'Herd Immunity': The Unconscious of the COVID-19 Pandemic (original) (raw)

Based on a selection of key media reports, this short article considers the consequences and implications of the political use of the scientific concept of 'herd immunity' in the context of the COVID-19 public health emergency from the perspective of critical theory. This political-scientific phenomenon is approached as a manifestation of a typically modern 'mediation problem' (Habermas) involving the fraught relation between an expert culture and everyday culture. The analysis grafts below the surface with the aim of unearthing the largely unconscious selection-cum-composition process involved in both the direct and indirect instances of the political appropriation and application of the scientific concept. On the one hand, the analysis supports the critique of the damage done to the significance of language by the unacceptable political-scientific extension and application of the notion of 'herd' to the human population. On the other, it stresses the virtually imperceptible consequence of this normatively hollowed-out usage. Telling in this respect is the largely tacit assumption exhibited by a sizable proportion of both officialdom and the public that the cost of the pandemic can rightly be shoved onto the vulnerable, disadvantaged, marginal and even the politically inconvenient sections of the population. The piece closes with a brief indication of a new cognitively inspired way of analysing the operation of unconscious processes in social life.