The Pandemic and The State

Amidst the stresses of the current pandemic comes this one extraordinary opportunity -- the chance to Know Thyself (and others). It's as if our whole lives have been one long civics class and this is our final exam. Times as extreme as these launch otherwise broad philosophical textbook abstractions into the real world -- the world of lockdowns, social distancing, maybe mandatory testing. Let's suspend judgment for the moment and just look upon this as one big Rorschach test.

Our discussion article (click: Pandemic Brings Out Both the Authoritarian and Libertarian In Us)  addresses the "powerful American ambivalence" when it comes to how we regard the government's proper (and legal) role throughout this unfolding crisis. While the matter might cross certain fault lines, like the usual red-blue divide, it reveals others.

The authoritarian case revolves around the notion that an overarching presence during this crisis is exactly what we need in the name of public protection. After all, the actions of one potentially affect everyone. Yet, even as the President sometimes presumes the unitary power to address the crisis, those of the Blue persuasion also see the power of government to be the only solution. 

On the other hand, those with a libertarian instinct say thank you very much nanny-state but leave us alone to deal with this as we see fit. They might then cite that pesky Constitution in defense of their freedom to proceed accordingly, perhaps helpfully noting that nothing enshrined in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights suggests such freedoms are abridged in times of "crisis." Adherents remain sensitive to the ever-present threat of tyranny i.e. the prospect of an oppressive government acting with its arbitrary use of power. Such concern is far from unreasonable, they would say, citing case after case where governmental overreach during exceptional times is sold to a fearful public as necessary only for it to continue as a permanent fixture -- think War on Drugs (massive collateral damage), on Terror (Patriot Act), on Immigration (papers please).

The prospect of a Big Brother off its Constitutional leash is surely heightened by the advent of surveillance capitalism carried out by an aggregate of technology companies to be collectively labeled Bigger Brothers, a subject we previously discussed (click: Surveillance Capitalism). There may be a certain irony in the way some who voice the most concern about the prospect of an authoritarian police state are themselves involved in the development of the very enabling technology to pave the way. 

And, as we also discussed at the time, artificial intelligence is rapidly maturing to the point where it is capable of imputing from triangulated data streams more about us than we (consciously) know about ourselves. With such intelligence comes power to control. Think about that before you make that Faustian bargain taking on that new "free" technology in return for yet another window into your soul. Thus far such power here appears to be limited to furthering the capitalist drive in the consumer world but flip the switch and change the master and, as we discussed in reference to China's vast public/private network (Social Engineering (China), you'll quickly discover tyranny in a different form.

So, just give all this some thought when, in the context of the pandemic, you hear about the next exciting use of thermal imaging cameras, drones, contact-tracing apps, and biometric databases.