM, "empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of akroker" <empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of akroker at uvic.ca> wrote:

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