For years I’ve been fascinated and confused by the issue of what I call “state ontology.” How do nation states exist, how do they affect the existence of other beings, what is their fundamental role? And how do people perceive the state’s being, beyond political opinions?
The pandemic has reinvigorated this question and provided an enormous clue for how to think about it.
Epidemiology, vaccination, border control all seem to show the ontology of the state, although I don’t know what to read to clarify this intuition.
Probably Foucault on biopolitics is the thing to read? But I’m afraid of Foucault...
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