The Revenge of the Real: Politics for a Post-Pandemic World
The future of politics after the pandemic

COVID-19 exposed the pre-existing conditions of the current global crisis. Many Western states failed to protect their populations, while others were able to suppress the virus only with sweeping social restrictions. In contrast, many Asian countries were able to make much more precise interventions. Everywhere, lockdown transformed everyday life, introducing an epidemiological view of society based on sensing, modeling, and filtering. What lessons are to be learned?

The Revenge of the Real envisions a new positive biopolitics that recognizes that governance is literally a matter of life and death. We are grappling with multiple interconnected dilemmas—climate change, pandemics, the tensions between the individual and society—all of which have to be addressed on a planetary scale. Even when separated, we are still enmeshed. Can the world govern itself differently? What models and philosophies are needed? Bratton argues that instead of thinking of biotechnologies as something imposed on society, we must see them as essential to a politics of infrastructure, knowledge, and direct intervention. In this way, we can build a society based on a new rationality of inclusion, care, and prevention.
1139378898
The Revenge of the Real: Politics for a Post-Pandemic World
The future of politics after the pandemic

COVID-19 exposed the pre-existing conditions of the current global crisis. Many Western states failed to protect their populations, while others were able to suppress the virus only with sweeping social restrictions. In contrast, many Asian countries were able to make much more precise interventions. Everywhere, lockdown transformed everyday life, introducing an epidemiological view of society based on sensing, modeling, and filtering. What lessons are to be learned?

The Revenge of the Real envisions a new positive biopolitics that recognizes that governance is literally a matter of life and death. We are grappling with multiple interconnected dilemmas—climate change, pandemics, the tensions between the individual and society—all of which have to be addressed on a planetary scale. Even when separated, we are still enmeshed. Can the world govern itself differently? What models and philosophies are needed? Bratton argues that instead of thinking of biotechnologies as something imposed on society, we must see them as essential to a politics of infrastructure, knowledge, and direct intervention. In this way, we can build a society based on a new rationality of inclusion, care, and prevention.
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The Revenge of the Real: Politics for a Post-Pandemic World

The Revenge of the Real: Politics for a Post-Pandemic World

by Benjamin Bratton
The Revenge of the Real: Politics for a Post-Pandemic World

The Revenge of the Real: Politics for a Post-Pandemic World

by Benjamin Bratton

Paperback

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Overview

The future of politics after the pandemic

COVID-19 exposed the pre-existing conditions of the current global crisis. Many Western states failed to protect their populations, while others were able to suppress the virus only with sweeping social restrictions. In contrast, many Asian countries were able to make much more precise interventions. Everywhere, lockdown transformed everyday life, introducing an epidemiological view of society based on sensing, modeling, and filtering. What lessons are to be learned?

The Revenge of the Real envisions a new positive biopolitics that recognizes that governance is literally a matter of life and death. We are grappling with multiple interconnected dilemmas—climate change, pandemics, the tensions between the individual and society—all of which have to be addressed on a planetary scale. Even when separated, we are still enmeshed. Can the world govern itself differently? What models and philosophies are needed? Bratton argues that instead of thinking of biotechnologies as something imposed on society, we must see them as essential to a politics of infrastructure, knowledge, and direct intervention. In this way, we can build a society based on a new rationality of inclusion, care, and prevention.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781839762574
Publisher: Verso Books
Publication date: 07/12/2022
Pages: 192
Product dimensions: 5.08(w) x 7.78(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Benjamin Bratton is Professor of Visual Arts the University of California, San Diego. He is Program Director of The Terraforming think-tank at Strelka Institute of Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow. He is the author of several books, including The Stack which develops a comprehensive political philosophy of planetary-scale computation.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Preface: When Death Governs Life 1

1 The Revenge of the Real 7

2 The Big Filtering 15

3 Comparative Governance 21

4 The Epidemiological View of Society 33

5 The Sensing Layer 41

6 Model Simulations 47

7 Surveillance Is Not the Right Word 51

8 What 5G Stands For 60

9 The Problem Is Individuation Itself 66

10 Touchlessness 71

11 Quarantine Urbanism 77

12 Strategic Essentialism 82

13 Resilience and Automation 87

14 The Mask Wars 93

15 The Ethics of Being an Object 103

16 Agamben, Having Been Lost 109

17 The Emptiness of Biopolitical Critique 120

18 The Social Explosion 130

19 For Planetary Competency 143

20 What Is the Post-pandemic? 153

Afterword: The Revenge against the Real 167

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