What we talk about when we talk about COVID

Note: this was originally posted on my Substack back on April 30, 2022. I deleted that Substack a couple years ago and I’m posting these old blogs so they don’t get lost.

Mormo the Hobgoblin, or: How to Scare your Ancient Greek child

Every culture has its goblins that parents use to scare naughty kids into good behavior. Ancient Greece had Mormo. According to legend she was originally a woman from Corinth who (for some reason) ate her children, then flew away into the sky. If this sounds similar to tales of witches from 1692 CE Salem, Massachusetts, the common denominator is an intensely patriarchal society where women who committed violence against their own children were so irredeemable they became supernaturally demonic. So bad children had better beware!

Like all such spooks there’s no single description of what she looked like, which is the point: you’re supposed to imagine your own most frightening version. She’s spoken of as a phantom, a ghost, a specter; for kids her name meant the equivalent of boogeyman or bugbear. The name mormo has the plural form mormones, meaning fearful or hideous ones, and which is related to various words that signify fear. There’s even a record of Mormo being used by a Byzantine princess (in the Alexiad) to scare her own children around the time of the First Crusade.

Aristophanes invoked Mormo in his plays with a subtle twist. He uses the term mormolukeion (or in later Greek mormolykeion). In context this term implies not so much a monster as a mask — one designed to scare children but one which adults would know was made up and therefore harmless. It combines Mormo with -lyk, which is the root of “wolf” (as in lycanthrope - literally wolf-man). So this is Mormo as a wolf mask (lykeia), scary to youngsters but not to elders.

The Death of Socrates

It’s possible Plato heard this coinage at a performance of a play by Aristophanes (they were contemporaries) because Plato uses it in the same way in his dialogue Phaedo, written ca. 360 BCE. The dramatic frame for the dialogue: Socrates has been condemned to death, and it ends with Socrates drinking poison and dying. The dialogue is mostly a back-and-forth between Socrates and his friends about death and the possible immortality of the soul; in the background of all the philosophical talk is Socrates trying to comfort his companions in the face of his immanent death.

At one point Socrates is arguing with Cebes about Cebes’ fear that after death a person’s soul would simply dissipate into nothingness. Socrates says:

“You have the childish fear that when the soul goes out from the body the wind will really blow it away and scatter it, especially if a man happens to die in a high wind and not in calm weather.”
And Cebes laughed and said, “Assume that we have that fear, Socrates, and try to convince us; or rather, do not assume that we are afraid, but perhaps there is a child within us, who has such fears. Let us try to persuade him not to fear death as if it were a hobgoblin.” (mormolukeia)
“Ah,” said Socrates, “you must sing charms to him every day until you charm away his fear.” - Phaedo 77e, trans. H.N. Fowler

The long years since 2020 have been infested with hobgoblins. If we can look past the masks maybe we’ll see how to charm them away.

The Two Pandemic Hobgoblins

We still think of human disease as the work of an organized, modernized kind of demonology, in which the bacteria are the most visible and centrally placed of our adversaries. We assume that they must somehow relish what they do. They come after us for profit, and there are so many of them that disease seems inevitable, a natural part of the human condition; if we succeed in eliminating one kind of disease there will always be a new one at hand, waiting to take its place.
These are paranoid delusions on a social scale, explainable in part by our need for enemies… - Lewis Thomas, The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1975)

Social Disease

Let’s consider the pandemic not as a biological phenomenon but instead as a social phenomenon. Not the pandemic as the global transmission of a dangerous disease, but the pandemic as the large-scale social implications of that transmission — most importantly the reaction to those implications. (I’m going to be dealing with this phenomenon is the US, by the way, since that’s what I’m personally living through; I know this is a limited perspective.)

To do this we have to distinguish between the virus, which I’m defining as a biological reality, and the pandemic, which I’m defining as a social reality. The virus scientifically labeled as COVID-19 is obviously real, has infected millions of people worldwide, and has killed at the very least one million people just in the US. The last two years have showed how divorced that biological reality is from the social reality.

