Implicaciones biopolíticas de la Covid-19: Del pesimismo a la parresia

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 597-616
Author(s):  
Ricardo Mejía Fernández

Covid-19 is, above all, a problem concerning public health and healthcare professionals. This seems totally obvious but not for everybody. However, just beginning the outbreak of the pandemic, in the midst of its deadliest first wave, some renowned intellectuals, such as Slavoj Žižek, speculated in highly idealized and utopian terms about the positive effects that would be unleashed for philosophical and political thought. In this article we try to think the biopolitical implications of this pandemic, especially through a critical pessimism that faces the immanentist prophetism, which is typical of intramundane futurist projects that we read today in political publications. To fulfill our goals, we fully enter into the debate on the pandemic through contemporary authors such as Foucault, Agamben, Fukuyama, Han, and other relevant thinkers. After the hybris of the pandemic, we propose an ethics of caring for oneself and others in a parrhesia where, what is hidden and biopolitically manipulated, comes to light as a support for the different democratic systems, where Covid-19 must be fought.

2004 ◽  
pp. 71-91
Author(s):  
Milan Subotic

The paper offers a critical discussion of the thesis about the revived philosophical and political significance of Lenin, as recently propounded by Slavoj Zizek. Analyzing Zizek's writings, the author argues that the call for a "return to Lenin" derives from Zizek's strategy of "textual provocation" and the frustrating position of the leftist, radical tradition of political thought after the collapse of communism.


Labyrinth ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
Erik M. Vogt

The main object of this paper is to examine the new philosophical frame proposed by Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek and to show that it implies some traces of Sartre's philosophical and political heritage. According the project of Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek one should no longer accept today's constellation of freedom, particularistic truth and democracy, but to (re)inscribe the issues of freedom and universal truth into a political project that attempts to re-activate a thinking of revolution. Their thinking consists in the wager that it is still possible to provide a philosophical frame for this leftist emancipatory position that claims the dimension of the universal against the vicious circle of capitalist globalization-cum-particularization and, by following Marx's claim that there are formal affinities between the ambitions of emancipatory politics and the working mode of capitalism, takes up the struggle of universalism against globalization (capital). It is only through this struggle for the universal that the intertwined processes of a constant expansion of the automatism of capital and "a process of fragmentation into closed identities," accompanied by "the culturalist and relativist ideology" (Badiou) can be suspended. It is precisely this constellation of revolutionary act, universal truth, subject, and militant community, that reveal some similarities with Sartre's concepts of the subject, the revolutionary action, the militant community a.o.


Author(s):  
Robert Pfaller

Starting from a passage from Slavoj Žižek`s brilliant book The Sublime Object of Ideology, the very passage on canned laughter that gave such precious support for the development of the theory of interpassivity, this chapter examines a question that has proved indispensable for the study of interpassivity: namely, what does it mean for a theory to proceed by examples? What is the specific role of the example in certain example-friendly theories, for example in Žižek’s philosophy?


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyun Kang Kim ◽  
Ansgar Lorenz ◽  
Ansgar Lorenz
Keyword(s):  

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 108-117
Author(s):  
Anna G. Bodrova

Ivan Cankar (1876–1918), who occupies an honorable place in the Slovenian cultural canon, once changed the course of development of Slovenian literature and influenced the formation of national identity. The national narrative of Cankar was based on contradictions: living far from his people, he sometimes glorified them and sometimes attacked them with heavy criticism; he correlated his homeland with his mother, the mother though being dead. Cankar’s concentration on the subject of mother and homeland is interpreted here in the framework of psychoanalysis. Following Slavoj Žižek, the author develops the idea that it was the mother who became the Symbolic Order representative or Super-Ego for the writer. The concept of “Cankar’s mother”, which became a symbol of self-sacrifice and at the same time repressiveness in the Slovenian cultural space, is considered.


2014 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  

In 1996, the first Report of the US Surgeon General on Physical Activity and Health provided an extensive knowledge overview about the positive effects of physical activity (PA) on several health outcomes and PA recommendations. This contributed to an enhanced interest for PA in Sweden. The Swedish Professional Associations for Physical Activity (YFA) were appointed to form a Scientific Expert Group in the project “Sweden on the Move” and YFA created the idea of Physical Activity on Prescription (FaR) and the production of a handbook (FYSS) for healthcare professionals. In Swedish primary care, licensed healthcare professionals, i.e. physicians, physiotherapists and nurses, can prescribe PA if they have sufficient knowledge about the patient’s current state of health, how PA can be used for promotion, prevention and treatment and are trained in patient-centred counselling and the FaR method. The prescription is followed individually or by visiting local FaR providers. These include sport associations, patient organisations, municipal facilities, commercial providers such as gyms, sports clubs and walking clubs or other organisations with FaR educated staff such as health promoters or personal trainers. In clinical practice, the FaR method increases the level of PA in primary care patients, at 6 and at 12 months. Self-reported adherence to the prescription was 65% at 6 months, similar to the known compliance for medications. In a randomised controlled trial, FaR significantly improved body composition and reduced metabolic risk factors. It is suggested that a successful implementation of PA in healthcare depends on a combination of a systems approach (socio-ecological model) and the strengthening of individual motivation and capability. General support from policymakers, healthcare leadership and professional associations is important. To lower barriers, tools for implementation and structures for delivery must be readily available. Examples include handbooks such as FYSS, the FaR system and the use of pedometers.


2017 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  

There is a strong belief among the general population that sport has positive effects. However, only some preventive effects of sport meet these high expectations. Numerous studies have specifically shown that sport does not protect people from the consumption of legal and illegal drugs such as alcohol, tobacco and cannabis. For this reason, the umbrella organisation of Swiss sports associations (Swiss Olympic), the Federal Office of Sport (FOSPO) and the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) teamed up as early as 2003 and launched the “cool and clean” prevention programme. Over the last 14 years, it has developed into Switzerland’s largest national prevention programme and has also attracted international attention. This article summarizes how “cool and clean” works and what the programme achieved so far.


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