Re: <nettime> The Meaning of Boris Johnson

[Joseph Rabie <joe@overmydeadbody.org>]

I do wonder, insofar as Boris Johnson is concerned, how much sex has to do with it all. In a biographical documentary shown on the Arte TV station, his use of comic behaviour and witty repartee at school (Eton) and university (Oxford), clearly appeared to be organised around garnering the sort of popularity that might seduce partners into his bed.

Fostering popularity has always been a prime mover for his actions. As a correspondent in Brussels for The Daily Telegraph, Europe-bashing became his playground where whatever lies he could invent, and present with rhetorical verve, were good for seducing readers in the UK. One of his articles lambasted, falsely, the European Commission for wanting to dictate the curvature of bananas.

Concerning...

A new and intense awareness of mutual dependency and the collective agency of which we are capable was the great revelation of the pandemic and our only hope of survival. 

This is not new, it has always been the case in times of disaster. This has been very much the case in wartime, in the solidarity shown by the people in accepting material, and even mortal, sacrifices, however just or unjust the cause. In France, Macron readily referred to dealing with the pandemic as "being at war". This collective agency is also the case in peacetime, with natural disasters, such as earthquakes or tsunamis. It was even so, very weirdly, when Notre Dame burnt in Paris... The whole world seemed to be leaning over the city, offering care, solidarity, and money.

It does make one ponder upon how the climate crisis is denied a comparable status of disaster by the powers that be, whatever their rhetoric to the contrary. Macron is a perfect example of this. He brags about "making the planet great again", but as far as the French economy is concerned - Airbus selling aircraft, Total exploiting new oil and gas fields and building pipelines that menace biodiversity - it is urgent to let them have free reign.

Joe Rabie.

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