Hyperrealists and Neoliberals

There are two groups in particular for whom the pandemic doesn’t exist, to the point that the biological virus is meaningless and therefore irrelevant. For each group, the pandemic cannot be real.

The first group is the Hyperrealists. For the Hyperrealists the pandemic is both the product of, and the ongoing engine of, a false reality; therefore the pandemic cannot exist.

The second group is the Neoliberals. For the Neoliberals the pandemic is the both the symptom of, and the ongoing cause of, a massive disruption in the operation of the global marketplace that defines the social order; therefore the pandemic cannot continue to exist.

The average person — especially those grieving their dead — are flanked by these groups, each declaring that the pandemic is either over or never happened at all. We are in the strange position of having to insist that the pandemic has always been real and continues to be real. For our own sanity these are the two hobgoblins we have to dispel.

The Hyperreal Hobgoblin

The Conspiracy Virus

For the Hyperrealists, the virus doesn’t exist. And even if it did exist, the vaccines and masks don’t help stop the spread, they either make things worse (the vaccine) don’t do anything at all (masks) or both. And even if vaccines and masks did help stop the virus from spreading, the pandemic as a whole was a conspiracy designed to control the population and make vast profits off the suffering.

This group is labeled “conspiracy theorists” as a way to dismiss them. But governments and powerful organizations conspire to fool and manipulate their citizens all the time. Sometimes they have political agendas, but most global conspiracies are plots to gain and hoard as much wealth and power as possible; most of these plots are perfectly legal. So it’s not stupid to theorize about actual conspiracies in general. But giving those theories weight would require that theorist to stand on a solid foundation of ethics, social justice, and economic equality. Then the theory could be used to critique and contest the power behind the conspiracy. But solid foundations are not the hallmark of hyperrealism.

The Spectacle and Earth Prime

In order to define what I mean by the term hyppereal I have to start with the concept of “the Spectacle” laid out by Guy Debord in his book The Society of the Spectacle in 1967. “The Spectacle” is Debord’s collective label for the media landscape: television, movies, advertising, fame and celebrity, popular culture, all produced and driven foremost by flows of capital. It’s tempting to see this as just an ahead-of-its-time label for what we now think of as the World of the Screen: the 24 hour news cycle, social media, the constant hate-drone of Fox News, all of the above etc. But the Spectacle isn’t ephemeral. Unlike the media and Internet ionosphere of information and outrage, the Spectacle is solidly real, and it defines the way we interact with the world and with each other.

The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images.
The spectacle cannot be understood as a mere visual excess produced by mass-media technologies. It is a worldview that has actually been materialized, that has become an objective reality.
The spectacle that falsifies reality is nevertheless a real product of that reality, while lived reality is materially invaded by the contemplation of the spectacle and ends up absorbing it and aligning itself with it. Objective reality is present on both sides. Each of these seemingly fixed concepts has no other basis than it’s transformation into its opposite: reality emerges within the spectacle, and the spectacle is real. This reciprocal alienation is the essence and support of the existing society.
All quotes from: Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle (1967), trans. Ken Knabb

If that sounds opaque welcome to French philosophy!

The Spectacle is not the media landscape that is observed from the outside by people external to it; the Spectacle is the way people relate to each other using the media landscape to do it. The Spectacle isn’t a digital projection or a phone app or something similar that only exists in the “screen world.” The Spectacle exists in our “Earth Prime” real world. How is that possible?

Earth Prime ←→ The Spectacle

The information conveyed by the Spectacle is full of untruths, but the Spectacle itself emerges from and exists within our Earth Prime real world. At the same time, we Earth Prime people use the Spectacle as the way to socially relate to each other, making the Spectacle an inextricable part of Earth Prime. As a result of this cross-contamination, Earth Prime and the Spectacle are both objectively real.

Not only that, within their shared reality Earth Prime and the Spectacle are each trying to transform into the other — meatspace trying to sublimate into cyberspace, cyberspace trying to solidify into meatspace (I’ll explain this more below). This process of back-and-forth “reciprocal alienation” is what supports our current capitalistic society.

