The Appointment in Samarra: A New Use for Some Old Jokes

The coronavirus epidemic is not just a biological phenomenon which affects humans: it is also a moment of a profound global and ecological crisis that includes many human and nonhuman actors. To confront the crisis, a radical philosophical change is needed, which penetrates to natural, economic, and cultural processes. The amassing of dictatorial powers of state apparatuses evoked by the pandemic highlights their basic impotence and the fact that the system as we know it cannot continue in its existing liberal-permissive form. While the final outcome is uncertain what is most probable is that a new barbarian capitalism will prevail: many old and weak will be sacrificed and let to die, workers will have to accept much lower standards of living, digital control of our lives will remain a permanent feature, and class distinctions will become much more than now a matter of life and death.