Society Defends Itself: The Biopolitical Dilemma, Singularity of Existence, and Social Black Hole in Covid-19
subject: covid-19, Foucault, biopolitics, Hobbes, singularity of existence, social black holes
description: This essay focuses on the existential conflict between society and politics that has once again come to the fore in the sense of biopolitical theory with the Covid-19 outbreak. It attempts to demonstrate where and how the theory of biopolitics is insufficient at understanding the individual, who has reset all relationships under the circumstances of the pandemic, while providing a certain viewpoint based on true and logical facts. The essay considers this insufficiency as a common deficiency of the various types of biopolitical theory and correlates this to a historical deficiency that has lacked a concept of absolute singularity (i.e., singularity of existence) that would precede the compromises and necessities associated with life in identifying socio-political origins. Thus, the article argues the theory of biopolitics to have persisted in this sense within the theories of classical order, particularly the Hobbesian theory of social contract, based on replicated historical deficiency. Therefore, the key issue of the essay is whether a non-relational moment of existence exists for any nature or framework that refutes all the responsibilities, concessions, or regularities attached to it such that it cannot be appropriated. The essay affirms this issue through a theoretical probability and attempts to view the circumstances present in the Covid-19 phase not as the moment itself but as its signals, messages, and indications. This moment is conceptualized as a social black hole. Thus, the essay examines the destructive and constitutive role of the moment in which life sinks into social black holes.
creator: Kamuran Gökdağ
source: İnsan & Toplum
publisher: İlmi Etüdler Derneği
date: 2021
coverage: History of scholarship and learning. The humanities