The Spectacle is a Series of Tubes

Think of the Internet. No matter how bizarre any content on the Internet is, it’s not some astral dimension separate from reality. It’s existence and influence are part of the non-Internet world, which should be obvious given the last few years. Ideas, fads, social movements, cults, doxxing, swatting, NFTs, on and on: millions of people trying to use the Internet to alter non-Internet reality, using the Internet as their medium of social relation. At the same time non-Internet reality is constantly creeping into Internet reality, with posts, vines, instagrams, tik toks, all the descendants of reality television. The Russia-Ukraine War exists as much digitally/online as on the front line (though it sounds disgusting to say it): Vladimir Zelensky uses the Internet to get popular support, which results in more weapons, which results in images and videos of destroyed Russian tanks, and the cycle repeats. Cyberspace and meatspace constantly swapping places in our reality, every move monetized and commodified.

True vs. False, vs. Real vs. Unreal

If there is no hard line dividing the Internet and the non-Internet world, that might suggest that there is a shared sense of common reality across Internet and non-Internet, Spectacle and Earth Prime, no matter what anyone’s disagreements. The assumption of a commonly shared sense of reality is the frame of American liberal politics. Because if there is a shared reality, the practice of politics is a discussion of policy, a contest between what is useful or not, or — at the extreme — true or false, the goal being to reach a democratic consensus. Instead 21st century America has been defined by a constant back-and-forth struggle not about what is useful or not but a life-or-death combat about what is real or not. That’s a struggle for power, the power to successfully define reality and reap everything that follows. Liberals have no countermove in this scenario.

Imprisoned in a flattened universe bounded by the screen of the spectacle, behind which his own life has been exiled, the spectator’s consciousness no longer knows anyone but the false interlocutors who subject to him to a one-way monologue about their commodities and the politics of their commodities.

When it comes to the anti-vax ecosystem, does this sound familiar? Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Donald Trump? YouTube? Internet radicalization in general? Anti-vax “doctors”, fake medical associations, medical professionals “just asking questions,” self-appointed experts shilling hydroxychloroquine and horse dewormer? The wrinkle in 2022 is that with social media, anyone can be plucked from obscurity by right-wing dark money operatives and have their entire social existence weaponized for stochastic terrorism. Those human weapons are, in the end, disposable. But the “false interlocutors” are not.

Where We’re Going We Don’t Need Reality

We could say that our society is shaped by real and unreal constantly churning together and stop there. The thing is, the phrase “real and unreal” has an subtle assumption built into it. The assumption is that the word “real” is a signifier pointing to something that exists. For example, the word “shoe” is not, itself, a shoe; you can’t wear a “shoe.” So “shoe” indicates either a particular shoe or the concept of a shoe or both. It’s the difference between a map and the territory modeled by the map.

In the same way, the word “real” indicates that state of general existence which reflects things as they are, as opposed to things that are non-existent or imaginary.

But now imagine a simulation of reality, i.e. a simulation of that state of general existence which reflects things as they are.

What if the word “real” was used to indicate that simulation of the state of general existence?

What if the word “real”, uttered by someone on the inside of that simulation, could only refer to the version of reality present within the simulation, not the “original” reality being simulated?

The Metaverse Simulated Reality

It was crucial to establish that the Spectacle is real, not some kind of trick of the light projected onto the surface of reality. Because it’s not enough to say that someone in 2022, who has lived through the alpha wave, the delta wave, and the omicron wave, and still insists that vaccine’s don’t work etc. is out of touch with objective reality. As if there were some way to convince that person that they had been misinformed, or misled, and if only they would stop going on Facebook and start listening to the scientists they would see the light.

When anti-vaxers use the word “real” they’re not referring to the same thing you and I are. The rest of us are living in the push-and-pull of the Spectacle and Earth-Prime; anti-vaxers have immersed themselves into pure Spectacle as much they can. That immersion shifts them into something different. Not an illusion or a falsehood, because the Spectacle is real, not fakery. But it’s a different kind of reality: a simulated reality.

