Alex Foti on Thu, 3 Feb 2022 09:23:26 +0100 (CET)


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<nettime> science wars replace culture wars as new divider in contemp politics


hi guys,
 
i owe to my good friend cedric jonckheere this fundamental intuition that well summarizes the postpandemic shift in modern politics. 

there's no longer (woke) left and (populist) right. the emergence of major novax movements largely hegemonized by the nationalist and racist right is a constant all across Continental Europe (iberia excepted) and the English-speaking world (and largely absent elsewhere - the vax angst seems for whites). there's people who trust the empirical method and the role of science in knowledge and health and people who do not because they are novax or nopass, mistrust the state, oligotech, big pharma, whatever.

if the epistemological divide is clear-cut, the sociological rift of the science wars is anything but. i was recently in belgium and this coincided with the european libertarian demo. in francophone countries the agambenian fallacy looms large and splits the pre-existing radical left in two. compounding the confusion but revealing the strength of the lefty nopass component, justine and son boyfriend have just published le manifeste conspirationniste (seuil), the black book of leftist conspiracies. a corollary of this was that in brussels the clashes with the police were done by outrerhin black blocs, thereby at least hiding the fascist component from the news (which was large: flemish, italian, german, romanian). it's hard but necessary taking stock of the social variables that are predictors of wo/man falling into the novax trap. i surmise my inferences: yoga, veganism, buddhism and oriental religions are strong predictors, as are also critiques of sciences steeped in postmodernism and poststructuralism. foucauldianism has become a liability, alas. major components of no vax movements are: national populists (white supremacists, racists, fascists, nazi-populists), provincial lumpenpreneurs, hippies and communitarians, anarchists (but crimethinc is opposed to that and the hong kong movement pioneered public health response). punks, antifas, postcolonialists are usually invariably provaccinations altho they remain antigov. feminists, it depends - some strands of ecofeminism can be science-skeptic, but most feminism has embraced the postcapitalist society of care which is in favor of restrictions to protect society (but please keep the schools open).

in italy the leftist component of the novax movement is smaller, also because fascists (forza nuova) have attacked the chamber of labor in our version of january 6, the red mainstream union cgil's hq in rome, in the coda of a nopass demo, tarnishing the image of the movement in anybody with a progressive mind. Unlike in france and belgium, autonomists here are all provax also because they did the covid brigades and have seen with their eyes the death and destitution brought by covid. If anything they have erred on the side of caution, keeping squats closed for too long (the minister of health in italy is nominally a red). Still, anarchists and antagonists have participated in the nogreenpass movement in milano (where fascists have been sidelined).

although greta's climate justice movement remains the only major movement force on the global scene, along with ni una menos post-metoo feminism, the science wars seem to have stopped the greens' inexhorable rise. also, the return of the state noted by gerbaudo in the great recoil is favoring a return to social-democracy and socialist govs after they seemed to have been irreversibly discredited after their 30-year dalliance with neoliberalism. the german election and the portuguese election could be signs in this direction. government spending is back and voters seem to trust those who have historically championed the welfare state. maybe now that omicron appears to be the last gasp of the pandemic in europe, both the novax movement and the socdem uptick will recede, but that could prove overoptimistic, because the science wars seem to have polarized politics in a new way.

what's most depressing in the vax/novax rift is that it overshadows that capital-labor divide, at a time when finally pandemic-induced labor scarcity is changing the balance of power in class struggle and public morality is finally seeing precarious labor for what it is, essential but insecure and underpaid. starbucks is being unionized and amazon could be soon, too. labor is finally reclaiming its share of the pie. that seems more important than getting an mRNA injection. however right now the situation favors technocratic centrists like macron or draghi because they have proved apt at vaccinating large numbers (but omicron has undermined their plan to open businesses and return to offices to restore capitalist normalcy).

let's win the science wars to prevail in the climate and class struggles,

alex
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