Learning to hate

welfare states under covid

This is probably not the best topic to start a substack with, but it has been on my mind for a while now. I actually have two video drafts for that one, which I wanted to publish, but I always record and record and really can’t be bothered to edit. Writing seems more reasonable, ironically it keeps the flow better.

As you may or may not know, we are getting vax mandates here in Austria. At least we are *supposed* to be getting them, since by now not only is the Administerium complaining, but apparently the technical systems are also not up to the task. Oh well I am sure they will figure some way out to fine some people at least, so in some fashion we will likely get the vax mandate for some time. At the very beginning of this conversation, where the vax mandate was just being announced, the Austrian ORF, our beloved state news agency, put out a really weird article. It was titled “why the state interferes now” and was supposed to be a sort of justification for state interference in personal health.

Schnitzlnews

What you must know about the ORF is that they are not very smart. If you consoom Atlanticist media, mostly the NYT, you know what the ORF knows before they do. There is no actual journalism anymore, journalists are much like academia now, googling up the topic and then confidently including the sanctioned take of the prestigious publication in their reporting. This time it was weird though. The article suddenly went into a shallow dive of bio-power, even mentioning Foucault by name. This is certainly strange, since the ORF almost has a boulevard flavour, so that stuck out. It also wasn’t really a thing that big Atlanticist media was talking about. I think it is likely that somebody in the ORF is here on twitter and stumbled across some half-esoteric thread. They probably then googled up bio-power and checked the Wikipedia page quickly, what followed was not really coherent.

“the state” they argued, “now has the bio-power”. <- That was it. I assume the idea was “look some moderately well known philosopher once put out a theory, which matches with what we are doing, so it’s actually really sound and overall an ok thing to do”. It just came across as really unrefined, as if somebody had just heard of some concepts and told to put them into an article. (Btw ORF, if you read this, hire me, I can help u avoid this in the future.) Imagine the estrangement of some regular dude who checks the news for the latest avalanche victims (one of the favourite pastimes of the Austrian) and then stumbles across such a word salad. Strange indeed. What they did however do, was make several mentions of the so called “welfare-state”, which apparently justifies such things, because “people have responsibilities”

??? What is a welfare-state

Imagine my bewilderment. Where was this magical welfare-state? Why did it think I should surrender my body to it? And do I get anything in return? Of course some of you will have a vague concept of what this is, for some of the more Americanized readers it will in fact be a combat-term similar to the evil socialisms of Northern Europe. But the point still stands. Who really knows of the welfare state?

There is this great effort in Austria now, to find a culprit for the “low” vaccination rates. A reason, an explanation. I am sure this is happening in your country too. “Fake News” say the journos, and the politicians, and everyone who listens to them (everyone). It is fake news. Fake news on the internet ruined it, they made people crazy with conspiracies. It was all the “Fake News”. As a moderately successful fake news peddler, I am flattered. However, I do not believe this is the case, as much as I’d wish to have that power.

We will set out some ground rules from here out: We will assume that 1) COVID is dangerous (whatever that means) and 2) the vax works (whatever that means also). Why do we assume this? Because for most people it does not matter. They will never know whether it is true or not, so clearly their decision (to get vaxxed or to not get vaxxed) cannot be based on that! We can then discard the idea, that this is happening now, because there really is something wrong with the vax and everybody notices it. People are not like this and the proles will never wake up Winston, so this is only wishful thinking.   

So if they are unable to determine the information themselves, they must rely on others to do that. They listen to the radio, watch the news, we get it all on our little apps now. Because one thing is certain: The pandemic has made us all consoomers of news and politics. “There it is” you may say, random journo who stumbled across this substack for whatever reason “the people get bad news now, fake news, this is why this is happening!”. This is wrong however, since people are most of all lazy. If they really seek out info that goes against the sanctioned narrative, society isn’t in a very good place already. Because why on earth would anyone deliberately seek out dissonance when everything is fine?