In the simulated reality, the word “real” still refers to a state of general existence, but a simulated existence. In the simulation, “real” folds back on itself like a mobius strip. There, “real” can only refer to things as they are within the simulation. The non-existence of the pandemic is foundational to that simulation.

Anti-vaxers are fond of the phrase “do your own research” — by which they mean “enter the simulation; until you do, you will not be as awakened and informed as I am.” Of course the anti-vaxers think that you and I are the ones living in a simulation. They love to refer to themselves as “taking the red pill” to get reborn out of The Matrix into what they think of as the true original unsimulated reality (ignoring that the Matrix movies were an extended allegory about coming out as trans). This mentality is what allows anti-vaxers to treat their own families with indifference, even contempt, over masks and vaccines. It’s because they love you so much that they don’t want you to get the vaccine, or wear masks, etc etc., can’t you see? Just enter our simulation and it will all become clear, you will be liberated. The simulation has freed itself from having to pretend to be associated with our reality; everything within the simulation can only refer to something else in that simulation. Inside the anti-vax simulation, the pandemic (as a social phenomenon) isn’t fake. The pandemic is real, but it manifests as a conspiracy and/or mass delusion. This might sound like semantics but it’s necessary for comprehending why most anti-vaxers can’t be “brought back to reality.” As far as they are concerned their simulation is reality.

If you’re wondering how you and I know that we are not, in fact, the ones in a simulation: the fact you even asked that question is the difference between skepticism and solipsism. Or you could look at the death rates for unvaccinated people if you want physical evidence. But hang on to that question because it will be important later.

Selling Jesus

When anti-vax media mogul Marcus Lamb was dying of COVID, his son’s response: “There’s no doubt in my mind that this is a spiritual attack from the enemy.” Jonathan Lamb was Marcus Lamb’s son. On his father’s Daystar Television Network, Jonathan talked about the “alternative” treatments (like Ivermectin and prayer) pushed by his parents and their television guests. “There’s no doubt that the enemy is not happy about that. And he’s doing everything he can to take down my Dad.” Marcus Lamb died a shortly afterwards. He helped build the simulated reality that killed him; his son inhabits that same reality and will most likely continue his fathers work. The list of people killed inside the simulation they helped create is long and not finished yet.

I should also mention that the Daystar Television Network got about $4 million of taxpayer cash from the US government Paycheck Protection Program. Two weeks later the Lambs bought a private jet they used for going on family vacations. They said they got the money from “investments” and the vacations were “leadership retreats with his family.” When the story was picked up by the media, the Lambs said they paid the PPP money back but no one knows if that is true.

That cash flow is significant because capitalism and consumption are the carbon atoms of the Spectacle and thus the anti-vax simulation. The Spectacle of 2022 mainly exists to sell pandemic commodities, tangible ones like Ivermectin or cultural ones like prayer. Anti-vax profiteering is the engine of the simulation.

Hyperactivate

If you’re still with me you are a blessed person and I appreciate you…

Finally I can explain why I think the people in the simulation should be called Hyperrealists instead of simply anti-vaxers. “Hyperreality” is a word coined by Jean Baudrillard. He uses it to describe the condition of living in a world where we can’t discern true reality from a simulated reality. This might sound like what we’ve already discussed, and in 2022 it sounds almost trite. What’s not trite are the implications that Baudrillard spins out from the concept of hyperreality.

