CAPAS RESEARCH PROJECT - Stephen Shapiro Disease, Data, and the Replacement of the Individual
I will examine the rise of catastrophic thought, especially with regards to pandemics, in the current age of big data algorithms and a world based on digital correlations, rather than analog causation. Apocalyptic thought is a means for considering historical transformation caused by the rise of viral movements, both epidemiological and digital. The recent rise of post-truth (Querdenken) cultural responses registers the surfacing of anxieties about these social changes. The real truth is that the long secular trend of liberal subjectivity, dating back to the Enlightenment and Revolutionary Eras, is coming to an end. Yet a post-liberal society does not have to necessarily result in a series of dire social and political emergencies. Our challenge is to consider the ways in which apocalyptic thought can become used to forge new social narratives about how to better exist together in this emerging world.