Denial, as a political stance, is similar to what in the language of the 20th century was called “reaction”. The reactionary, like the negator, wants to stop the change. They want to slow down history.
Denial, however, appears to be far more radical than reaction. While a reactionary knows what he wants – a return to an idealized past – the negator only knows what he does not want. He does not miss. He does not expect. He only opposes. It opposes science. In fact. He denies even his own life, choosing not to redeem it in an immediate, easy and free way, from deadly danger.
Even when the pandemic stops, denial is unlikely to expire with it, as it has already spread to all areas of common life. Denial of the virus and vaccine is met with denial of the urgency of climate change. This in turn is united by the denial of the digital transition of the electronic identity and vaccination certificate respectively or the digital signature.
One could hasten to classify these tendencies in the minorities of people who believe that planes are spraying them from the sky. The negator, however, uses the weapons of modernity to turn them against her. He mobilizes the self-determination, which has its roots in the prohibitive culture of the liberal left and the individual rights of conservative liberalism, to repel the new social, health and environmental duties that are going to be imposed on him.
This reversal – recently described with great clarity by the German sociologist Andreas Reckwitz – took place in the pandemic: The duty – to society, to the homeland, if not to the planet – is not invoked as before by left and right conservatism. This is invoked by the progressive elites who call for the restriction of freedoms in the name of scientific rationality and the common interest.
Stay home. Vaccinate. Train. Become digitally skilled. Pay more for the energy you consume to warm up and use it in your daily functionality. Make sacrifices for future generations. The grid of new “obligations” is difficult. Denial is easy. And it will appear more and more.
