Tender Points

About

 “Nudging” has replaced authoritative commands, with subtle pushes in the direction of desired behavioral changes manipulating seemingly free choices. “Guidelines” replace sets of regulations, whose function stays the same in a disguised form. Private and public institutions and companies establish norms that encroach on essential biological life processes of the individual. This power system is a reversal of the monarchic “to make death and let live” into “to make life and let die”; as observed by Foucault more than 40 years before the outbreak of the Corona pandemic. A prime example from the most recent past: prenatal diagnostics used to discard fetuses with disabilities (“have healthy babies!”). These represent negotiations for the right to life and death, which become internalized and supported by the population itself.

We are - in the words of John Reed Fitness Club - Designed to Perform.