Old and new gods

Turns out not everything is fine. In fact, most of everything may indeed be very un-fine at this moment. There was a time where Austria, and many other countries, introduced mandatory vaccinations against smallpox. And it is often used and compared to the coming vax mandate now. This happened however in 1948, and much like the Marshall plan, many things and theories of that time, seventy-three years ago, seem very ancient. At this point also the welfare state, at least in its modern form, sprung up. And here we find the modern origins of surrendering your body to the state. Of this much talked about “personal responsibility”.

Of the three revolutionary systems, one was dead (Spain doesn’t count) and the other one was behind an iron curtain. So then it was up to capitalism to make its proposal. And European capitalism did propose. People were to live in welfare, not thanks to redistribution, but thanks to copious amounts of capital expansion, production and consumption. Materialism brought welfare first and foremost, not political action. This is what people sometimes do not understand. They think there is this great divide between welfare and capitalism, after all “look at Europe”. But welfare never stood against capital, in fact it was only possible through capital, capitalism made the welfare state in Europe, faring-well was always about material security. All one had to give up for that, was anything greater than money. Perhaps this was never explicit, but it was implied, at least to most people it really seemed like they could do away with the old “spiritual things”, when capitalism provided electric razors and electric toothbrushes for all. So it was agreed, and the compact for capitalism, became the contract for the welfare state.

Can I eat the welfare state?

Certainly at that time introducing a vax mandate was hardly an issue. The materialist trajectory, that is the trajectory of welfare, pointed upwards. And even if it didn’t show much yet in 1948, there was no reason to distrust, no disillusionment. If a better society were to come now, perhaps one could surrender some of his bodily autonomy for it? If you take the internet and put it back seventy three years, and let everyone have the ability to google up and write various “fake news”, do you really think we would see the same result as now? What reason would people have to believe them? More importantly: What reason would people even have to seek them out? None.

Is anyone really surprised that this is no longer the case? Am I really writing a theory up here, or am I just putting into words what everyone already knows. I shall say it: We refuse our personal responsibility and we reject the idea entirely, because to our experience there is nothing coming from it anymore, there is no point. What does your average man see of the welfare state? If he saves up enough he may be able to get a thirty year loan for a house, or more likely an apartment, which he may even be able to pay off. If he is lucky he will not have to sell that same thing ten years later when it turns out the pension system has all but collapsed. All that for paying 50% of his expenses in tax. And when he looks through his feeds while working, listens to the news on the radio on his drive home, what does he see society do with this immense tax power? New integration programs, expert groups on the feasibility of increasing some KPI by 1,9% in a certain area, a research grant into semi-autonomous cargo delivery drones? Your average man may not necessarily be opposed to this, but he will feel alienated, it does not concern him. He will still have to work 40 hours a week and have nothing to show for it. He will still know his grandfather did half the work on twice the payoff. And he will now know that he has to cut back on cars, meat, living, all to supposedly save the planet. He now knows that prices are rising, that the social security is anything but secure and that he is for himself now. And now, now you demand a a vax mandate, on the grounds of personal responsibility? This is an awful lot of responsibility, for an awful lack of welfare.

We will give hate back to the people

So here I sit, thinking of the future. And it is very clear that nobody will help me, especially not the welfare state. It is awfully clear that faring-well is no longer a function of society, but a function of individual effort. And so it is very un-clear who I owe any responsibility to?

Over this last year we have gone from “sticking together and explicitly avoiding any divisions” to the “I hate the unvaxxed” narrative. How fast this went even surprised me! But I applaud it, endorse it even. The welfare state was built on its highly praised “solidarity” and where is it now? Practically gone. People scream at their neighbours now. They hate you, with a passion. They want you to die, they want you to be locked up, they want you to be sat down, restrained and injected. And they love wanting this. They are so happy now. We have given hate back to the people, no longer does the lie of solidarity oppress them. Finally man can be man again and not hide anymore behind this perversion of society.

Let everyone profess his hatred of everyone else. Let every man scream his heart and soul against his fellow men. Let them fight in the streets even! I have no use for “solidarity” or “sticking together”, I have no use for this “welfare state”. I am not the one who wishes to salvage it. And if this is how it dies, I certainly am not the one to shed any tears. This crisis now is nothing compared to what will come in this decade, and it has already torn the fabric of post-war Europe apart. The welfare state is dead, long live …anything else really. Good riddance.