Abstract

BECCARI, Marcos Namba. Die to survive: the virus that we are. Conjectura: filos. e Educ. [online]. 2020, vol.25, e020011. ISSN 2178-4612.  https://doi.org/10.18226/21784612.v25.e020011.

This paper, with an essayistic approach, does not shy away from thinking about the most prominent phenomenon at the time it was written, the pandemic triggered by Covid-19. Literally based on the Foucaultian premise that philosophy should target the present time, and supported by recent reflections by contemporary philosophers influenced by Foucault, such as Paul B. Preciado and Roberto Esposito, I defend the hypothesis that the virus carries itself, like a mirror, many things that we still are. Therefore, the adopted approach makes use of the strategy, already recurrent in contemporary philosophy, that expands the notion of “virus” as a relevant metaphor for the most diverse societal phenomena. After introducing what is at stake in this viral and global contingent, I divide the argument into four parts: (1) the framing – of an atmosphere previously charged with certain exceptional habits and borderline antibodies; (2) the estrangement – as a principle of immunization and the redistribution of vulnerability; (3) the confinement – as an asymmetric discipline of survival and self-sacrifice; (4) the disappearance – as an ontological horizon of an inert existence that mirrors us. What interests me here is, more than proposing another philosophical interpretation of the pandemic, to underline the unsuspected and virulent logic that for decades has restricted us as disposable bodies and antibodies. In conclusion, increasing the diagnosis of Paul B. Preciado that the virus acts “in our image and likeness”, I affirm that the pandemic phenomenon implies the intensification of the neoliberal paradox according to which, in order to “survive”, we must sacrifice ourselves.

Keywords : Covid-19; Biopolitics; Immunity; Pandemic; Foucault.

        · abstract in Portuguese     · text in Portuguese     · Portuguese ( pdf )