Re: <nettime> The Zombie Public – Or, how to revive ‘the public’ and pub

Hello Michael,

Let me try then to clarify my position a bit further.

First about the lockdowns. I have conceded already that the lockdowns were probably necessary / inevitable because of the care system being totally overburdened. So in the first phase of this pandemic (I consider where we are now still in the early phase of the pandemic) this was an immediate response. This should have been used mostly to prepare for what woud come next.

Already very early on science journalists writing for a wider non-expert audience (such as myself) were warning that the lockdown might only be a temporary solution to fend off the worst, and that most likely the moment they would be suspended infection rates would go up. A good source for me on research on the pandemic was Science News - their overview page of coverage of the crisis is here (but there are of course many more):

https://www.sciencenews.org/editors-picks/2019-novel-coronavirus-outbreak

And it was I think this early assessment that made me think about how effective / ineffective lockdowns might be:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/covid-19-when-will-coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing-end

I did not state anywhere, nor do I hold to the position that "there is no possible protection against it, such as that provided by lowering the transmission rate through SIP and masking, etc..” - quite the contrary, I have adhered quite strictly myself to social distancing, I think that a reliable vaccine is badly needed and should be made available in the public domain to be able to make it accessible to as wide a share of the global population as somehow possible and not be locked behind Intellectual Property walls.

Next to that I think much more needs to be done to find and distribute better treatment measures. We already see a global shortage now of Remdesivir, partly because the US bought up large stockpiles of the drug. I hear in reports that it is apparently helpful in the treatment of covid-19.

But much more needs to be done to protect vulnerable sections of the population, also and even in a well-off country like The Netherlands, but think about less fortunate places in the global south / the majority world, and what is needed there. All relevant medicinal drugs in the public domain would be a gigantic step forward there. We can pay the developers for their efforts and then make the results freely available to everyone - much like the system of open access publishing.

Now all that said, I was originally asked about my position towards the lockdown and I gave a concise answer to that question, despite the unpleasant tone of the message - only to be derided for using too many words… sorry, but I like nuance in the discussion so I’m now responding with as many words as I need.

This is not a ‘scientific’ treatise, I clearly marked it as a private opinion. So I’m asking to think through how we can get to a responsible end of the lockdowns and shift to strengthening our care system.

The point that the vaccine is not the ’silver bullet’ (several so called experts have already stated that broadly in various media reports) is not a made up fact, but a very real worry. Anti-bodies in former covid-19 patients have been shown to decline rapidly, which calls into question the possibility of developing a lasting immunity. At the same time we see there are already many mutations of the virus (as one would expect), but not all of them affect the effectiveness of the vaccines currently under development. However, it is likely that this will be the case in the (near) future. That would suggest that the vaccines need be tweaked regularly to deal with those mutations and possible changes in the virus’s behaviour - much like the annual flu vaccine. But we already know now that the virus keeps spreading also in the warmer season and therefore the urgency of this question is greater than with the flu.

I’m not inventing ‘facts’, but looking very real problems in the eye. Disagree with me, fine. Don’t say I’m inventing or fabricating. I’m trying to have an open and critical debate, so I welcome the critiques, but want to keep the discussion clear.

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Then on the question of the ‘freedom of assembly’ – total freedom of assembly never existed and never will. That’s just not how power works. Also not in the most ‘democratic’ or ‘liberal’ societies around right now. As a ‘civil right’ (for lack of a better word) the right to a relative freedom of assembly has been severely curtailed because of the measures in response to the covid-19 outbreak. Taking The Netherlands as a case, as I live here, there is still an allowance of demonstrations, but they need to ask permission to appear and must adhere to strict social distancing rules (1,5 meters distance between participants most importantly).

When a mostly spontaneous solidarity gathering happened in the Dam Square in Amsterdam in support of the US protests against the shooting of George Floyd, excessive police violence and systemic racism, more than 10.000 people gathered and violated the social distancing rules. The local authorities decided not to break up the protest because the anger was palpable and it would have certainly escalated into massive violence.

The far right immediately seized upon this occasion to claim that ‘different rules apply for different people’ and polarised the debate. Afterwards this protest did not lead to a noticeable increase of infection rates - it was not a super-spreader event, as it was in open air and so on. Maybe a lucky escape - who knows?

After that other solidarity gatherings were staged outdoors in different NL cities, well organised and respecting the 1,5m distancing rules. It was thoroughly unclear to me how that related to the original impetus. The point remains that this first gathering, which was the really meaningful and significant one was ‘illegal’ and in complete violation with the regulations that have been hastily imposed here on public gatherings. Since then the rules have tightened further and police interventions are more swift now. For me that is not ‘freedom of assembly’, not even ‘relative freedom of assembly’. Under these tight regulations any such gathering remains ineffectual and anaemic - so in practical terms then the (relative) freedom of assembly has been suspended - and that applies not just to NL but also to other democratic countries.

Hence I don’t think my point was ’silly’, but of course you can disagree, provide counter-arguments etc. and I am listening and reconsidering, because I would like to have a critical and open debate about these issues.

As for the text: Again, I was reflecting on the status of public space under current conditions and the threat to the very conditions that make the emergence of publicness, public space possible and the possibilities for a collection of a-priori unrelated individuals to transform into ‘a public’ possible’. And I see them under threat by current legal and technological trends. The trends were there for a long time, the conditions were already severe for a long time, but they have been greatly accelerated and intensified by the policy responses to the covid-19 crisis. And I’m asserting again this is not a purely medical, nor a purely technological question, but a political one.

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Let me end on a lighter note: I will concede that the tone and rhetorics of my piece were a bit more polemic as usual, because I feel the need to bring out a debate on these points.

There is a great anecdote that architect Wim NIjenhuis once related to me: He did quite a bit of translation of Paul Virilio’s work and adapted ideas of his to his won work. At one point he had a scheduled meeting with Virilio in Paris, but there were some family-related issues at the time that wore down heavily on him.

So as usual Virilio was going on about the ‘fatal accident’, ‘human catastrophes’, fatal strategies and so on (as we know from his work).

Meanwhile Wim was sitting down, low energy and looking rather depressed. Then suddenly Virilio noticed his troubled look and abruptly interrupted his ‘catastrophic’ discourse, turned towards Wim and put a fatherly hand on his shoulder, exclaiming: “Do not worry my good man, the world is not as bad as in my books!”.

That made me understand Virilio’s rhetorical strategy - quite interesting…

all bests,

Eric

On 9 Oct 2020, at 01:15, Michael Goldhaber <michael@goldhaber.org> wrote:

Eric, in your diatribe about openness, which seems to me quite silly and against the reality that perfectly legal assemblies have taken place, you also make a scientific statement of doubtful validity, that since the virus will continue to mutate there is no possible protection against it, such as that provided by lowering the transmission rate through SIP and masking, etc.. This is, as far as I can tell, a made-up fact. No decisions should be based on something that has simply not been clearly demonstrated about such a dangerous pathogen.

Best,
Michael