The Suicidal State: In Advance of an American Requiem

Autor:	S. J. Murray
Rok vydání:	2020
Předmět:	Philosophy Race (biology) History State (polity) media_common.quotation_subject Writ Context (language use) Nazism Criminology Racism Biopower Biosocial theory media_common
Zdroj:	Philosophy & Rhetoric. 53:299-305
ISSN:	1527-2079 0031-8213
DOI:	10.5325/philrhet.53.3.0299
Popis:	Written in late March 2020 in the early days of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak, this essay represents a contingent reflection on the American pandemic response, mourning in anticipation of what would soon surely unfold. I argue that the State's long-standing sacrificial economies have in this moment culminated in a suicidal State. The term is Foucault's, appearing in a controversial lecture on biopolitics, Nazism, and “biological racism.” Despite Foucault's problematic treatment of racism, I suggest that some aspects of this discourse might nevertheless be apropos in our context. The U.S. pandemic response is racism's suicidal State legacy writ large: an extension and retooling of historically racist infrastructures deployed (once again, again) in racialized domains (as more recent reports evidence), but in this moment also across biosocial inequities and vulnerabilities marked by differential fungibilities other than race.
Databáze:	OpenAIRE
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