#The Pandemic Response as Contemporary Imperialism
Source: https://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2021/08/22/the-pandemic-response-as-contemporary-imperialism/
The almost uniform support for #totalitarian lock-down measures and mandates from those on the #left has been shocking to see and has resulted in a feeling of political homelessness for those whose leftist values are what lead them to view the response to the #pandemic with a sharp critical eye. This article shows that the reason why so many on the left have abandoned the values of freedom of speech and movement, bodily autonomy, and economic justice is because those people belong to the #ideology of #progressivism, which exists outside the left-right dichotomy.
#Progressivism is an ideology that champions limitless growth, unbridled use of #technology and the control of nature over any intrinsic sense of worth or fulfillment. We all get dragged along on the march of ‘progress’ because progressives assume any deviance from their values is inferior and because they tend to control the world’s resources. #Progress under this model is linear; the future is always an improvement on the past, and any attempt to resist change or divert course is seen as regressive and #unscientific.
Progressives often engage in leftist rhetoric, but their proposals always result in strengthening and expanding the existing, inequitable system and further entrenching the current, elite #class.
Progressivism is the direct descendant of the #imperialism that dominated much of Western history for centuries
Progressivism = imperialism
Imperialism is the practice of one group of people forcibly subjecting other groups of people to its authority and control for its own benefit, though the imperialists often rationalize their actions as an attempt to save or improve its victims.
Progressives show no qualms about manipulating people or depriving them of #freedom or livelihood to coerce them into compliance because they have no respect for personal agency, seeing other humans as just another #resource to be mined.
Progressives view humans as separate from the natural environment, treating nature as something merely to be tamed and conquered.
Progressives are obsessed with using data, technocracy, and standardization to create a false veneer of objectivity that they use to reinforce the belief in the supremacy of their ideas and to discount the viewpoints that are discordant with progressive ideology, often disdaining opposition as unscientific and false.
Imperialists’ belief that they have ownership of truth fuels their belief in their own supremacy in a circular manner. They believe they are better and smarter than everyone else and therefore that their beliefs are also superior.
Like the imperialists before them, progressives’ belief in their own superiority is what is used to justify forcing their will on everyone else. They see no problem with censoring criticism, depriving individuals of freedom, and forcing lifestyle choices on others.
Domestic imperialism today
One can recognize progressive imperialists because they are the ones who think their own beliefs are facts and those of the opposition are misinformation to be censored.
They are the ones who believe they are morally justified in forcing other autonomous humans to bend to their will.
The phrase ‘vaccine hesitancy’ is characteristic of progressive imperialism today. The term is a propagandistic tool to pathologize non-compliance with an imperialist vision. Notably, the term implies that there can be no choice on the matter, that it is only a matter of time until everyone gets the vaccine.
The entire discussion has been framed in starkly imperialist terms—asking how the state can overcome people’s objections and force compliance—rather than in the liberal terms of personal sovereignty and pluralism (acknowledging that different viewpoints are equally valid and that the decision should be based on personal choice).
The assumption of infallibility and the feeling of entitlement to play God with someone else’s health is pure #colonization of other human beings. The tendency to assume that someone else’s personal choices about his or her own life should be subordinate to your beliefs is the essence of imperialism. It is an expectation that one can and should dominate others. Such a person is carrying on the storied legacy of the numerous imperialists before them.
Every generation has them, and these people are this era’s imperialist oppressors, though of course, like all imperialists, they see themselves as heroes.
This is particularly salient when you consider the racial dynamics at play with regard to ‘vaccine hesitancy,’ with reluctance to take the vaccine being higher among blacks and other people of color.
The means that they are employing to entice these communities to comply—using everything from free fast food to hip hop videos—suggests that progressives do not think people of color are capable of having intellectual and philosophical rationales behind their decisions to opt-out.
Once again, we see the privileged white upper class acting as #missionaries to spread their beliefs as absolute truth to classes of people they deem inferior to themselves, the modern-day savages whom they must tame, control, and manipulate in service of their supposedly objective worldview.
That is why, despite claiming that their desires for #vaccine mandates are about saving lives, progressives express little concern for the lives of those people who died after getting these novel technological interventions. Those people died in service of progressive goals so their deaths do not matter. To a progressive imperialist, every such death is a righteous one because humans are just another tool to fulfill progressive ends.
We are no longer permitted to live as human beings have lived for millennia because progressives have decided that such ways of life are outdated and wrong. We cannot opt out of new technologies.
Progressives will not allow any other #philosophy of living but their own.
#society #politics