A simulation that can only use “reality” to refer to itself is unsettling enough as it implies that there might be no way to extricate yourself from the simulation. Now imagine that there was no real “real,” that everything was simulations all the way down. Baudrillard calls this the “procession of simulacra.” In a hyperreal world, the word “real” no longer indicates that state of general existence which reflects things as they are, because there is no longer a “real real” to be referred to. The word “real” becomes a kind of mask used to hide the fact that there is nothing outside the world of simulations. As Baudrillard puts it:

The transition from a sign that dissimulates something to signs that dissimulate that there is nothing marks a decisive turning point. - Jean Baudrillard, Simulation and Simulacra (1981, trans. Sheila Faria Glaser; my emphasis)

I’m not sure that all of us are living in full-on hyperreality but I do think anti-vaxers are. They exist within a procession of simulacra, multiple simulations that constantly shift and overlap. In Baudrillard’s words, in the anti-vax world “the search for proof, indeed the objectivity of the facts does not put an end to the vertigo of interpretation. We are in a logic of simulation, which no longer has anything to do with a logic of order and reason. … Illusion is no longer possible, because the real is no longer possible.” At this stage of hyperreality there is no longer an “outside” to the simulations. The very idea of waking out of the simulation is hypocritical and immoral.

The Hyperrealist Simulation Network

There’s a chaotic swarm of simulations at play here. The Republican Party; Trumpist fifth-columnists; corrupt and/or anti-vax public officials; Internet cults and religious fanatics; fascist media personalities; brownshirt street gangs, vigilantes, and militias; supporters of police brutality and the carceral state; Internet bullies, harassers, and stalkers; propagandists inciting violence; slavery apologists; right-wing lawyers; homophobic and transphobic bigots and their fellow travelers; xenophobes; and dark money oligarchs. A vast network of simulacra. Parsing out the differences between these groups is like arguing over the subgenres of heavy metal. The songs each sound different but the genre is the same. The endgame of the Hyperrealists: violence, terror, and elimination.

Dark Disneyworld

You can sum up these overlapping ecosystems in the metaphor of a theme park. The closest is Disneyworld, with multiple parks each containing multiple themes, rides, and experiences. You could spend your entire life in the park and you wouldn’t run out of things to do. Almost all the people wandering the park enjoying the rides are white. They used to live someplace outside the park, but that was generations ago. Right now the grownups and the kids are having fun and going on adventures.

The darkness creeps in when you see all the Haunted Mansions. As far as the eye can see, going back decades, even centuries. They make the parkgoers scared and angry, which is important because the power in the park runs on rage. The newest Haunted Mansion is the Pandemic Ride. It’s scarier than the others because not everyone comes out the other side; but in the end it’s just a dark ride full of props and effects. Don’t look at the bodies piled up behind the scenery. Return to the magical world.

It’s all to easy for you and me to dismiss Dark Disneyworld as a mirage, something used to trick gullible fools into retreating from reality and giving away their money. I hope you see now that’s not the case. Millions — millions —of Americans have gone through the gates of Dark Disneyworld. In fact if you think that you and I live in a better America, one with higher ideals than this, you have it backwards. Dark Disneyworld is the true America. As Baudrillard puts it:

Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, whereas all of Los Angeles and the America that surrounds it are no longer real, but belong to the hyperreal order and to the order of simulation.

In other words there is no “better America.” That’s the illusion, meant to obscure the fact that Dark Disneyworld is the true America and always has been. The history of America is an endless day spent riding the rides.

Powering Down the America Simulation

I mentioned earlier that liberals have no political countermove against the forces of the right. How could they? They insist that they are outside Dark Disneyworld, maybe in a parking lot somewhere. But they are in here with the rest of us. While they argue with each other about civility and decorum there’s a parade down Main Street USA. Trying to transform the America Simulation into a better version of itself through technocracy, cynical pragmatism, or incremental improvements would require America to be something other than what it has been from the start.

It sounds bleak but we don’t have to go along for the ride. The America Simulation has always been structured around getting, keeping, and exercising power. The old heirarchies of race, gender, class etc. reflect this in our past and present. So that’s the target. To break the hold of these heirarchies on our lives, we need to challenge that power; to claim the right to hold power, to take a claim and refuse to relinquish it no matter what. If you think that’s impossible, or even improbable, remember 2020. The pushback was so severe and violent because the operators of Dark Disneyland recognized it for what it was: an effective attack on their position.

Getting and holding power in the service of justice is the first step towards charming this pandemic hobgoblin.

Next Time…

The other pandemic hobgoblin: neoliberalism. No French philosophy I promise!